Gold Digger chapter 10
Bless the planes down in Africa
By Alex McLean
Gold Digger belongs to Fred Perry, every other crossover characters and references belong to whoever they belong to, and this is a fanfic without earning me any money and is made for fun so please enjoy and don't bother to sue me as I don't have that much money.
We find our heroes several thousand feet above the African continent cruising at mach speed invisible to radar going far less than the limits the Blackbird has. There was no reason to push the limit though as trying to find the ancient hunting ground of the werecheetahs likely would mean searching the whole savanna over several countries and potentially in war-zones and national parks over 2.5 million square miles. Sadly for us lycans don't actually leave much evidence, at least not deliberately. So with an impossible amount of ground to cover how exactly was taking the genetic samples supposed to help? I shall allow Brianna to explain.
"So how exactly will this help us find more werecheetahs?" Tanya asked Brianna as the kryn looked over the taller woman's shoulder at the computer screen at the work station.
"Are you asking what I am doing or are you asking how I am going to use this to try and locate more werecheetahs?" Brianna asked as she took a moment to look up from her screen and downed a bottle of water.
"Either way." Tanya said. "If my magic wasn't able to find the werecheetahs then how will a few bits of bone help you do any better." The kryn asked with a level of irritation in her voice. I was more focused on flying the aircraft, currently in the form of Beast.
Why Beast you ask? Because Brit was taking a cat nap and she found Dr. McCoy's fur coat acted as a great pillow. I didn't complain one bit as the lady I love had stretched across the seat with her head on my leg. The occasional scratching of her ears and under her chin kept her purring.
"Well little magic girl." Brianna said as she continued working at the table. "The bones we took were the molars and teeth are great for preserving genetic material as the pulp of your teeth. Within the pulp is the genetic material we need to isolate any potential werecheetahs from the background of other people."
"So you are doing a version of blood divination?" Tanya looked upon Brianna's work with curiosity. She was dangerously close to the samples in question and almost about to touch one.
"Careful." Brianna said as she grabbed Tanya's hand and held her back from the table in such a burst of speed that the force of her acceleration threatened to break Tayna's wrist.
In shock Tanya shook her head as she found herself on the other side of the Blackbird. The shock wore off the kryn immediately became indignant and downright hostile to Brianna.
"How dare you lay your hands upon one of the royal kryn without consent!" Tanya nearly yelled at she glared at the taller catwoman.
"Would you rather become a mindless animal who is forced to change under the light of a full moon and unable to maintain your independence?" Brianna glared back at the smaller woman. "What you did nearly threatened your very soul."
"What are you talking about you oversized pin-up?" Tayna responded, getting everyone's attention in the aircraft.
Brianna grit her teeth and glared Tanya dead in the eyes, the look in her face was almost as firey as the engines of the Blackbird.
"Fine, yea I know I'm sexy as hell and I am a big girl so I will take it." Brianna replied. "But do you have any idea what you almost did?" Brianna said as she didn't budge an inch.
"No what did I almost do?" Tayna said while her hands glowed a bit from the eldritch energies she was summoning.
"Raw lycanthrope genetic material, such as blood, will infect those who are exposed to and forces them to become a secondary lycan." Brianna was livid at this point, but who could blame her? Lycanthropy was not something you should toy with lightly or even deal with unless you know exactly what you are doing.
"Explain to me then how Alex and Brit are able to making kissy face all the time and he isn't..." at this point she looked over at me and stopped what she was going to say and then started up again. "Spotted all over? And you can let me go now."
"Fine." Brianna relented as she let go of Tanya. "And to answer your question Brit is super careful not to infect anyone after years of training herself and she would only expose someone if she directly bled into their bloodstream or bit them so hard that she drew blood. If you had pricked your finger on that bit of tooth then you absolutely would have become a secondary lycan unable to control when you change or the animal nature being a were has."
"How do you know all this?" Tanya asked, with an increased level of respect of Brianna, and perhaps even admitting that she had indeed saved her from a terrible accident.
"Because I was Britanny…or I get a lot of myself from Britanny, or…you know let's just say I take after my sisters a lot and Dad harped a ton on Brit growing up on the dangers of accidentally infecting someone. As for why I'm doing this, I am immune to infection from lycanthropy as I am half lycan myself on top of being about the only one with enough understanding of genetics to do this kind of work."
"I see." Tanya said as she nodded her head. "Well I do thank you for saving me, but would at least kindly answer my original question about how this is better than using magic?"
"Okay I'll show you exactly what I am doing, but look with your eyes and not with your hands." Brianna didn't back down on the seriousness of what was about to be shown to the kryn. "See how we have this genetic map from the samples we took from Ireland, this is a general sample of human DNA which we can use to make sure we are dealing with actual werecheetah material, and this last sample is a fresh sample of Britanny's genetic material which we took from…."
In a bolt Brit leapt from her napping position and was next to Brianna before I could blink.
"What did you take from me dear sister?" Britanny said looming over Brianna.
"Will everyone stop yelling me already?" Brianna sort of bit back at Britanny. "And all I took was a strand of hair from your hairbrush to make sure any samples we had to take from the field matched an uncontaminated sample."
"You took my hair and didn't even bother to ask me about it?" Britanny said in a somewhat calm voice, though still upset.
"And you steal my and Gina's tuna without asking." Brianna pointed out. "Can you at least be thankful that I was able to get pure samples to work with?"
"Okay fine, but you know that a certain pint-sized jerk is trying to steal my DNA from time to time right?" Britanny retorted, still obviously upset over the whole matter.
"Oh what PeeWee?" Brianna laughed. "Don't worry sis I got you covered on that." The reassurance from Brianna seemed to take the edge off of Britanny's worries.
"How?" Britanny asked as she leaned on the side of the Blackbird's interior.
"After I am done with all this work I will dispose of your hair and the teeth and such in silver." The brainy lycanthropoid smiled. "So all the worries about Peewee playing as a god with your DNA you can throw out the window."
Britanny did a cold shiver as she heard the word silver in a manner that all could see was pure unbridled terror and repulsion.
"Fine, got it, just keep that stuff away from me." Britanny then returned to her chair where she curled up under my arm and wrapped her arms tight under her jacket.
"My dear are you feeling better?" I asked as I started to stroke the back of Britanny's shoulders. Beast's personality rubbing off on me a lot as I soon became essentially a giant comforting teddy bear to the lady I adore so much.
"Just let me cuddle up muffin. I don't want to think about what Bri is doing to make sure that a certain someone isn't going to use me to create a world-conquering army of lycanthropes." I just held her tight knowing how absolutely horrified of silver she was.
"So back to my question." Tanya asked as she looked at the screen before her.
"Right, so you see how we are filtering through these sequences of DNA how the human genes are different from the werecheetah DNA?" Tanya nodded her head. "This aircraft was built with a short range genetic scanner which can isolate a select range of mutations if it is given a specific sequence to look for."
"Wait why does a jet have a genetic scanning device?" Tanya blinked in confusion.
"Well originally this jet was designed by a group of superheroes dedicated to helping train humans with a mutant gene, which Alex is currently using a member of." Brianna indicated me with her thumb while not taking her vision away from Tanya. "And since lycanthropes, no matter how furry they get or if they are in animal form, are humans with a genetic mutation which can be identified in a living being if this machine knows what sequence to look for."
"And you couldn't get this information just from Britanny because?" Tanya asked as her fascination grew.
"With only Britanny to go on, I wouldn't be able to know what mutation is specifically linked to lycathropy much less be able to isolate the scan solely to werecheetahs." Brianna explained. "The same kind of problem you had trying to find werecheetahs in Ireland."
"Well we eventually found them thanks to me." Tayna pointed out with a good deal of pride.
"We also got into a fight with the werewolves. But I will admit they were very helpful in locating the remains we needed." Brianna finished what she was doing with the sample of genetic material on the table and started working on the computer terminal for a second before she took the sample of werecheetah tissue she was working on and placed it into what I would guess was an advanced sequencer of DNA and clicked start.
"And this computer will point us to the werecheetahs?" Tanya asked as she watched the flashing lights and text script scrolling on the screen.
"Nope." Brianna smirked as she looked at Tanya with an evil glint in her eye. "You are."
"What?" Tanya blinked several times as Brianna dropped a helmet on her head which was about the size of a medium collunder with airway tubbing connected the forehead portions to the console.
"Yep you little magic girl are going to help find werecheetahs with our handy-dandy mini cerebro unit with the filter set to the tissue samples I just ran."
"And how exactly is this gaudy bit of plating supposed to help me focus on…" Tanya's rant was cut short as Brianna pressed a blue button on the forehead section of the device and caused Tanya to bolt back slightly and her pupils shot wide open.
"What in the world did you do to me?" The kryn asked as she started to shake and tear up a bit.
"Well I think I just gave your mystical search abilities a boost while refining the search to only werecheetah artifacts." Brianna said giving Tanya a once-over to make sure that she was doing alright. "How is it working?"
"It's so beautiful." The sorceress explained as she unblinkingly seemed to gaze into infinity. "I can feel and see so much magic, so many minds, so many beings, so perfectly intertwined….Is this how we were meant to see eachother?"
"Okay Tanya." Brianna said as she looked the slimmer girl right in the eyes. "I need you to tell me if you see anything different that may or may not be related to werecheetahs. Can you do that for me?"
"Yes, yes I can." Tanya smiled as she turned her head towards Britanny for a second, back to Brianna, and then gazed out towards the nose of the craft. "I can see a path, a linking path down below us."
"YES!" Brianna said as she bolted up cheering.
"What are you screaming about Bri?" Britanny asked as she looked over her shoulder and watched with mixed interest and disbelief. "And why does Tanny look like she is having an out of body experience?"
"I will explain in a bit Brit." Brianna smiled as she started pressed a series of buttons on the console where she had been working on with the genetic samples a moment ago. Instantly an overlay of blue hued dots appeared on the front of the Blackbird's window which seemed to shoot past in a manner identical to starts viewed in the cockpit of the Millennium Falcon.
"Wow…." Britanny said as she sat up and started to bat at the moving lights slightly like a kitten infatuated with a floating dust-speck. Even with her height and powerful frame (with her shoulders just barely tight enough for me to wrap my arm around them usually) she could act like an adorable kitten. While perhaps a cliché to describe her actions as such, the green orbs of Britanny's eyes shot wide and she bent her wrist only to flick at the digital lights with cupped fingers. "What are these Bri?"
"These are all the minds, essences, and echoes of all those with a relationship to lycanthropy, specifically werecheetah." Brianna explained as she smiled bigger than those smiley faced pictures.
"It's beautiful, and yet…" Tanya stopped herself a few times as she blinked. "It's so bleak, and feels cold out there. It is as if once there was a thriving culture which now I only see the shadows of."
"Is there anything that can indicate where werecheetahs may be?" Britanny asked as she teary eyed gazed upon the streaming sequence of orbs that she tried to reach out physically and emotionally for the hope that perhaps some lost tribe of her kind yet still had escaped the devastation of the slaughter decades ago.
Tanya looked as if she tried to focus her mystical senses a bit through the sea of ethereal messages, and smiled a bit after a few minutes of gazing into whatever realm of the mind and spirit which her psychi had been pulled into seemed to finally bear some good fruit.
"Now I know I have something." The eyes of the young kryn seemed to glow a bit as she turned her head. The smile upon her lips shifted from joy to smug pride.
"Great." Britanny beamed a bit seeing the dazzling lightshow shift a bit. "Where is it?" My beloved lycanthrope was still trying to play with the luminous spheres as she turned her ears towards Tanya. Britanny's very feline nature not allowing her curiosity to give her attention away from the bright lights in front of her entirely, but yet the lovely lycan did focus her heightened sense of hearing on every word that the sorceress said. A small smile appearing on Britanny's lips as she did so as if a flicker of hope long dimmed was awoken.
"Follow that line." Tanya answered as she pointed to a series of connecting dots which started with Britanny and lead out into the grasslands which stretched for miles ahead of us. The bright blue line was thin and radiated most strongly back towards Britanny dimming as it went forward ahead of the Blackbird.
"A pleasure to be of help." I said as I shifted the aircraft's direction following the line Tanya pointed out to us. The shift in momentum and inertia wasn't even felt as the dampener system absorbed the change and we flew downward towards the target.
"If I may ask." Genn spoke up, long having shifted into neutral form and trying to recover from Brianna's very intense "quickie" from days ago. "How are we seeing these things inside the jet?"
"Holographic display system." Brianna smiled watching as we got closer and closer to the dimming light ahead of us. "It was added to show multiple people what was being worked on. Seems to be working just fine, but is a little bit on the low res side as we are seeing only simple shapes while I'm going to bet that Tanya is seeing far more complex features inside her mind right now."
The rest of the flight was short and thankfully uneventful as the Blackbird slipped through the heavens without arousing any notice. Our long range radar and radio didn't pick up anything for the whole trip so far so whatever Gina had done to make this jet invisible was working perfectly.
"This is about as close as I can get us." I said as I slowed the jet for final decent and shifted to VTOL controls lowering us down to the grasslands. The inertia dampeners shutting off before the final set down allowed all on board to feel the hydraulics take the landing and come to a complete stop on stable ground. I turned back to my usual form having been Dr. McCoy long enough.
"Awe, but I liked you all fuzzy." Britanny joked as she kissed my forehead.
"Would you like it if I grew a beard dear?" I joke at her as she rubbed my sideburns teasing me.
"Maybe, but then you may look too much like dad for me to be comfortable muffin."
"Any idea what time it is?" Tanya asked as she took off the Cerbro helmet and held her head in her hands. The prolonged use of the device on her mind seemed to have taken a toll she was not expecting. "And how long we have been flying."
"Only a couple of hours actually." Brianna said she looked out down the ramp of the craft and walked out a bit. "But as we went forward ahead several time zones…I'm guess it's sometime in the evening."
"Do we even know exactly where we are?" Genn asked as everyone got out and stretched out legs.
The vast sea of grass was broken only by the occasional acacia tree and the only animals seemed to be located off in the distance as the roar of the Blackbird's thrusters had cleared out a rather large swath of ground of standing vegetation and scared off anything big enough to vacate the area.
"Couldn't tell you pal." I said back to the shape shifter over my shoulder.
"Give me a second to pull out my GPS." Brianna said as she searched through her pockets and Explorer Club satchel. A gift from Gina that Brianna adored and had stuffed with all the various exploring equipment that Brianna figured she would need on this endeavor. While not nearly as focused on the scientific side of things as Gina is for personal glory or credit at the Explorer's Club, Brianna did have some desire to record what we were
"Why don't we have a GPS system on the Blackbird?" Britanny asked as she started helping Brianna look for the device in question.
"Well duh sis." Brianna explained as she giddily collected her field equipment. "It's a stealth aircraft, so a built in GPS could be hacked and give away our position." Brianna had a very clear and rational point as finally they pulled the rather bulky unit from Brianna's seemingly bottomless satchel. Just what did the Explorer's Club do with its free tote bags? Put a mini weapons space in the bottom?
"And yet you carry a GPS unit in your bag?" Britanny blinked a few times as she saw Brianna fiddle with the brick-sized item.
"Yea but I don't keep it on." Brianna countered. "That would just run down the battery anyway." The lycanthropoid super-genius smiled as she started taking notes and readings on a PDA.
"So anyone want to help set up camp? Or are we going to just keep the jet running?" I ask as I put on shades, bug repellent, and a hat.
"Good idea Alex." Brianna said as she looked up from her equipment. "We can get the security barrier up to keep any large animals away from our base camp today and start our search in the morning."
"Why do we have to wait for that?" I asked as I let Brianna take the lead on running the field work aspect of our search. "Shouldn't we be ready to go right now, or is this security barrier of yours going to take a while to put in place?"
"It's a plasma shield barrier to keep out wild animals." Brianna said as she picked up a series of spiked shafts with a cylindrical top with a red blinker. "Here I'll show you were to ram these shafts." Brianna smirked as I blushed a bit and looked at Britanny trying to smile as best I could.
"What?" Britanny smiled back.
"Nothing, just making sure to remember the one lady of my life."
"Oh, so you aren't thinking of where you can do some ramming for fun?" Britanny teased as she smirked at me. I continued to blush a bit, which was all Britanny needed to ruffle the back of my head and slap my backside. "Don't worry muffin, it will be worth it." The loving werecheetah said in a whisper as she hugged me tight.
"You always were." I whispered back as I rubbed my cheek and long sideburns across her silky face. As we continued to cuddle a bit, there was a loud clicking sound and a whirling as a machine started working.
"Oh that is such a Kodak moment." Brianna said as Britanny and my attention snapped to the youngest Diggers sister pulling out an actual Kodak photo from an old fashioned instant process camera. "Okay enough fun for now, we are burning daylight people."
"Okay okay." Britanny kissed the top of my head. "We'll help get the work done. So what exactly do we do with these things?" Brit asked as she picked up one of the units and started twirling it in her rather large hands. It looked like she was fiddling with a small twig.
"You can put that down very carefully as those are very delicate and very sensitive." Brianna said as she put the photo into her jacked pocket and took one of the units in her hands carefully.
"Hey I'm very careful, aren't I sweety?" Britanny asked as she looked at me pulling me into the argument. I was completely stumped on how to answer as Brit could easily snap the metal bar in her hand like I would a toothpick. I cannot overstate just how powerful Britanny is, and I had often been on the receiving end of her super-powered body, often feeling like being in a beartrap…but no matter how enthusiastic Britanny's affection was she never caused me permanent harm…
"Well I'm still here and we have been closer for longer than you have been holding that do-hicky…" I tried my hardest to placate the situation, but it wasn't working so well.
"Yea but Brit also has gone through about three or four industrial hydraulic presses that she had customed made just so she could do bench presses." Brianna pointed out as she carefully removed the unit from Brit's hand. "Including crushing the bar she was lifting."
"Well fine ms smarty pants." Brit relented. "But its not like you don't have similar super-strength. Do you remember how you busted through Mom's punching bag when you needed to burn off some steam and couldn't get a date?" Brit looked at her younger and shorter sister down with a smirk. "If memory serves me right, you drove your fists right though a 300 lbs bag of sand spilling the contents all over the gym floor."
"Should we just step aside and let these two work out their problems?" Tanya asked Genn as they kept their distance from the arguing pair of Diggers girls.
"Probably for the best." Genn said as the neutral formed Ratakshi edged over to the sorceress.
"What are you doing?" The kryn royal asked as the rakshasa started to get a little too close for the priestess's comfort. Her reaction as Genn rubbed up against her was pure revoltion.
"Oh uh sorry…" The small androgynous individual said recoiling from brushing up against Tanya's arm. "Just hungry."
"Hungry? What am I a furry steak to you?" Tanya said as she readied her aura to defend herself.
"No no sorry." The shapeshift pleaded sheepishly. "I'm a ratakshi and I feed off people's excess aura, and it's been very long since I have been able to feed."
"So you are not going to eat me then?" Tanya asked, still very much keeping her aura powered up.
"No not at all. I feed from Brianna all the time and most people don't even notice….just it's very….ticklish to the person I feed from and I need them to keep still so that I don't get sucked into their aura." Genn continued to explain.
"And how exactly do you usually go about keeping your…donator shall we say from sucking you into their aura?" Tanya asked as she shivered slightly at the individual standing next to her.
"Well I kinda have to wear them out, usually from an extremely intense bout of physical activity." Genn said while trying not go just blurt out what it was Genn did to survive. Tanya's shock at remembering what exactly Genn had been doing when she appeared at the Digger's mansion.
"What did I get myself into?" Tanya groaned as she shook her head and depowered her mystic powers.
Meanwhile the arguments from Brit and Brianna had not stopped and I was about done with this mess.
"Okay we have burned enough daylight." I said as I grabbed all of the steaks I could, walked out to a perimeter distance from the Blackbird and held one up in the air. "Where do I put this thing?"
"Just start sticking them into the ground and pressing the button on top. They'll automatically form connections between eachother and eventually form the shield." Brianna smiled as she started pointing where each of the units need to go. Britanny smiled as she pulled out a large fold-out chair and ripped the top off a carton of milk.
I blinked a few times before looking at what I was doing, what Britanny was doing, and where Britanny was pointing. "You two did this on purpose to get me to do this by myself didn't you?"
"Well not really, but if it works out that way muffin then just think of it as keeping those muscles in shape that I can tease later." Britanny smiled as she enjoyed her snack.
"Actually miss fuzzy pants you have to pull your weight around here too." Brianna smirked.
"Oh really sis, how do you figure that?" The taller of the Diggers sisters said as she got up and sized down her younger and smaller sister.
"Because we don't have anything for dinner." Brianna replied with an absolute smug smile on her face. "So here, see what you can get for us while we make the place safe for everyone." Brianna ran up the loading dock and returned with Britanny's fishing pole, box of bait and hooks, and a wide-brim hat not too dissimilar to that of Huck Finn or Tom Sawyer.
Britanny smiled for a second before twirling the pole in her fingers. "Bri, you really need to lead expeditions more often." Taking the hat in her hands, Britanny popped it on her head, took the tacklebox and went off to find a river while whistling Dixieland. The scene was so adorable that I had to stop what I was doing, grab Brianna's camera, and took a picture. Instantly Britanny stopped what she was doing, her ears swiveled around and she turned her head in a flash to see me taking the photo from the polaroid.
"Sorry you were just too cute not to want to remember this." Britanny chuckled as she blew me a kiss.
"See you in a bit babe." Britanny smiled and made her way down to where food was likely to be. "Make sure the area is secured before I bring back dinner." As Britanny left her tail swayed back and forth but was held up slightly to match her upturned lips in a smile.
"Can I help in any way?" Tanya asked as I got back to placing the shield units and she was trying to distance herself from Genn's hungry gaze.
"I don't know." Brianna said scratching her head. "Do you know how to prepare ground and pitch a tent?" the lycanthropoid shrugged her shoulders and pointed to where she wanted me to place the next unit.
"It shouldn't be too hard." Tanya said as she concentrated her mystic energies and prepared a patch of bare ground for us to camp upon. Genn then grabbed the tents, hammers, and stakes needed for the tents. I just continued to set up the barrier devices as Brianna indicated for me. While Tanya and Genn argued about how best to set up the tents, I just watched my feet and made sure to avoid any dangerous animals and tall grasses. Hey it's Africa for crying out loud, I had no interest of getting bitten by a mamba or disturbing a porcupine and winding up having a very bad day.
The whole project took about 20 minutes after Britanny left to complete. When ignited the plasma shield system formed a bubble around the unit and then stretched out linking each device spreading the bubble over the whole camp in the form of a dome. A semi-blue shimmer would appear from time to time after the bubble was done, and that was the only indication that we had a defensive barrier between us and whatever wild beasts prowled the night or unsavory antagonists during the day.
"So what exactly is this?" I ask placing my shades on my face as the heat of the late day sun becomes nearly unbearable.
"A simple plasma barrier." Brianna said as she got the miniarc reactor out and plugged it into one of the units and went around plugging each of the steaked units together. "And one which shouldn't have any problems lasting thought the duration of our time here." Brianna beamed with pride that her device seemed to perfectly function without any difficulties.
"So exactly how is this supposed to protect us from anything?" Tanya asked as Genn collected wood for a camp fire. As the shapeshifter tried to start a fire. Tanya nonchalantly snapped her fingers and ignited the kindling and timber as Genn fell back a bit.
"It can stop a rampaging herd of elephants thank you very much." Brianna smiled. "And is better than the job you did putting up our tents."
True enough Genn and Tanya's attempt to get the tents up had resulted in a complete mess of ropes, fabric, and complex knots that looked like spaghetti.
"You said pitch the tents, didn't you?" Tanya asked the taller girl.
"Don't tell me." I groaned to myself.
"Well I pitched them to where you wanted them." I chuckled a bit as Brianna's face visibly sunk. The smug expression on Tanya's face said everything.
"Well Ms. Smartypants, what do you have to say to that?" The Kryn smirked as her arms rested under her loose garment top. Brianna shook for a moment as she began to chuckle, then full blown laughter. Brianna slapped Tanya's back as the lycanthropoid smiled the biggest smile on the world. While Brianna is often found smirking when she has the upper hand, and her eyes would literally sparkle whenever she could bring out her favorite firearm, but when she was joyful her cheeks would fill with an almost mystic level of positivity that brighten everyone around her. Was this because she was born from a supernatural power, or was it her memories being from Britanny and Gina and her being chronologically young while simultaneously biologically always having been sexually mature that she projected this childlike joy from being at heart a child? I couldn't say but in the months that I had known her, and had become dear friends to eachother, Brianna had this uncanny ability to brighten up all those around her with her genuine happy face.
"Okay you are now my favorite adventure partner." Brianna said as Tanya almost got knocked off her feet as the bigger and stronger girl was just being friendly.
"You are aware that such a display of physical informality would be considered a great offense within the great halls of kryn nobility." Tanya started as she glared at Brianna and raised her chin at the taller woman. "And to so brazenly attack one of my status would carry with it a death sentence."
"Oh…." Brianna said as she looked like she was about to defend herself.
"Yes." Tanya said as she took in in a shallow breath, before lowering her chin and smiling back at the other catgirl. "Which is why I am so glad that I am not in El Dorado right now. Thank you Brianna for being the first in perhaps too long a time to genuinely be a friend to me." The kryn sorceress smiled back. "Now, perhaps we should set up these tents for when Britanny returns with dinner?"
Brianna smirked as she held her hands under her breasts, only to shrug and accept that she was going to get her hands at least a little dirty afterall.
What was I doing while Brianna and Tanya were busy making the tents? I had decided to head back up the ramp of the Blackbird and open a chat with Gina. Afterall she was due an update if nothing else.
"Oh…hey Alex been a while. What's up?" Gina said as she came in on the vid-com.
"Not much. Just wanted to let you know we landed in Africa and that Brianna had me set up some sort of barrier to protect us from the animal life."
"What are you talking about Alex?" Gina asked as she blinked bewildered.
"Yea Brianna had us put up an energy barrier around the Blackbird and campsite to keep out wild animals." I said as I plopped down in the pilot's seat and popped open a cold gatoraide after working hard in the African heat. "Or at least all the big ones around here."
"Alex did this barrier have a shimmer to it like the shield that I used back in Dreadwing's cave…or from the novel version of Dune?" Gina asked as all humor dropped out of her voice and she went straight serious.
"Yea….what's wrong Gina?" I knew something was seriously going to go down now.
"Alex I need you to turn on the Blackbird's radar screen and check for any inbound objects."
I didn't hesitate to do exactly what Gina had requested, and low and behold there was an incoming aircraft that was making a bee-line right towards the camp.
"What the…" I mouthed as I saw the incoming object.
"Alex that shield unit Brianna set up does act as a barrier, but the power output of the thing glows like a Roman candle if you know what to look for. And sadly I know of one particular pain in neck who is going to be looking for that specific energy frequency." Gina said alluding to PeeWee Talon.
"Damn. Yea I'm seeing an incoming craft, and I'm going to guess expect hostiles." I jumped up out of my chair and opened the weapon's locker.
"Hostiles is putting it lightly Alex." Gina replied as she went grabbing for her light gate generator. "PeeWee is a master of genetic engineering with little to no regard as to morality or ethics, only knowledge." Gina continued as she was suiting up for the inevitable fight.
"Got it." I said in reply. Deciding that I was going to need some serious firepower and backup and fast, I grabbed the heaviest hitting weapons I could, and found that I couldn't even lift the darn thing.
"Alex I am not kidding." Gina said as I saw the flash of the light gate fill the inside of the jet. "PeeWee is not someone easily dealt with. I know that we keep kicking his butt, but that doesn't mean that he isn't going to pull every nasty trick in the book to get even one of the toys you have us. If he gets even one file or blaster..." Gina alluded as she ran through the portal from Peru to Africa.
"If." I said as I shifted from 5'10" tall 180 lb average looking guy into a 7' tall half ton mass of green armored fighting machine that effortless picked up an assortment of firarms and strapped an oversized black metal device to my back. The last thing that sounded in the Blackbird was me chambering the magazine on an over-sized custom assault rifle.
"What now?" Brianna groaned as she too was trying to relax in the heat of the African late afternoon. Her broad-brim hat was tugged over her eyes as she had been trying to get a catnap in.
"I have no idea." Tanya said as she saw me walk down the ramp and Gina appear out of the boom-tube like light gate. "But your sister seems to be here for some reason."
"Bri we got an emergency here." Gina was running through the gate like her head was on fire and shorts where catching.
"Gina, what has got you all riled up?" Brianna smirked. "Is El Dorado going to war with Atlantis, or did you upset one of the high-ranking women of the cities by hitting on their husband?" Brianna's aloof and slightly disinterested attitude while teasing Gina for her well known sexual hunger was just being a sister, but Gina was having none of it.
"No you oversexed gunbunny." Gina said pointing her finger disappointedly at her younger, and taller, sibling. "A real emergency."
Gina's comment solicited the coldest stare that Brianna ever gave anyone and the lycanthropoid pulled her lips back just enough that for a moment her sharp canines were displayed.
"PeeWee is on his way fast and has his eyes on all of our tech again." Gina bit back with the same level of hostility she had from the get-go of her showing up.
"I thought you said a real emergency." Brianna non-schelontly waved Gina off and turned her back on her sister.
"Don't you get it sis? If that diminutive pain in the neck gets on any of our tech that's bad enough, but with what we developed from what Alex has given us the whole world may be at risk." Gina's frustration was getting worse and worse as Brianna just calmly walked away from where everyone else was standing, smirked, and pulled out a wristband hand pressed the button on the top.
Instantly the bracelet released a skin-tight green costume over Brianna's body only leaving the area of her neck and above free from cover. Pressing the button again Brianna started walking towards Gina as a series of armor bits flew from the inside of the Blackbird and started attaching themselves all over the zero-suite looking cover. Even Brianna's feet were covered with boot extensions that she walked into which gave the lycanthropoid an additional 5 inches in height.
"I think we have this covered sis." Brianna joked as she was decked out in some sort of hybrid Iron Man, Spartan, Mass Effect, and Gold Digger armor. "heh covered." She giggled at her own joke.
"Okay fine yes we have dealt with him easily enough before, but we just can't take the risks that you did essentially making a 'come here and take it' message with this shield unit." Gina calmed down a bit as she pulled out some sort of blaster with a suction dart on the end of the barrel for some reason I have still not understood.
"What?" Brianna blinked as she pulled out a plasma rifle from weapon's space and looked at Gina like she had no idea what she was talking about.
"The barrier shield you had put up to keep the campsite safe? The power output is so high in the middle of nowhere that it's like a giant glowing spotlight in the middle of the ocean at night." Gina pointed out.
"Begging your pardon Gina, but I take it that this individual who you are worried about is a young boy around the age of 10 with glasses who keeps company with a bald woman, a guy dressed in blue with a single edge sword, and a magic user with dark skin?" Tanya said as she powered up her aura and said Gina turned to see that indeed PeeWee Talon, Zelda, Ionis, and Dashi were right outside the barrier shield as the dark skinned wizard wannabe seemed to have teleported all down the ground.
"Well well well, look what we have here." The tiny terror stated as he adjusted his glasses and focused on Gina. "A new toy perhaps? And a new energy source as well? I guess we will just have to take it instead of being able to get a real price like say…werecheetah DNA."
"Indeed Lord Talon, quite a fancy new jet you have there. We will just relieve them of it and whatever new powersource is being used for this fancy defense system." Ionis said as he brandished his sword.
"Well the werecheetah bitch may not be here, but at least this will be fun." Zelda said while Tayna added to the barrier with her magic powers and the rest looked to start this fight. I decided that enough was enough and walked down the loading ramp shouldering the huge weapon I had chosen.
Didn't say a word, didn't address anyone, just stepped down to the ground, aimed it at PeeWee's own aircraft, charged it, and fired. The red hot beam went right through the plasma shield without disrupting it, and sliced the hovering craft's structure right through causing it to blow up into a billion bits.
"One." I say getting everyone's attention. "No one dares call my girl a bitch." I say dropping the Spartan Laser to the ground, cracked my knuckles through my armor. "Two, none of you are even going to try to lay your grubby hands on my jet. And third, I would suggest that you start running before I introduce you to new levels of pain."
Now when someone has just blown up your vehicle with a single shot (lasers aren't affected by plasma shields as plasma is energized mater while lasers are pure energy), and makes it clear that your presence is unwelcome, and you are outnumbered what do you think you do? Well logically you would get out of dodge, but see PeeWee wasn't big on logic.
"Zelda deal with this pest." PeeWee said pointing at me.
"At once Lord Talon." The bald muscle girl ran at me at full speed, which was impressive as her genetic engineering made her faster, stronger, and more powerful than any normal human could ever be and she towered over Gina and Tanya. But you see, while Zelda was the result of the best genetic manipulation that the current level of science could offer and the greatest level of martial arts training Judo could offer combine, what she is not and never will be is a GD Spartan II.
As Zelda closed the distance between us, she seemed to pass through the barrier unmolested and attempted to grab me and throw me to the ground. However I let her grab me, effortless pivoted faster than a human could respond moving to the side, punched her right in the elbow as I pulled my grabbed arm to my side breaking her arm right at the elbow bend without trying. She found herself thrown to the ground with her limb completely unusable and in a world of hurt.
"Last chance." I said standing before her. "Leave, or get hurt."
"Son of a bitch, I am going to kill you." Her response was a sweep kick that tried to bring me to the ground, but reflexes fast as fiber-optics signaling muscles that are able to give my 1,000 lbs body the agility of Batman meant that I backflipped over her move, kicked her right in the face, and landed on my feet doing a complete 360 in the air. She was able to get up on her feet again, spitting out a huge spat of blood from a very broken nose doing so.
"Many have said the same thing." I replied to her as she attempted to take me on in a blind rage. Her strikes were wide and powerful, but didn't land a single punch. I however dodged every punch and kick that Zelda unleashed and choose to wear down my foe with quick jabs and let her loss of blood and already broken body just giving up take her down for me. This idea wasn't a complete success as Zelda seems to have been able to take a number of blows to the face and body without just dropping. I picked up how much force I put behind each blows and took more body shots that caused Zelda to stagger as they hit their mark.
"Don't stand around you idiots. Get them!" PeeWee yelled to his other minions, who found that a fight of two against one for both of them went rather….poorly.
"You call yourself a mage?" Tanya berated Ionis as she was able to hold back his mystic bolts with her defensive spells. "You are less a challenge that the fresh class of magic attune kryn I inspire every new year."
"Allow me to assist." Genn went to male form and was able to keep the mystic on his toes with little difficulty.
"How on earth are you able to keep from getting hit?" Ionis asked as he had to keep on his toes.
"I can read the aura of anyone and adapt to them by reading their greatest fear." Genn answered. "Tanya do you think that you can add to our numerical advantage? He hates to be overwhelmingly outnumbered."
The kryn sorceress smirked as she summoned her aura and surrounded Ionis with mystic duplicates.
"Oh you have got to be kidding me." Ionis groaned as he was surrounded by an army of petite kryn sorceresses.
"No we are not." They said together in echoed unison. Genn used this distraction to lay Ionis out cold with a right hook.
"So ninja boy, you really want to do this?" Brianna said as her targeting visor was armed and her weapon aimed at Dashi.
"Don't underestimate me. I am the truest embodiment of ninja." The blue garbed sword user was very agile as he was able to threaten both Gina and Brianna as he swiped at Gina and forced Brianna to hold off his kick with her weapon unable to shoot him. "Seems that your weapons are of little use to you rip-off."
"What did you call me you weeabuu?" Brianna said as she was getting pissed off.
"You are nothing but an amalgamation of your two better sisters with no skills of your own." Dashi smirked under his mask. "How do you expect to defeat me when you have any abilities or gifts of your own?" Dashi was able to get Brianna angry enough that she tossed the plasma cannon she was holding at Dashi, which struck him hard in the stomach but he recovered quickly. "See how easily you are disarmed?"
"Dashi, talk to the hand." Brianna smirked as she aimed her palms at the ninja and his eyes went wide as he knew he had royally f**kd up. Instantly the center of Brianna's gloved palms opened up and a hot stream of repulser blasts hit Dashi slamming him hard into the barrier shield. Brianna let the stream stop when her visor indicated he was unconscious.
"Grandpa Brigard is a ninja, you Dashi are a wanabe fanboy." Gina smiled as she saw the slightly burned body of Dashi where he was moaning in pain on the ground.
And how was Zelda's fight going? She may be one of the most dangerous humans on earth with some of the best modifications and training that a mortal could go through, hell she was able to keep up with Britanny on a regular basis afterall, but what she was not was the result of cybernetic and genetic manipulation combined with an almost Deus Ex Machina level of luck in surviving events that should have resulted in his death and an entire life of knowing nothing but how to fight and to survive.
"There is no way on this rock you should be this impossibly good." Zelda said, as she continued to choaking up another spat of blood. She kept trying to punch me as she stumbled again and again so get close as I finally decided to end this BS by grabbing her by the cuff of her shirt and slammed my fist hard into her diaphragm.
"Why don't you stay down before you cause yourself even more damage?" I said without a hint of emotion in my voice.
"You green plated bastard." Her recovery was faster than I had expected, and yes I was holding off from killing her so I did pull my punch a little. Still Zelda did get back up on her feet and even with a completely busted arm and a face that looked like she had lost a fight with a constructicon, she still wasn't giving up. Got to hand it to her for her determination. But as she attempted to even get close to me I just dodged every blow she could throw and finally just grabbed her only good arm, twist her wrist, and made a quick kick to the side of her knee damaging her kneecap and bringing her down to the ground as fast as I could. While Zelda may have had all the determination in the world, with the damage to her leg I just unleashed and the amount of blood she was loosing and how her breathing was labored, she was not getting back up any time soon.
"Enough." I said as I dropped the woman to the ground and ran back up the gangplank. I retuned a moment later with a med kit. "Lady you just royally got your ass kicked, so stand down before you kill yourself." I loaded a quick injector with a sedative antiseptic mixture and slammed it into her neck. She instantly collapsed in a heap. I then went about setting her nose, arm, and leg so she wasn't going to end up crippled. Why? Mainly because I'm not a badguy. Heck I could have just mowed down PeeWee and his posse with automatic fire or drove my fist into Zelda's ribcage and killed her if I wanted to. But that was not me and it wasn't Master Chief. Soldier yes, warrior yes, absolute badass yes, but not a murderer.
"Alright kid ready to knock this off?" I ask PeeWee as I stood over him like an angry parent. "Because you are outmanned, our gunned, and your team needs medical attention stat."
"You know, I would listen to this guy if I was you." Gina said as all three of our combative advisories were completely unconscious and PeeWee was absent one aircraft.
"How in the world is this possible? I am the greatest genetic engineer in the world while you are just some sort of pinup bimbo for the explorer's club with an oversexed pair of cat girl sisters." PeeWee was leading himself to an early grave at this point.
"Excuse me, but what did I miss?" Britanny said as she walked up with a 500 lb catfish tossed over one shoulder and her fishing equipment hanging over her other. "Hey muffin." She waved at me with her fishing pole in hand.
"Hey Babe." I said as Britanny joined us. She tossed the fish absently ontop of Ionis, he groaned at this.
"Looks like your trip was successful."
"Darn tootin muffin." Britanny said as she kissed my helmet. "I didn't win the Atlanta fishing competition 5 years running for nothing." It was at that point that PeeWee started throwing a temper tantrum.
"This is impossible, inconceivable, it just isn't…." the tiny terror continued to wale about for a bit. "Just isn't fair."
"PeeWee you constantly are trying to steal my DNA to build an army of werecheetah clones, interrupt Gina and I on our expeditions when we are busy, cut into my mall time, and on top of that built your own genetically engineered bozos that just get in the way all the time." Britanny said as she picked up the little guy and started to scold him as he were some sort of child. "And you on top of that you now show up to annoy us while muffin is trying to be sweet and help me find more werecheetahs? I am tempted to bend you over my knee and spank you."
"More werecheetahs?" PeeWee smirked as he crossed his arms and wasn't the least bit intimidated by Britanny's muscles or pissed off disposition.
"He wasn't supposed to know that dear." I mention to Brit.
"An entire tribe of lycanthropes just ripe for taking DNA samples." PeeWee smiled cruelly as his mind reeled at the possibilities.
"At this point I don't really care." Brit smiles at me. "See PeeWee you're not going to even get close to bothering whatever werecheetahs we come across."
"And why is that you oversized furrball?" the pint-sized problem asked with smug bravado. "You can't touch me and you know it." While Britanny probably couldn't slap PeeWee's ass like the petulant brat deserves under normal circumstances, there was an important difference here.
"Kid, do you know why I have never bent you over my knee before?" My beloved smiled, which caused PeeWee's arrogant expression to drop like a stone. "It's because before it may be considered assault, and well there are certain laws in the US about that...but we aren't in the US are we?"
"Oh f**k." Pee Wee blinked a few seconds as he realized that he was not going to get out of this without some seriously disciplining. "Oh come on you can't possibly think that you will get away from it when your parents here what you did?"
"I think that they may actually approve." I said under my helmet.
"Thank you for agreeing with me muffin." Britanny said as she took PeeWee back behind a tree for a bit.
"Should we stop her?" Tanya asked while thinking the scene over. "Or at least one of us bear witness so that there is no question as to not be abuse?"
"Why would you…" Gina began to ask what everyone was probably thinking, only for Tanya to cut her off.
"I'm one of the heads of kryn government and have had to instruct children before. Our society has strict limits on what behavior is tolerated and on the actions which can be used to discipline poor behavior."
"Eh who knew." Brianna shrugged as she made sure to smack Dashi in the head with the butt of her rifle, this causing the ninja to groan a bit.
Before too much longer we heard the most fear inducing sound imaginable….Britanny laughing her ass off at a volume almost equal to that of the Blackbird at take off.
"What in the world is going on here?" Gina asked as she started to scratch the back of her head.
"I'm going to find out. Keep an eye on the prisoners." I figured that with all the dangers of the savanna that being Master Chief would still be a wise choice and pulled the battle rifle from my back. Why not the pulse rifle? I love the M-42 A2 pulse rifle, but as the spread for it is wide at long range and a whole lot of open nothing that could be hit without wanting to, a battle rifle was a far better choice with the accuracy it gave.
"Okay Cheets what's so funny?" I asked as I saw PeeWee blushing in shame as Britanny was almost rolling on the ground. The kid's pants were around his knees and for all to see was the teddy bear underwear he had on. "Okay never mind." Master Chief's sense of humor is drier than a straight martini so I wasn't about to laugh.
"I can't believe that I am reduced to this, and this goffering werebeast makes it even worst." PeeWee yelled at Britanny.
"Watch your mouth kid, that's my lady you are talking about." I said towering over the pigmy sized Mindbender knockoff. He gulped at that. "And I have a constant recording feed in my helmet." He gulped even more. "So I'm going to make you a deal."
"What kind of a deal?" PeeWee asked with pure hesitation.
"I don't upload the video of you in your teddy bear shorts, and you take the next light gate back to Atlanta and leave me, my girl, and the rest of this party alone."
"And if I do?" PeeWee said stroking his chin.
"I delete the video and none but me, you and her ever know about this." I stuck my thumb towards Brit, still rolling on the ground in a state of pure joy from laughing so hard she was getting red in the face.
It took PeeWee a moment to consider this offer. "Very well, and I have your word that absolutely no one will know of this?"
"Spartan honor kid." I got down to eye level with him and stretched out my right open hand.
"Agreed. Not like it would get any worse from here on out." Pee Wee begrudgingly admitted and pulled up his pants. He took my hand and we shook on it. "And about the whole other tribe of werecheetahs?"
"You keep out of this mission, turn a blind eye to whatever you see from Africa that gets your attention, and put it out of your mind you even heard of that possibility. Besides your crew is going to have months of bedrest, physical therapy, and more than a few broken bones and burns to heal from as is so you've got other worries now."
"Fine I give up….need some hot coco and cookies after this."
A short while later, Gina had opened her light gate to PeeWee's home and the kid, a somewhat coherent Dashi and Ionis, and a unconscious Zelda on a stretcher carried by her male compatriots, walked through.
"Well that was fun." Brianna said as Britanny continued to giggle with her hand over her mouth. "So let's fry up this catch and settle in for the night."
"Agreed. I could go for a good meal tonight." Tanya smiled as she got the fire to an appropriate size to grill the huge fish.
"So Gina are you sticking around for a while?" I asked her as she closed the gate portal with her device.
"May as well, seeing as you need my help on this one." Gina smiled back. "Now where is my tent?"
"Oh you can just take the one Alex was going to use." Britanny said as she draped her arm around me.
"Dear?"
"You'll just have to share mine muffin." Britanny said as he kissed me after removing my helmet. I kissed her right on the lips at that. Word to the wise, never keep a lady waiting.
To be continued.
Author's notes: Sorry for being a month or so off but I had vacation, a master's thesis proposal to start, chaos with two jobs, and a lot of time trying to get my house fixed so please be patient. On the other hand I have gotten a number of artists to do work for this fic so please be patient as I try to share them in the future.