"Great!" N. Gin said. "Meet me on the first floor when, ahem… you two are done." He winked again at the two of them. Nefarious noticed Mariana blushing. He chuckled and held her close, rustling her hair. Looking at the scar and burn on her chest, he proceeded to kiss it gently.
"I'm sorry that happened." He apologized to her. "You should have left it to us. We would have figured it out without you getting hurt." He felt her shrug. Looking up to her face, he found no regret whatsoever in her eyes.
"What is done is done." She said simply. "I think… nn…" She had been interrupted by a kiss. She took his face in her icy hands and traced its outline. She lightly wrapped one of his long beards around her index finger and let it go; like a spring.
Every moment with her made him feel so alive… so real… so… in-touch with reality. It was not only their intimacy, oh no. It was everything about her that made him feel that way. The only one outside of the N-Team and late friend Jeffery who has ever been truly kind to him, has not been frightened by his appearance, and was not terrified by his unhealthy obsession with time. She was also like a mother to him in many ways, which was unusual but not at all unpleasant.
Suddenly, the Pentagram on his back began to burn again. He focused on fighting off, and or ignoring the pain, but it did not seem to work. He broke away from his kiss with Mariana a little too quickly, and fell over onto his back. The Pentagram began to sting even more, but the pain did not spread throughout his entire body. It stayed perfectly on the lines of the circle and the star, and it felt as if it was stabbing further and further into his body, making every organ of his burn like the fires of Hell. He let out a small cry of pain and cringed. Feeling his eyes shift again, he began to lose consciousness.
Mariana, of course worried about him, laid her palm on his stomach and chanted something under her breath. Her hand lit up, but whatever spell she used obviously did no good.
"I really did not want to do this, but…" She pulled her arm back, and made her hand into a fist. With blinding speed, strength, and accuracy, she punched him right in the center of his stomach.
The wind was forcibly knocked out of him in one sharp gasp, and he felt as if he could vomit from the impact, but the Pentagram had stopped burning, and that pain was gone completely. Now he had a new pain to deal with. As if trying to ease the pain from Mariana's punch with the blanket under him, he rolled over onto his stomach, but ended up falling off the side of the bed, and he found himself kissing the cold stone floor. This impact also had an effect on him wanting to run to the bathroom and be done with it. Unfortunately, now, he had no other option, and did as such.
Mariana face palmed herself and said, "I am an idiot…" She quickly put on his lab coat, buttoning it up most of the way, and grabbed her robes. Rushing into the bathroom, she found Nefarious laying on his right side next to the toilet. She flushed it, sat him upright, and began pulling her robes over his head. Putting the hood down, she rested one hand on his pale face, and rubbed his back with the other.
"Are you alright, Nefarious?" She asked worriedly. He looked as if he were going to faint. "I'm sorry… I didn't want to, but there was no other option."
He grabbed the wrist of the hand that she had put against his face, and set it on his forehead. "But mum… I don't want to go to school…"
"Oh, great…" Mariana face palmed herself again.
"Allo, governor! Care for a spot of tea?" He paused. "No, wait! Marry me, paupet!"
"What?" She almost could not believe what she was hearing from him. "Am I the governor, or your mother, or what?" And to make it worse, she was getting annoyed.
"Siete il sole… la luna… le stelle… ed il miei e soltanto amore…" He held her close and whispered lovingly in her ear. He slowly traced her outline from under her arms down to her hips, sending a slight chill through her body. With one hand on her back holding her securely to him, he rubbed one of her alabaster-white thighs with the other hand, making her shiver. "Don't freak on me now, you were just fine last night."
"Your sudden change in personality is what is scaring me." She said with a hint of anger in her voice. Although she was flattered and blushing about what he had just said to her in Italian, she wished that he would just act normally.
"You look even more beautiful in white than you do in black." He said as he studied her wearing his lab coat. Slipping the closest button to the collar that was closed out of its hole, he added, "It's a shame you need to take it off…" He slipped one hand into her shirt, touched her Pentagram pendant lightly with the tips of his fingers, and added, "Please… just take it off… all of it…"
A loud SMACK was heard, and the left side of Nefarious' face was red. He shut his eyes tightly, shook his head, and then opened them again, as if he was coming out of a trance.
"Wuh?" He wondered what all had just happened. "Where are we? Why are we wearing each other's clothes? What just hit me?" He paused to look at her carefully. "Hmm, you look good in white."
Mariana sighed in relief. "We are in the bathroom, I found it easier to slip my robes onto you while sitting down, and… I just hit you."
"I'm sorry, Mariana." He apologized. "I only get that way when I, well… now you know." He embraced her again, this time trying to kiss her, but then he remembered, "Um… I'll brush my teeth first."
"Please and thank you." As he stood up and headed to the sink, she cast him another full-fledged smile, making his heart pound heavily. As he began to brush his teeth, she stood up, wrapped her arms around his waist and rested her head against his back. He felt his heartbeat pick up again. As he leaned over to spit the toothpaste out into the sink, he felt her grip tighten on him, and she was lifted up. Resting on his arched back, she began to hum something like church music… only the depressing and or haunted-church type played by an organ.
"What tune is that?" He asked out of curiosity.
"I don't know." She said as she was lowered to her feet when he straightened himself out. "Random melody I remember from a ritual night."
"Oh." He turned around in her arms and kissed her. Once more, he slipped his tongue into her mouth, making her moan. She knotted her fingers in his black, silk-like hair as if refusing to let him go anywhere.
"Mm… minty." She said, giggling in between their kiss. He himself chuckled, too. She secured his face to hers, and he tightened his grip around her waist. He hoisted her up and pressed her back against the wall. Their bodies now created a solid line when a shiver suddenly ran down her spine, and he felt it too.
"What's wrong? He asked without letting up.
"Again?" She wondered, somewhat hopefully, somewhat surprised.
"Maybe…" He gave her a gentle nudge.
"Come on, babies! Work it!" N. Gin was standing in the bathroom doorway holding a video camera. "Ahh, Mariana? You could be a little more, I don't know… slutty?" He shrugged. "And, Nefarious… you could get a little more rough with that kiss. Know what I'm saying?"
"N. Gin, what the Hell are you doing?" It was Mariana who had shouted it, making Nefarious laugh so hard, he felt as if he were going to fall backwards.
"You Tube!" N. Gin just smiled at her broadly.
"WHAT?" Nefarious had stopped laughing and shouted with Mariana now.
"I am not a tube!" Mariana growled.
It was N. Gin's turn to laugh. "Just kidding. This thing doesn't even have batteries." He popped open the empty battery chamber to prove his point. The other two sighed and slumped their shoulders in relief. "I was just wondering if you two were ready to go or not. Uka Uka even called Aku Aku for Mariana to ride."
"Seriously?" Nefarious sounded amused. "Uka Uka and Aku Aku… together again?" He laughed once. "This is almost as good as Twinsanity." The doctors decided to name that particular adventure of theirs "Twinsanity", from the insanity they had to put up with while fighting the Evil Twins. Dr. Cortex was even thinking about writing a book about it. The other doctors had all bet that when he did write such a book, almost one-hundred pages of its contents would be filled with detailed descriptions of how much he hated Crash, and what he wanted to do to him. He even remembered N. Gin saying, "Five bucks says he wants to use his head as a soccer ball." He could not wait until it was finished and or published to be able to check it and make five dollars. He snickered at the memory.
"Yeah!" N. Gin leaned against the door frame. "Let's go already! I'll leave you… wait… no, I won't. If I leave you two alone again, something will happen that'll make me wish I had batteries." He grabbed both of their wrists. "Let's go!" He pulled them down the seemingly endless flights of stairs into the entrance hall. Uka Uka and Aku Aku were floating there.
"What took you so long?" Uka Uka sounded upset.
"Sorry, I wasn't feeling well and…" Nefarious began to explain when N. Gin cut him off.
"He barfed." He said plain and simple. "Got really screwed up in the head like always, got smacked, was brought back to his senses, brushed his teeth, and they made out for like five minutes before I made my presence known." Nefarious punched him on the top of his head. "OW! What? That was awesome!"
"Only you would say that, Gin…" Nefarious sighed.
With that being said, the five of them walked out of the castle. Uka Uka and Aku Aku combined their magic to take them directly to the Wastelands.
The Wastelands were mostly made up of orange rock and sand; there were many cacti to weave in and out of making a perfect obstacle course; there were too many caves to count, most with long winding tunnels for the perfect racing and speed test; and best of all… there were no animals that would get in their way.
"This looks…" Mariana stopped in mid-sentence.
"Fun?" N. Gin suggested.
"Awesome?" Said Nefarious.
"Thrilling?" Aku Aku added.
"Painful?" Uka Uka gulped.
"Um… all of the above…" Mariana finally came to the decision that she could not choose one word to describe her feelings right now.
