A/N: Long time no see, but we are back. Hope there are still people out there interested in this story after such a long wait.
As always, all credit for this story's plot goes to The Cowardly Christian. He thought it up, I just write it.
Disclaimer: All IZ characters belong to Jhonen Vasquez. Nooth is from the film Early Man, which belongs to StudioCanal UK, not me. I only own the OCs.
Read on!
XxxxxxxxxxxxxxX
Dib groaned as he woke up. His head was pounding and he was sore and aching all over, yet he seemed to be lying on something incredibly soft and comfortable that was doing a lot to soothe at least some of those pains. This allowed him to ease into a relaxed state, even as his mind started to clear enough to remember his nudity; frankly, he was so comfortable that that didn't seem to matter. Hell, he couldn't even be bothered to remember what left him in such a poor condition to begin with…
And then it suddenly all came back to him. The attack on the city, the building collapsing, falling to the street — Viera! She'd fallen too, and he'd lost track of her. He had to make sure she was okay!
Forcing his eyes open, Dib reluctantly started to get up off of what he realized was a very comfortable couch, only to be interrupted.
"Oh good, you're awake," a female voice he didn't recognize spoke up. Turning to face its source, Dib blushed as he was greeted by the sight of Tenn, who was leaning in a somewhat provocative way against a doorframe. The fact that, unbeknownst to him, she'd shifted her bees into a more skimpy than usual covering certainly didn't hurt either.
"I hope you're feeling okay," she said, pretending not to notice how flustered Dib was by her, "I found you lying asleep on the street this morning. You didn't look hurt, but it couldn't have been pleasant, especially not naked like that."
Dib blushed harder as he was suddenly reminded of his current state. Tenn giggled as he frantically tried to cover herself, genuinely enjoying the reaction but downplaying it so as to not come on too strong.
"Sorry, didn't mean to make you feel awkward," she lied, before offering him a glass of water he hadn't noticed she was holding, "Here, you must be thirsty."
"Oh, thanks," he said, reluctantly uncovering himself (it was a bit late to stop her from seeing anything, after all) to grab the water and gulp it down, "I'm Dib, by the way."
"Tenn. Nice to meet you," she said, smirking as she watched him drink. When he was done, he set the glass aside and shakily got to his feet.
"Well, thanks, but I need to get out there and find my friend, make sure she's safe," he said, swaying as he suddenly became a little woozy.
"Safe from what?" Tenn asked, feigning confusion, causing Dib to blink in a more genuine case of the emotion.
"Um, wasn't the city being attacked by… somebody?" he asked, trailing off as his mind seemed to fog up, making some of the details he was trying to recall hazy. And frankly, he was having trouble focusing on anything but Tenn at the moment.
"Nope, everything seemed normal to me. You must have been dreaming," Tenn replied with a shrug.
"Oh… okay, sure," Dib mumbled, frowning in confusion, which only made Tenn's smirk grow. It was clear to her that the potion she'd slipped into the water she'd given Dib was having its desired effects. Not only was it making him so horny that he'd only be able to think of her, but it was also dulling his wits to make him more susceptible to believing everything she said to him.
Ordinarily, either Tak's protection magic or Dib's own natural strong will would negate this sort of thing, but Tenn had been a personal apprentice of the great Demon Queen Miyuki herself, giving her access to spells and potions that not even Tak's impressive repertoire could effectively combat. Between that and Dib being too exhausted from all that had happened since he arrived in the city… well, he was still able to resist to the point where she couldn't just say anything ridiculous and he'd believe her, but as long as it was plausible, he was at least inclined to give her the benefit of the doubt.
"So, um, do you have any spare loincloths or anything lying around that I can cover up with?" Dib asked awkwardly.
"Sorry, don't have anything I can spare," Tenn lied smoothly. Like hell was she going to let her meal cover himself up and spoil her fun, even if there wasn't much to show below the waist.
"Yeah, fine, that's my luck anyway lately," Dib muttered, though without much heat in his words. For some reason, he found himself caring less and less about his nudity by the minute, at least in front of this hot redhead who seemed oddly familiar the more he looked at her… and then it hit him.
"Wait a minute… you're that girl! The one I went over those falls with last year!" he exclaimed.
"Guilty. I was wondering when you'd recognize me; I certainly didn't forget what you looked like," she chuckled. That just made Dib even more flustered than he already was as he was reminded that she hadn't met him on his best day, and that his current situation wasn't much better. So he quickly brought out the small talk to try and distract her.
"Uh, good to see you looking well! I was worried when you suddenly vanished by the time I woke up," he said.
"Thank you. Sorry about ditching you after you saved me, but I had to go somewhere pretty urgently, so the best I could do was drop you off at the nearest village and hope for the best. But nice to see you looking well," she said, before smirking and shooting a meaningful look at his crotch, "even if you don't seem to have changed at all."
"Wait, no! I did grow since then, honest!" Dib shouted, embarrassed.
"Oh, do let me guess. 'A succubus cursed your willy to shrink?' Come on man, that is literally the oldest excuse in the book!" she said, rolling her eyes. Although she knew for a fact that it was true that shrinking someone's manhood was a popular curse for succubi… well, let's be honest, most of the time guys just use that as an excuse to explain away their physical shortcomings. It was a sad yet unavoidable trend no matter what universe you were in.
Dib sighed in resignation as that same thought occurred to him. And really, he didn't want to go near the subject of "succubus" and risk exposing Tak to another person… or was it the first time? Meeting Viera and spending the whole day with her on that roof didn't feel like a dream, but something was making him want to believe what Tenn was telling him.
For her part, Tenn knew that while the potion was working, she'd have to wait awhile before it could have its full effect and fully override any protections that Tak would likely have put on Dib to keep other demons' mitts off of her claimed mate. So, she decided she might as well make conversation with him in order to buy time for it to happen.
…Well, that, and the fact she was curious about this human that not only saved her life but inadvertently put her on the fast-track to far greater things so long ago. Plus, since Tak hadn't killed him after mating with him, he must have some great hidden value she just wasn't seeing. So, she might as well satisfy her curiosity about him while she was waiting.
"So, tell me about yourself," Tenn said, lightly shoving Dib to make him sit back down as she took her own seat on the opposite side of the couch. Dib blinked in confusion for a moment before his dulled mind processed what she'd said, and he shrugged.
"Okay, I guess. For starters, I actually do live in that village you left me in…" Dib said, soon going into his whole life story, more or less. He did stay levelheaded enough to avoid mentioning Tak's true nature, but aside from that he held nothing back, telling her about everything from his family life to his fights with Zim to even his harem.
That last bit surprised Tenn and made her wonder if he wasn't lying about being hit with a shrinking curse; how else could he keep so many women satisfied? And his claims of fighting Zim were impressive too, since despite being an idiot, Zim was still a very dangerous demon to face off with. Really, all of this was making Dib even more appealing to her. He was quite clever and interesting indeed… for a human, she quickly corrected herself.
But as nice as this had been, it was simply a warm-up for the main event. And seeing how flush Dib's face was and how erect he was getting down below, she felt now it was time to begin. So, with a sensuously exaggerated stretch, she got up from her side of the couch and sauntered over to Dib's side, unceremoniously dropping herself into his lap.
"Uh, what?" he stuttered, face growing even redder.
"If you really have a harem, this should be obvious," she replied with a purr, wrapping her arms around him and pulling him in for a kiss, her tongue quickly forcing itself into his mouth. Dib was startled, but with how addled and horny the potion had left him, he didn't try to resist for more than a moment, instead pulling her close and kissing her just as deeply.
The making out intensified, both of them moaning and hands roaming all over. Feeling things reaching the right point, Tenn prepared to disperse her bees and get to the good stuff… and then as they momentarily broke apart to breathe, Dib's out of focus gaze happened to fall on a corner of the room that he'd been too distracted to notice before, where a series of glyphs were engraved on the wall. Even in his drug-altered state, Dib's subconscious was still analytical enough to take in those symbols and recognize them from some scrolls that Tak had once shown him about the kinds of demonic magic she knew. And that recognition was enough to break through the haze in his mind and snap him back to coherence.
"Hey, those are demonic glyphs!" he exclaimed, shoving Tenn off of him and scooting back to look at her accusingly, "Are you a demon?"
Tenn was thrown by this unexpected development. She briefly tensed up, readying for trouble and mentally cursing this complication… when she suddenly realized something.
"Wait a minute, how would you be able to recognize a glyph!? This is a secret known only to demons!" she shouted, only for realization to hit her and leaving her staring at him in disbelief, "Did Tak tell you this?!"
"Uh… no?" Dib said quickly, panicking at his slip-up and trying to bluff past it. Naturally, Tenn didn't fall for it and laughed gleefully.
"Ha, this is perfect!" she cackled, "Miss high and mighty, acting like she's the epitome of everything demonic, and here she is sharing our secrets with a human, one of the greatest crimes a demon can commit! Oh, she's going to suffer for this when I report it!"
"Wait, hold up!" Dib pleaded, "You can't do that to her! Come on, don't you owe me something for saving you?"
"Dib, you're cute, and admittedly I do owe you a lot more than you realize… but nowhere near enough to make me pass up an opportunity to finally stick it to Tak!" Tenn replied with a smirk.
"Is there nothing I can do to convince you to not rat her out?" Dib asked with a groan, "I'll do anything! Name it!"
At this point, Dib's luck once again came out in force. For Tenn currently felt on top of the world and more then a bit cocky, so she felt confident enough to both celebrate and assert her dominance on the cute human boy. And she knew just the way.
"I'll make you a deal. We do a lover challenge," she said, making Dib start in surprise.
"I- what?" he stuttered, not sure he'd heard her right.
"You heard me," she said with a smirk, "We make love, and if you last longer than me, then I won't rat on Tak. In fact, I'll even join your harem, so long as I'm a wife in equal standing with her. But if you fail to last longer, then I win and… well, for starters you'll have to do whatever I want. But the details can wait until then. Deal?"
Dib was understandably flustered at this, especially at the thought of Tenn potentially joining his harem. Though the idea of what she might do if he lost, to both him and Tak, was pretty terrifying.
Still, he was pretty sure he didn't have much of a choice in the matter, so he reluctantly sighed and nodded.
"Okay, I agree to your-"
"Great!" Tenn said, dispersing her bees and barely giving Dib a chance to gape at her before pouncing on him, the two quickly entangling themselves on the couch.
And as they started making love, they continued to go unaware of what else was going on in the city.
XXXXXXX
While Dib and Tenn were distracted by their… "competition" inside the safe house, the demons' invasion of New Age-opolis continued unabated outside. Though Red and Purple were still distracted by their petty argument, they didn't need to be actively giving orders for their army to rampage across the city, overwhelming the human defenders and wiping out everything in their path.
Lord Nooth had a good view of all this unfolding chaos from the safety of his palace. Looking down at the devastation spreading across his domain, he grit his teeth in rage before turning a furious glare on the group of his aides gathered nearby.
"These filthy demons are coming too close to the palace! Why aren't our main defenses kicking them out?!" he demanded.
"Sir, we had to shut them down-" one of the aides started to say, which only caused Nooth to focus his ire fully on the man.
"WHAT?!" he demanded, the other aides quickly backing away from their unfortunate colleague.
"Sir, whatever happened yesterday in the main chamber badly damaged the central control and containment units. We didn't have the chance to repair them before this invasion, using them at full power could cause critical-"
"Blah, blah, blah! I didn't ask for your life story! Now go power up the defenses so we can obliterate these things!"
"Sir, please!" the aide pleaded, "We don't know what will happen if-"
"GAH! Someone execute this fool and find someone who'll turn the machines on!" Nooth commanded. The aide tried to protest, but was grabbed by a pair of guards and dragged off to be beheaded, Nooth ignoring this as he continued to rant, "We must protect me! …Er, I mean, the people! We must protect the people! So go turn the defenses on, full power! That's an order!"
No one dared to disobey and risk losing their heads, so they reluctantly did as they were told, rushing off to activate the city's defenses at their maximum settings. Across New Age-opolis, hidden cannons and other weapons sprang to life and opened fire on the demons, catching them off guard and mowing them down by the score. However, their sheer numbers meant that this was only slowing down their advance, and caused the destruction to worsen as the fighting was bogged down.
And all the while, in the heart of Nooth's castle, the machines Miyuki had given him pumped and pounded and stirred as hard as they could… and as they did, the damage that Dib had inadvertently caused the day before worsened, pipes bursting and tanks rupturing. Alarms sounded throughout the complex, but those few who heard them feared Nooth's wrath more than what the alarms might mean and chose to ignore them.
So as the war raged on, no one in the city was aware of the growing danger in the heart of it all.
XXXXXXX
Tenn lay splayed on the couch, utterly stunned. She'd actually lost?! She couldn't comprehend how this could have happened… mostly because she was having trouble thinking at all at the moment, honestly. Despite Dib's currently shrunken state, his sheer stamina had kept him going so long even she'd actually been pushed to her limits for once. Indeed, although the majority of Dib's life had been hell, the torture he'd gone through had given him greater stamina and willpower then most humans alive. Add to that all the experience he'd recently gained having to keep his entire harem happy… well, if he were a less modest person, he'd probably be bragging about being a sex god or something.
As it was, he was currently laying on the couch next to Tenn, physically content but his mind still managing to whirl at everything that had happened in such a short amount of time. He was especially worried about what Tenn would do once she came out of the apparent bliss coma she was in at the moment. He hoped she'd keep her word and not expose Tak's violation of the demons' rules, and a part of him definitely wouldn't mind having her join the harem… but he wasn't sure if she'd actually want to do so, and he didn't want her to feel like she had no choice in the matter because of their impromptu wager. After all, his harem was all voluntary (in fact, most members had pretty much insisted on joining); he'd never forced anyone into it, and he wasn't going to start now.
Dib was pulled from his thoughts as Tenn stirred next to him and sat up.
"Well, I underestimated you," she muttered, looking at him with a mix of annoyance and awkwardness.
"Er, well, if it helps, I'll settle for you just not ratting out Tak. You don't have to join the harem if you don't want to," he replied, just as awkwardly.
"Actually, I do," she said with a sigh, "I got cocky and willed a geass onto the terms of our bet. Meaning I now have to hold up the entirety of my end or else I'll burst into eternal flames."
"Oh, uh, sorry?" Dib said, too stunned to think of anything else to say in response to that.
"It's fine, I've been in worse situations, I can deal with it," Tenn waved it off. And truthfully, having had a moment to process all this, she'd decided it really wasn't something to get too worked up about. Yes, she'd have to give up probably her only chance to get rid of her rival, but she wasn't mad… speechless maybe, but not mad. Besides, it wasn't that bad. True, being married to a human would have many problems with her place in the demonic hierarchy, but considering this particular human had enough stamina and skill to give someone as experienced as her such intense pleasure, she honestly couldn't find it in her to be too bothered about that.
Besides, thankfully she hadn't taken leave of ALL her senses when she'd made that deal — she had, after all, ensured she'd be equal to his first wife, which was Tak. Tenn couldn't decide if the look on her face when she learned about this would make up for the irritation of essentially admitting she was an equal and sharing a mate with her…
BOOM
And then her musings were interrupted when one wall of the room exploded inwards, the force of the blast flipping the couch over and sending Dib and Tenn flying. As they scrambled to get back to their feet, the smoke and dust from the explosion cleared to reveal a familiar figure standing in the new hole in the side of the safe house.
You see, while Tenn and Dib had been going through this whole experience, Viera had been leading her impromptu militia in counterattacking the demon invasion. Though since they were all dimwitted and easily confused to the point of being mostly useless — especially compared to when the city's defenses reactivated — this mostly amounted to her using them to stockpile explosives and other weapons, then sending them out in random directions with orders to fight any demons they found.
The fact that she was probably sending a significant number of those people off to die was more cathartic than was probably healthy, but considering how they'd ignored and belittled her over the years, she felt she could live with it.
Anyway, after taking her gathered weapons, Viera's next step was tracking down and gathering her snakes back up — let those morons run with the "naked militia" idea all they wanted, she preferred not fighting in the buff if she could avoid it, thank you very much. And once she was clad in her living armor again, she began a search-and-destroy mission, hunting down all the demon safe houses she knew were hidden around the city, in order to deny the demons a chance to use them to regroup once the tide was turned against them.
Which is how she found herself standing in the wall she'd just blown open, preparing to destroy whatever she found inside, only to stare in shock at what she saw.
"Dib? You're okay!" she exclaimed, only to frown in suspicion, "Wait, why are you in here of all places?"
"Oh, hey, good to see you're okay too," Dib said awkwardly, genuinely grateful to see that (and also to get confirmation that she was in fact real), but aware of how badly she'd probably take this particular situation. A worry that was confirmed as Viera belatedly noticed Tenn's presence, eyes widening in shock and then narrowing in anger.
"You!" she spat.
"I'm billing you for those damages," Tenn replied dryly, returning the glare even as she summoned back her bees to cover her again. And it was only at this point that Viera seemed to process that she had been naked, causing her to blink in confusion, then shock, and then turn a disgusted glare on Dib.
"Okay, seriously? Not only are you married to a succubus, but you also decided to bang this demon bitch?" she demanded in disbelief.
"Jealous?" Tenn asked with a smirk, causing Viera to flush.
"What? No, I- shut up!" she snapped.
"Um… so you two know each other, obviously," Dib commented, trying to defuse the tension.
"Yeah, I've pretty much been fighting her ever since she came to the city, kind of like what you said about you and Zim in your village," Viera explained, which earned a derisive snort from Tenn.
"Don't compare me to that idiot," she said, "Besides, from what Dib told me, our confrontations have been a lot more high-class than their ridiculous rivalry."
"Considering how most of our fights end up, I wouldn't say 'high-class' is the right term," Viera muttered.
"How's that?" Dib asked.
"Don't ask," the girls replied in tandem, making Dib arch an eyebrow in confusion. He got the distinct impression he wasn't going to be getting any clarification, not least of all because it looked like they were about to start fighting any second. Looking around frantically for any means of breaking the situation up, his gaze fell on a nearby shelf he'd overlooked before, with rows of potion bottles stored on it. One in particular caught his attention, labeled as "Flashbackium".
Grinning as he recognized that name from his father's lab, Dib grabbed the bottle and cleared his throat to get the girls' attention.
"Well, if you're not going to tell me, I'll just have to take a look," he said, holding up the potion for them to see, causing their eyes to widen.
"Wait a minute-" Viera protested.
"Don't you dare-!" Tenn growled.
Dib ignored both of them, throwing the bottle at their feet. It shattered, and the potion reacted immediately with the air, sending up a cloud that filled the room and wrapped around the girls in particular. It then did what it was designed to do, bringing to life their memories…
Begin Flashbacks
To understand the enmity between Viera and Tenn, one would have to look back to the early days after Nooth's demon-backed takeover of the village which grew into New Age-opolis. As has been previously stated, Viera had been the only one to see the demon infiltration and had worked hard to try and blunt it, only to be repeatedly brought up short by the obliviousness of everyone around her. Unlike Dib in his fight with Zim, she wasn't stubborn enough to keep mindlessly trying to get those idiots to see the threat surrounding them when all they did was ridicule her in return, so after awhile her attitude towards things settled on "fight the demons, hope no one dies in the process, but don't get too upset if they do".
So, unlike Dib, Viera focused on actually fighting the demons, rather than exposing them. Admittedly, if the opportunity arose to try and do so, she'd go for it, but for the most part she was just sabotaging the demons' efforts to increase their power over the city. And to be fair, she'd gotten quite good at it… albeit at the cost of particularly negative backlash from the human public pretty much every time. For example, one time she'd burned down a demon-run marketplace that was selling human meat, only to be chased by an angry mob of humans who had thought the meat was "long pig" and were furious she'd destroyed the newfound delicacy. Another time, she'd destroyed a zoo where the demons were secretly breeding new monsters, and the city had gotten mad at her for killing the "rare and exotic animals from foreign lands" and actually tried to feed her to some of the surviving ones. And of course, there was the time she'd saved a bunch of kids from being brainwashed into obedience in a local school, and everyone had assumed she'd been attacking the kids; the public outcry on that had been enough that she'd been placed in the stocks, stripped naked, and left there for a week for passerby to insult her and pelt her with rocks and rotten food.
On the plus side, that particular humiliation had been what had driven her to start wearing her snakes as clothes, to both protect her from being caught and to make it harder to end up unwillingly naked.
Anyway, despite her name basically being mud by this point, Viera continued to fight, slowing down the demons' plans significantly. And that's when Queen Miyuki sent in Tenn to deal with her, which she attempted to do in a seemingly very straightforward manner, assaulting her house in the middle of the night. But at the end of the fight, things took an unexpected turn…
Viera coughed heavily as she stumbled out of the collapsing ruin of her house, which had caught fire during the fight. Taking a few deep breaths as she reached the clearer air on the sidewalk, she scowled as she watched her home and belongings burn to the ground.
"Great, now I'm going to have to start over from scratch… ah well, at least none of you got hurt," Viera grumbled, before scratching the head of one of the snakes wrapped around her chest, which hissed in enjoyment. Viera grinned at that, which took on a victorious gleam as she turned to further down the sidewalk, where Tenn had collapsed to her hands and knees. The demon's bee familiars appeared to have all either died or fled, leaving her not just naked but also lacking enough magic to maintain her human disguise, leaving her true demon self bared in every sense of the word.
"Looks like you lose," Viera said, smirking triumphantly down at the demon, the smirk only growing as she heard the sound of approaching guards, "And now your evil is about to be exposed for everyone to see."
Viera expected some kind of rant or threat. What she didn't expect was for Tenn to suddenly match her smug look.
"Guess again," Tenn replied, before to Viera's surprise she suddenly changed back into her human form. And then, before Viera could even process this, Tenn suddenly started screaming, "Help! Someone save me from this lunatic!"
"Wait, what?" Viera asked, utterly confused. And that moment of hesitation cost her, as Tenn's bees suddenly swarmed back in from nowhere and struck Viera's snakes, stinging all of them. Hissing in pain and fear, the snakes all bolted, jumping off of their mistress and slithering away into the evening's lengthening shadows; by the time Viera even realized what was happening, they were all long gone, leaving her the nude one as Tenn's bees reclothed her.
"Son of a bitch," Viera moaned, turning bright red and covering herself with her arms as a group of guards carrying buckets full of water turned a corner and came into sight.
"Alright, what's going-Whoa!" the guard captain started to say, only to trail off as he and his men stared at what they saw.
"Hey, isn't that the crazy snake girl?" one of the guards asked.
"Yeah, but it looks like she forgot the snakes!" another guard snickered as several of the others wolf-whistled, making Viera's blush increase. Tenn, meanwhile, ran past her and up to the captain.
"Oh please, help me!" she whimpered, giving watery puppy dog eyes, "This crazy girl called me a demon, kidnapped me, and tried to set me on fire!"
"That's a lie!" Viera snapped, summoning as much bravado as she could in the situation, "She broke into my house and attacked me first!"
"And you're not going to deny calling her a demon?" the captain asked dryly.
"Because she is!"
"Right, I'm gonna stop you right there before you start ranting again. Take her away," the captain ordered several of his men. Viera tried to protest, but without her snakes she was unable to fight off the guards as they grabbed her and dragged her down the street. Watching them go, the captain turned to face Tenn, only to blink in surprise as he saw that she had disappeared.
"Huh, guess she ran home. Can't blame her for that, just hope she remembers to file a formal report," the captain mused, before shaking it off, "And someone start dousing this fire before it spreads!"
The good news was that Tenn, having newly arrived in New Age-opolis and being unfamiliar with all its legal codes, failed to properly file a complaint against Viera for her alleged actions. As such, the magistrate decided that she couldn't be prosecuted for those supposed crimes. The bad news was, the magistrate decided that she could be charged for public nudity and arson of her own home. To punish her, she was once again left nude in the stocks for a week, once more pelted with insults and projectiles.
Once she'd gotten out, Viera had used an assumed name to get a new home in the building where she'd be living when Dib met her, and slowly rebuilt her supplies and finances. She also took the security precaution of enchanting the place so that no one could find it unless she wanted them to, guaranteeing that she wouldn't have to worry about anymore surprise attacks. And all the while, she kept an eye out for Tenn, looking to both stop her part in the demonic invasion and to also settle the score with her.
As it turned out, she didn't have to look far. One day, Viera attended the public opening of a new horseless carriage-making company owned by a local eccentric inventor who had rather strong and public anti-Nooth leanings, where she spotted Tenn also in the crowd. Considering Nooth's alliance with the demons and the inventor's opposition to his grip on power, Viera was certain that Tenn was there to sabotage him, something seemingly confirmed when Tenn was one of the first people to get a job at the company… so one can imagine her surprise when her covert observations showed that Tenn had actually become a model employee, and was pushing productivity for the company through the roof.
Seeing all this, Viera came to the conclusion that the inventor must have been a demon too, and his opposition to Nooth a smokescreen to hide his true actions. Just to be sure, she snuck into a feast he was hosting and secretly spiked his stew with a toxin that only demons were vulnerable to, and her suspicions were seemingly confirmed when he developed a serious rash in reaction to ingesting it.
Now convinced that the inventor was a demon, Viera swiftly moved to eliminate him and end whatever plan Tenn was carrying out. Unfortunately for her, things didn't work out quite as she hoped…
The inventor stood by his office window, unable to do anything but stare in shock at the sight below him. His factory was on fire, something having set off an explosion in the central portion of the building. A large crowd of city guards and bystanders had gathered in the square outside, along with the rapidly evacuating factory workers, all of them trying to stop the spread of the flames. But it was clear even from ten floors up that this was a doomed endeavor, the factory now fated to be destroyed.
"How did this happen?!" he exclaimed in shock and rage. He turned to leave his office, to run down and try to salvage something from this disaster — and Viera suddenly swung down from where she'd been hiding in the ceiling and rammed her feet into his chest. The impact sent him flying backwards to smash through the window and fall towards the ground below.
"Got ya, jackass!" Viera cheered, running over to the window and looking out it, intending to watch the demon reveal his true form in front of the crowd below to save himself from the fall.
SPLAT
Instead, to her horror, he hit the ground full force, the impact clearly killing him. As the crowd screamed in surprise terror, Viera could only look on in shock at what had happened.
"Wh-what?" she croaked, feeling sick to her stomach, "He was human? But how-?"
"Smile!" a familiar voice suddenly called out from behind her. She spun around, and barely had a chance to process that Tenn was standing there, next to one of those newfangled photography tripods that had been introduced to the city a short while ago, before the flash powder combusted as Viera's picture was taken. Her snakes hissed in surprise and, before Viera could do more than blink the spots from her eyes, they jumped off of her and bolted, slithering past Tenn and right out of the room.
"Ha! Didn't expect that to happen, but it's a nice bonus," Tenn cackled, "Have fun fleeing the scene in the nude!"
"You… you set me up, didn't you?!" Viera exclaimed, even as she covered herself as best she could with her arms, face burning red.
"Like it was that hard?" Tenn scoffed, even as she pulled the photograph card out of the camera and dusted it off, "All I had to do was act like I was supporting that fool, and I knew your obsessive drive to defeat my kind at all costs would kick in. Especially once I outsmarted your little trick with the toxin in his stew — I saw that move coming a mile away, and all I had to do to counter it was have one of my bees sting him beforehand and infect him with a toxin of my own that would react with yours even though he was human. So now, one of our puppet's most influential critics has been silenced, and with this photographic evidence that you were responsible, your efforts against us will be tainted and viewed as the actions of a murderous lunatic."
By now, Viera's blush had faded in favor of her face going pale at the implications of what Tenn was saying. And she only paled further as she heard the sounds of rapidly approaching footsteps, no doubt guards coming to investigate the inventor's death. And she knew that this time, she wouldn't get away with just some time in the stocks.
Cursing Tenn with extreme vitriol, Viera ran out of the room through a side door. Tenn let herself enjoy that for a moment, then schooled herself into the image of a frightened employee who had just seen her employer be randomly murdered, just as the guards burst into the room, ready to tell them what she wanted them to hear.
Just as Tenn predicted, the photographic evidence of Viera's culpability in the inventor's death turned her from a pariah who everyone still managed to tolerate into basically public enemy number one, a perceived madwoman with a killer instinct. The poor girl soon found herself not being avoided when recognized on the street, but actively being attacked by angry mobs; it got to the point where she needed to use a special perfume she developed that basically gave her a minor glamor and made people not recognize her, just to go further than five steps out of her home.
Meanwhile, a demon-owned company was quick to move in and buy out what was left of the inventor's business, consolidating their stranglehold on New Age-opolis' technology, and the city as a whole. Queen Miyuki had been extremely pleased with this and lauded Tenn with praise for her ingenuity, but had questioned why she hadn't just killed Viera to eliminate her as a threat. In response, Tenn — who unlike Zim wasn't an egomaniac who couldn't admit when he needed aid — said that Viera's presence actually made her job easier if properly handled, as this particular incident just proved how her anti-demon efforts could be twisted to undermine her cause and strengthen the demons' control of the city. Besides, in another way Tenn was unlike Zim, she wasn't a sadist who went out of her way to torture or kill her enemies; she just wanted to get her job done.
Admittedly, she would keep stripping Viera and humiliating her every chance she got, but she could justify that to herself by saying she was denying Viera use of her snakes.
In any case, fresh off this victory and the rewards she received for it, Tenn returned to her lair to celebrate. Unfortunately for her, it wasn't long before she found out that Viera was smarter than she gave her credit for.
Tenn sighed in contentment as she lay on a couch in her lair. Having been inspired by Viera's home that she'd burned down, the demon had converted the house she was using into a greenhouse, where in her spare time she grew mystical plants she could make use of, using her bees to pollenate and hybridize them. Though in a major divergence from Viera's house, she also had a makeshift morgue, where she kept stolen human corpses that served as the basis for beehives to cultivate her swarms.
Taking this all in while sipping a drink, Tenn happily mused on how this humble setup was letting her advance so far through the ranks. Obviously she'd upgrade to something grander once the demons openly ruled all these lands, but she had to admit that this lair would always have a special spot in her heart. Here, she was utterly sated and master of her own domain.
BOOM
Or she was, right up until something caused one of the walls to explode, the force of the blast knocking Tenn off of her seat and tumbling to the floor.
"What?" she exclaimed, scrambling back to her feet. To her further surprise, she found Viera standing in the new hole in the wall, wrapped in snakes that were glaring at Tenn, and a satchel slung over one shoulder that was full of potion vials.
"How the hell did you find where I live?" Tenn demanded, her bees buzzing loudly in response to her agitation.
"You're not the only one who can be clever," Viera replied smugly, "I may not have seen your setup coming, and I'm going to have to live with what I did, but I did know you'd try to pull something on me again at some point. So I trained my snakes to react at my signal, to leave me and mark you with their scent. I figured that a little humiliation was worth it to have a way of tracking you down."
Tenn's eyes widened, as she suddenly remembered how many of Viera's snakes had brushed against her as they'd fled past her out of the inventor's office. She'd been so distracted by her amusement at Viera's predicament that she hadn't even really noticed that detail. However, she quickly composed herself and glared at her enemy, trying to regain the upper hand.
"Well, if you're so clever, why did it take you days to find me then?" she sneered, only for Viera to smirk.
"Oh, I found it right away, I just needed to take a few preparations. It's why I modified a few of my snakes and had them infiltrate here first."
"Wait, what?" Tenn blinked in confusion… and then shrieked as her collection of human corpses all suddenly sat up and jumped off of the tables holding them. The beehives growing out of their bodies burst off and fell away, the coils of the snakes that had pushed them out becoming visible through the new holes, while the snakes' heads popped out of the corpses' mouths to hiss ominously at the stunned Tenn.
"Yeah, you don't even want to know what I had to do to pull this off," Viera commented with a shudder before shaking it off, "But the point is, you're now totally outnumbered, so give up!"
However, to Viera's surprise, Tenn snapped out of her surprise and just sneered at her.
"You think you're the only one who can control things through her familiars?" she asked, snapping her fingers. In response, energy flew from her bees into the pollen covering her various hybrid plants, which twisted and warped into massive sizes, with claws and fangs bursting into existence on them as they burst out of their pots.
The snake-controlled copses lined up behind Viera as she readied her weaponized potions, while the pollen-animated plant monsters gathered behind Tenn as she gathered dark magic in her hands. The two groups glared at each other for a moment, before giving battle cries and charging at each other.
(Epic "Plants vs Zombies" fight scene removed by interdimensional lawyers)
Some time later, Tenn's lair was in ruins. All the animated corpses and plants had been destroyed, all the snakes and bees had either been killed or driven off, and all of Viera's potions had been used up while Tenn had exhausted her magical reserves. But neither of them cared at this point; despite both being rendered nude and reduced to having to fight mostly with their bare hands, they punched, kicked, and clawed at each other, also taking the time to pound each other with whatever they could grab ahold of.
And then that desperate grab and smash led to Tenn snatching up a bottle labeled "Blooming Heart pollen". Too exhausted and furious to notice this, Tenn smashed the bottle over a lunging Viera's head, causing the pollen to scatter all over them. Neither really noticed this as they continued to fight, but they would have been concerned if they were, considering Bloom Heart was a very potent drug — specifically, a potent aphrodisiac.
So it was that they breathed in the pollen and absorbed it into their systems, the heightened state of their metabolisms from the fight causing it spread through them and kick in even faster than it would have normally. Amidst the adrenaline already being pumped by their accelerated heartbeats, other hormones and chemicals started flooding their blood and reaching their brains.
Given their current fight or flight mode, neither girl noticed this. Not until Viera full-body tackled Tenn, sending them both flying before hitting the ground hard, leaving Viera straddling the demon. She tried to grab Tenn's throat to start throttling her, and Tenn grabbed her arms to try and throw her off… and then they made eye contact, and something clicked in their addled minds. Suddenly, there was no murderous rage, just pure attraction and desire.
Tenn grabbed Viera's shoulders and pulled her down-
CRACK
End Flashbacks
The Flashbackium clouds dispersed, ending the increasingly steamy scene to reveal the interior of the demon safe house again. More specifically, to show Dib doubled over, due to the fact that both Viera and Tenn's feet were firmly planted in his crotch.
"Why?" he croaked.
"We told you not to use that damn potion," Viera growled as the girls retracted their feet and let him slump to the floor, "We did not want to relive any of that!"
"Especially since we agreed to never speak of that last part again," Tenn added, both of them blushing from the last portion of the flashback.
"Yeah, that's also why we avoided each other as much as possible since then," Viera commented, awkwardly rubbing the back of her neck, "Which isn't to say we haven't still fought a few times since then… and there was that time we had to team up against of homicidal Tikoloshe her superiors accidentally sent her instead of that Zim guy you mentioned."
"Ugh, don't even mention that," Tenn muttered, rubbing her forehead in annoyance, "And enough with the exposition already. Are we going to fight or not?"
Dib gulped as he watched as the girls both tensed up, their animals likewise growing agitated as they prepared to attack each other. Aside from not wanting to get caught up in the crossfire of what was about to happen, he also just didn't want to see them hurt each other — he liked Viera, and despite the circumstances, Tenn didn't really seem like a bad person, just someone stuck on the wrong side of things. After all, Tak had been likewise dedicated to the demonic cause, yet she'd learned to live among humans just fine.
Deciding that he had to put a stop to this before it could start, Dib ignored the pain in his crotch and got to his feet. He opened his mouth to say something-
CRASH
-and that was when the Massive, still running blindly as Red and Purple continued their pointless argument atop its head, rammed into the building. As it smashed apart, one of the Massive's huge legs hit Dib straight on; thanks to his luck, this didn't kill him or send him flying. Instead, he got tangled up in its fur, leaving him to be carried away by the humongous beast as it continued running on.
This all took mere moments, and by the time the dust cleared, the Massive was already disappearing into the distance, taking Dib with it. Tenn and Viera, meanwhile, could only stand there dumbfounded, not comprehending what had just happened. Eventually it clicked, and they exchanged a look before nodding in silent agreement — their personal dispute could wait, right now they needed to focus on saving Dib from what was most likely certain death when the Demon Lords realized they had an unwitting hitchhiker.
With that, they ran in the direction that the Massive had gone, hoping they could catch up in time.
XxxxxxxxxxxxxxX
A/N: And that's a wrap for this chapter. Hope the flashback sequence wasn't too jarring for anyone; that format was the only way I could see to fit in the bulk of what TCC wanted for that section of the story.
Please review!
