Chapter 10: Getting Nailed
Do I not like Bedlam? I don't think so. I told him it was nothing personal, and he was all "I...disagree." What does he know, though? He's secretly my favourite! Remember that if you make it through what I'm trying to pass off as a chapter. Yup. Favourite boy. Now if you would all excuse me, I am going to go see a squirrel, that I pretend is my psychiatrist, about the fact that I'm having conversations with fictional characters again.
She thinks I'm nuts! [holds for laughter]
ADAM TAURUS
I think that, despite a few minor setbacks, things are going quite well.
"Going quite well? Minor setbacks?" Adam gestured pointedly towards the images on the rings, "Bedlam's being torn apart, Dominic is on guard duty while he waits for a boat, and Brazen is wandering around a human city looking for a human who's probably using death to get out of paying us what she promised."
A few minor setbacks have come up, but otherwise progressing nicely.
Dai was nonplussed at his irritation regarding how events were unfolding for his three selves. "Yeah, you just liked experiencing eating in that upscale restaurant!" Adam accused, moving back towards Dai and petulantly knocking over the small dining table she had conjured, sending the plates of food and the candles onto what constituted the ground in this strange place, "and speaking of Bedlam..."
There was nothing amiss there, I have told you this. You would have been taken by surprise just as easily as he.
"He was too focused on Blake to notice that someone had joined him on the roof after he came back from getting a late lunch!" Adam moved back to the floating rings.
He is not focused on Blake any more than you would have been, he is simply no longer concerned with leading the faunus terrorists or ending the human oppression of your people. In his shoes, you would be on that table now. The gift of the Relic has allowed you to be elsewhere while that happens, furthering your other goals through Brazen and Dominic.
Adam wanted to say something about how if he'd not been split up, he wouldn't have spent another day on Blakewatch Boulevard. Instead, he went after the bigger threat to his ongoing lives. "Yeah, like it did them much good when their auras shattered without warning," Adam shook his head, "Brazen could have been killed if Mercury or Hazel, or that pilot thing-"
Dai gave an involuntary shudder; she had given a more pronounced version of the involuntary reaction when Brazen had shoved the dehydrated Seer into his cloak. Adam had filed that away for a later discussion: his hostess had some particular revulsion to those two beings. He suspected that it might be due to whatever semblance Cinder's strange boss, Salem, held over the creatures. Or maybe they were just repulsive.
"-had decided that they had more use for me dead than alive. Dominic wasn't so unfortunately positioned, but what if other human bounty hunters had tracked him down? Or if Sun had seen through his disguise and thought that taking me prisoner for Blake would be a fast-pass into her heart?"
Oooh, that would be a romantic gesture. Why do not you do nice things like that for Blake?
Adam glared at Dai.
"I was...am... literally trying to take over the world for her, Dai. The world. A peaceful world, just for us, where humans would never hurt us again."
Dai shrugged and held her arms out in an I-don't-see-how-that-is-better gesture, making her wings stretch out between her hands and legs.
The sharing of your soul's aura between three bodies does have a few potential drawbacks. On the other hand look at how much faster it is regenerating! Your aura reserves are also increasing faster, too, since your soul is experiencing so much more than it would otherwise have been.
Apparently, the strength of aura is connected to how much the person is 'alive': how strong their emotions are, how much they have seen, and the nature of their pursuits. If Adam had ever played a role-playing game, which he hadn't because his life was a mess of strife and hardship, he might have made a reference to how having three bodies let him grind XP faster.
He sat back down in his latest chair - a wiry, spindly metal affair matching the fancy ones found in the upscale human restaurant - which had until his outburst sat by the dining table across from where Dai sat, the rings floating to his right to allow his good eye to watch what his psyche-slices were up to while Dai had tried to rub her claws against his feet under the table.
Dai had set it up after gleefully watching Dominic's meal with the doe-faunus Rothy; a character she had taken a liking to nearly as much as she had taken a dislike to Salt. The latter girl had earned Dai's ire when she had been given a "free show" without showing any gratitude. Adam's successful explanation of the age difference between himself and Salt, and the resultant social stigma of the scene, had backfired when Dai began calling him a pervert for exposing himself to Salt. At that point, he had had to argue that full-frontal nudity was not, in and of itself, objectionable. It was simply a social taboo.
Dai had smiled at that, before removing her chasuble.
So there is nothing inherently wrong with this, then, she had smirked. Adam figured that she had just been waiting for a chance to strip. He had accepted it, stating that he was not bothered. Bedlam, as he put it, "did nothing wrong". If things had gone differently (see: how Dai wanted things to go), then even Adam's limited morality would have been strained by the unexpected encounter with Salt.
Dai's nudity did not fluster him as much as she would have liked it to. He had seen nude women before, but had long ago devoted himself to Blake. I suppose that part of me lives strongest in Bedlam, now. It helped to remind himself that Dai was a different species or something. When he saw a dog without clothes it wasn't erotic. Dogs don't flirt, though, and dogs don't have...features... like Dai. The comparison was not foolproof, hence, he was maybe slightly a little flustered.
As for Lichen, Dai's feelings were yet undecided. Having seen how Bedlam was pinned and drugged on the rooftop, neither she nor Adam had shared Dominic's suspicions against the owner of the safehouse. Dai had been wary of Lichen from the outset, or maybe just upset that the trio had chosen to enter the city through the stench of the sewers; Adam had had to explain to her how he and Ghira had rescued the pregnant faunus from human slavers, with Ghira delivering Salt himself in the wilderness. Dai was concerned that Lichen would feel some loyalty towards Ghira. Adam was convinced that Lichen was still in between the two revolutionaries. "As long as I don't endanger her or Salt, she'll keep us safe."
Of course, that sense of safety was shared by the trio to the extent that they actually all slept at the same time. They did not keep watch, either because of their exhaustion or their selfishness in not wanting to have to stay awake longer than the others.
Which led to yet another discovery for Adam: he could not dive into their rings when they were asleep.
For that matter, he had no idea where Bedlam actually was, since his ring had gone dark after being knocked out. So he was left literally in the dark as to wherever this criminal woman had dragged his Blake-focused self.
Dai presently waved her hand, restoring her romantically candle-lit table and food to its place in front of her so that her fork, held empty in the air by her other hand, could continue enjoying a green version of the stir-fry Dominic had ordered. She had shrunk herself a bit, too, as if jealous of Rothy's entire experience.
Adam convinced her that if she wanted to have a nice dinner with him like Rothy had, it was appropriate to wear something fancy. Or at least, something. She had taken that advice and now wore a more stylish gown, with long slits along the sides that afforded her wings freedom of movement.
Next time you eat at a restaurant, I hope you get what Rothy was having.
"Slim chance of that. Rothy had the chicken pasta and I'm not big on eating meat."
Dai raised an eyebrow. Really? Why is that?
"I was raised by the SDC, they didn't exactly break the budget feeding the working-waifs. When I did break out of my chains I tried ham and chicken but neither one sat well. I'm not sure if it is my particular faunus-heritage..." he tapped his horns, "or just my body not being adjusted for it after a childhood of eating rations, but after that I tried to avoid eating meat. The last time I ate any meat was with Blake in Menagerie, shortly into when I started tutoring her in bladework, when she tried to get me onto eating fish."
Did you not like the smell? Did your darling leave you because you would not eat her seafood?
Adam gave her a wary gaze. Her eyes had widened, her mouth was a sly grin, and she seemed to be particularly proud of herself judging by how her long ears were perked up. Must be some sort of daemon-joke I don't get, he thought.
"Well, since Bedlam is the only one awake right now and he is not really doing anything, what can we do when there is nothing to watch on circle-vision?"
If you wish to not be idle, I would delight in your company, Adam Taurus. The hand that was not busily jabbing at the vegetables on her plate gestured luridly towards her torso, grabbing the edge of her clothing suggestively as if to say 'I could take this off now, if dinner is over'.
Adam pursed his lips together and gave a low hum of disapproval. "Since we have the table, how much do you know about playing cards?"
Cards? Dai asked, her hand falling away from her gown.
Five hands in, Adam realized his mistake playing poker against the strange being: she knew how to bluff exceptionally well. At least he had nothing to bet as far as stakes were concerned beyond the promise of teaching her more card games – a popular pursuit of his followers in Forever Fall forest while Cinder's plan had come to fruition – of which he deemed solitaire to be the best one to teach her first.
Despite his reservations about her, and his entire situation essentially reducing him to being her plaything, he did feel some pity for her. If she was going to end up alone for years after all of his incarnations died, he wanted to leave her with some entertaining thing to remember him by.
She might not be a faunus, but at least she wasn't human.
DOMINIC
"You expect me to believe that?" Lichen looked at Dominic with a severe expression that told him she was not going to accept that he was not Adam Taurus, but in fact Adam Taurus' long-lost twin brother who had journeyed from the kingdom of Vale to the White Fang HQ to meet his eerie-lookalike for the first time, right before the HQ had been attacked by the creatures of grimm drawn by the negativity of the inhabitants caused by the defeat at Haven.
"Why would you not? It is what happened." He responded flatly, feeling particularly clever with the simplicity of it all: it was not like he had known about the relic before he had fumbled upon it and its method of activation. Why would Lichen be any different? "Besides, what other explanation would there be if he is not my long-lost twin brother? We were separated at birth, him being sold to the SDC while I somehow ended up in Vale to be raised in the woods."
"Your sword, though..." she began.
"Yes, Adam had a second set in case of an accident made, which he kept at the HQ. He thinks that I will be able to use it as well as he does, given some training."
"You know what your brother is? What he has done?"
"Yes. I believe in him and his cause completely, Lichen. I don't want any other families to be rent asunder like mine was, because of prejudice." Dominic said through closed teeth, "and while you may not share in our calling, fighting for faunus freedom, I am happy to know that you will at least allow that we have to continue doing it."
Lichen was silent as she processed all of the half-truths and blatant falsehoods Dominic had poured on her. A tale of a hasty meeting as the grimm descended upon the base, fighting side by side through hordes of monsters to get back to the city. All for the faunus.
"If it eases your conscience, I should be gone in a couple of days. An unexpected issue came up while we were here, someone else that I need to find, before I can move on." Dominic stood up and made to leave the living room, but then paused to deliver the coup de grâce: "and Lichen, Adam told me about all that you have done for the faunus in Mistral over the years, and I saw the disrepair of your house, so I spent some time and set up this." Dominic handed her a set of documents from the hardware store he had gone to while staking out the detention facility. "I put down a deposit with your name on it at this location, you just need to decide what you want your kitchen to look like. There's a floating amount attached to your customer file there, too, for any other repairs you want done here. I know it won't be enough to fix everything that needs to be done, but you deserved it. Not just for harbouring my kin, but for taking care of faunus like Rothy and the rest over the past decade."
Lichen took the documents and set them aside. "I don't care about your lien, Dominic. Just make sure that nobody ever links you to me, or Salt, and we can consider ourselves square and even."
Dominic walked out of the room and began heading upstairs to the hidden door to his room.
"I like the granite countertop option, though," she called after him as he reached the last step. He smiled.
He walked into the room and met Brazen's expectant gaze.
[Like a charm, brother]
[Good. Now we can focus on our next steps.] Brazen rose from the bed and looked out the window pensively, muttering "where are you hiding?"
[Author's Warning: You saw the rating and title when you came in]
BEDLAM
The cloth was removed from his face, his captor apathetically watching after allowing him to cough up the water she had poured over it. He aimed at her as he did so, splashing her boot since the rest of her body was too high, far, and he was pretty winded from the waterboarding. Seeing the act of defiance, she gave him a quick kick to the side of his gut with the offended boot. He was glad she did, since it helped him cough up the last of the water hiding in the back of his nose.
She shook her head in disdain. Excepting her communications to him through her scroll speakers, she had remained quiet. On one hand, this required him to always watch her to pick up on her commands, queries, or tics; on the other hand, her reliance on her scroll meant that Bedlam had managed to sneak a few glances at her screen which gave him some idea of what time and day it was. Unless she had thought to change the calendar on her scroll, it was Sunday: more than a full week since his attack on Haven fell apart. She had gotten the drop on him two days ago, but had probably spent most of the first day hauling her catch to wherever he was being accommodated. Yesterday had been spent with the hooded beating, followed by the prolonged attempt to psychologically break him using her illusion semblance. Fast-forward through a comfortable evening spent with the cattle-prod tied to his leg, and one would arrive at the current day where a well-rested captor had decided to try her hand at partially drowning him.
"Not how I normally shower *cough* in the morning but I guess it sort of gets the job done, unlike Torchwick."
Another quick boot to the gut, which led to another fit of coughs and gasps.
"I should thank him for being such a pathetic human criminal: if not for him-"
Kick, kick, followed by a bit more gasping. She stood up from where he was tied and began preparing the cloth for another round of getting wet. She had lowered his restraining table so that she actually stood over him, reclining it just enough to keep the water out of his lungs.
He was practically on the floor.
"-then I would never have had the distinct pleasure of doing his job for him." Bedlam had quickly found that any mention of Torchwick functioned as an anger-button for her. She must have really liked working for him, or maybe they had been lovers? "That's why I don't rely on human labour. Funny, I'm like the SDC that way, except the White Fang had less workplace injuries. That's taking the Battle of Beacon into account."
She rolled her eyes at his constant, irritating banter, which he had decided was a fun way to keep himself occupied. He was no longer really worried about a telepathic semblance being involved in his detention, but thinking of new ways to insult Torchwick kept his mind off more important things on the chance that his assumption of mental safety was wrong. Down came the cloth, then the water.
Bedlam did not like the sensation of drowning. It was a new sensation to him: in Atlas there was generally more of an ice problem than a water problem. Even in the mines, they rarely had to worry about flooding. They had so many other terrors to deal with.
The cloth was removed from his face after a bit of him bucking against his restraints, and his captor began typing on her scroll. "WELL AT LEAST I TRAINED YOU TO SPEAK, BEAST." She smiled, tossing the cloth into the water pail, then sat down by the wall, against the soft foam that silenced the echoes, and exaggerated how comfortable it was to lean against compared to the metal table. "NOW HOW ABOUT YOU TALK ABOUT CINDER?"
"So when Torchwick kissed little boys, did he make you watch in person or just send you the videos later?" That got her to stand back up and come back over to hover over him.
Kick, kick, kick.
Kick.
She paused before the last one, but seemed to resolve that he deserved it. Bedlam wasn't going to apologize for disliking Torchwick, though. The human had treated the White Fang like most humans would treat any faunus – not well – which earned him no redemption points from Taurus. Just because they had both been working for Cinder didn't mean they had ever been on the same side.
"YOU HAVE BEEN HERE A WHILE NOW. I WAS NICE ENOUGH TO GIVE YOU A DRINK. MAYBE YOU ARE GETTING HUNGRY, THOUGH?"
It had been a few days since he had eaten, true, but at least the waterboarding had alleviated his concerns that she was just going to let him dry out. He shrugged insolently, despite her alleged generosity.
She made a kind face, smiling at him while petting him gently on the horns, "I COULD GET YOU A YUMMY TREAT IF YOU TALK ABOUT CINDER."
He considered this: whatever she was offering him would probably be something awful or racist, or both, so it was not much of an incentive. He shrugged again, which made her smile drop into a scowl.
"Where are we, anyways? I'm pretty sure that we're in the undercity, since among other things, where else could a small-time criminal's lackey-"
She gave him a quick backhanded slap to the face for that one.
"-afford to find a place to conduct such hospitality for an old associate?"
She sat back down against the foam wall and typed. "WAREHOUSE; TORCHQUIK ENERGY DRINK MISTRAL DISTRIBUTION CENTRE, BEFORE IT WENT OUT OF BUSINESS BECAUSE OF SPURIOUS LITIGATION."
"Ah yes, TorchQuik energy drinks: a similar side-effect rate as SDCola, but instead of testing their product on faunus employees Roman's family just used the general public to test new recipes. So kind of you to keep his memory alive."
Her eyes flared with anger, then softened. Her mouth curved back into the wicked grin he was beginning to associate with her having a nasty idea or sadistic thrill. She began operating the mechanisms on the table, shifting him forward and up so that he was hanging from his arms again. Once he was in place, she left the room and he heard her rummaging through something on the other side.
"You have me at a disadvantage. Clearly you know my name, but I fail to recall yours. Unless you would prefer me to keep addressing you as 'half-wit's half-pint'." The rummaging stopped.
"NEOPOLITAN"
She came back into the room, holding her scroll and umbrella in one hand, a TorchQuik energy bar in the other.
"Didn't they stop making those things five years ago?"
"YUMMY TREAT FOR A GOOD BOY", she dangled the outdated chemical-bar in front of him, impaling the end of the wrapper on the tip of her bladed parasol so that it would reach his face.
"What allergens does it have? Is it vegan?" Bedlam drawled sarcastically.
She punched him a few times in the gut, which was about how high she could reach with her arms unless she brought in the stool. However, she managed to control her outburst and settled down. She tossed the garbage bar out the door and withdrew the blade into the accessory. "WE DON'T HAVE TO TALK ABOUT CINDER IF YOU DON'T WANT TO RIGHT NOW. LET'S TALK ABOUT YOU." She came back to him, the blade of her weapon concealed yet present all the same. She placed her palm over his sternum, pressing against the plentiful muscles she found there. "GROWN MAN, BUT YOU HAVE NO HAIR ON YOUR CHEST. WHY IS THAT? ARE YOU JUST A FLAT-CHESTED FAUNUS GIRL?"
She patted the cloth of his undershorts in an overtly lewd manner, which made Bedlam avert his eyes from her gaze. The evidence to the contrary of her hypothesis was easy enough to find down there.
She removed her hand to type, "I GUESS NOT."
"I had the honour of testing SDCola Zero after it had gone through a few recipe adjustments – as well as a few groups of my peers. By the time it got to my crew, all it did was prevent me from being able to grow any hair besides what's around my horns." At least my father can't be said to be guilty of never bothering to teach me to shave properly, since there was never any need. Bedlam closed his eyes, trying to forget the months of withdrawal pangs he had suffered through after escaping from his mining crew. The way his brothers in the White Fang had helped hold him down when the cravings overwhelmed him. The sight of crew six, after tasting the first batch of SDCola Lime, and what was left of their throats.
Destroy them all, my brothers, Bedlam prayed to his clones. Bring humanity to its knees.
"So how did you get me, anyways?" He imagined that she would at least be proud of how she had managed that, which could put her in a better mood than his perpetual lack of cooperation had been responsible for so far in their encounter.
"SAW YOU ON TRAIN. KNEW YOU WOULD GO AFTER RWBY. WATCHED YOU FIGHTING BLAKE AT HAVEN ON SCROLL." She smiled at that, and he knew she was relishing the memory of his defeat to Blake and Sun. "TRACKED DOWN WHERE HER TEAM HOLED UP AND STAKED IT OUT. USED LEFTOVER CHEMICALS FROM WAREHOUSE WHEN YOU SHOWED UP TO KNOCK YOU OUT."
"So then you what, dragged me here? Using your semblance so that the goodly humans wouldn't think it odd?"
Neo nodded proudly, then put her hand to her chin and pondered something.
"AT BEACON, SAW DOODLES OF YOU IN BLAKE'S NOTEBOOKS. YOU TWO MUST HAVE BEEN CLOSE."
Bedlam's face flushed and he felt uncertain about how to feel about what Neo had said. Blake was still thinking about me at Beacon...A little spark of hope grew a little brighter inside of him.
Neo hooked the hilt of her umbrella in the hem of his undershorts before walking back out of the room, slipping her heeled shoes off as she left, the door hanging open.
"She is the one I am chasing. I don't care about anything beyond fulfilling my promises to her." The spark of hope grew brighter, and he began to see a way out of this predicament that would turn to his favour. If I can just convince this minuscule moron that we would be better off working together, I can get out of this mess and back to work. Neo's talents and pliable morals were not in question; she could be a boon to any part of his scheming triad. With three eyes on her, Bedlam was confident they could keep her obsession with Cinder aligned to their own agendas. "We could work together. Figure out a deal."
He hated the idea of working with a human, but he'd do anything for his goal. Mines, Blake'd probably appreciate the sight of him working with a human. Until I tie her up and...
"WHAT IF..."
"I'm not even that upset about what you've done to me for the past while, other than it has kept me away from her." I can just let Brazen deal with her, since she is pretty much doing the same thing as him... for different reasons. Brazen could show Neo a thing or two about torture, so if they find Cinder they can interrogate her properly. His brother could get Neopolitan's aid in finding Cinder – making it seem like he was doing the little lunatic a favour in the process – and in return, Neopolitan would assist Bedlam in taking care of Blake. It might be a problem later on, but not his problem later on. He'd have Blake, and that was all that mattered. Brazen would handle it fine, certainly. "I think that, despite all of this, we can still-"
"...BLAKE WAS HERE RIGHT NOW?"
Bedlam went silent. Bedlam's mind stopped thinking.
Blake Belladonna sashayed into the room, emphasizing her hips with every step. Her eyes a solid, sparkling amber. Her hair a lustrous ebony, growing long and hanging down her back in a familiar cascade. Perfect pointed ears sprouted from the top of her head. Black lacy vest over a white undershirt, white shorts and full, dark stockings that came up to meet the edge of the shorts.
Bedlam gave out a ragged moan, "No..."
"I WOULD BE YOURS AGAIN, ALL YOU NEED TO DO IS SAY WHERE CINDER'S HIDEOUT IS." Her mouth moved in sync with the words lilting out of the speakers.
"You're not her. You're not her!" Bedlam cried, struggling frantically against his bonds now, ignoring the welts on his arms and legs where he had been shackled for however long without expending his aura to protect his limbs.
'Blake' pulled the umbrella, giving it a solid, steady tug so as to give gravity a helping-hand in getting it to the ground. His undershorts came along for the ride, stretching, as his legs spread apart, coming to a stop at his knees while the umbrella dangled between his shins and scraped the floor. She let go of the umbrella, letting it swing like a pendulum between his legs. It was not alone in that, which earned another predatory grin that he had never before seen on Blake's face.
Bedlam stopped moving, forgetting even to breathe. That was fine: his brain was not getting much oxygen anyways; his eyes drank in the sight of the object of his singular affection posing uncharacteristically seductively in front of him.
She grabbed the umbrella by the tip and slowly slid her hand up the fabric towards the handle, then retracted the path until her hand was back at the tip. She lifted the umbrella by the tip out from the cloth, grasped it by the handle and pressed a button to expose the tip of the blade.
With a quick, deft slice, she bisected the undershorts and watched as each pant collapsed to the floor.
"WOULDN'T IT BE NICE TO FEEL ME AGAIN, LIKE WHEN WE WERE BOTH IN THE WHITE FANG? OUR MINDS CONCERNED ONLY WITH THE CAUSE... AND EACH OTHERS' BODIES." She turned around and bent over at a right angle, showcasing how tight her white shorts were against her ass, tidily placing the umbrella beside the heeled shoes, before standing up and turning back around to cast a sultry gaze at him. Her mouth, her lips parted less than the width of her finger and wetted as her tongue slowly lashed from one edge of her smile to the other, then back before disappearing back inside seductively.
"JUST THINK OF HAVING ME AGAIN, ADAM."
"No, I can't!"
"WHY BE LOYAL TO CINDER? SHE IS NOT ONE OF US. TELL ME WHERE SHE IS, AND YOU CAN DO WHATEVER YOU WANT TO ME AGAIN."
"No, no no. That's not right. I can't do that. This is wrong. It's not how... no!"
"YOU KNOW YOU WANT THIS, ADAM. YOUR BODY DOES NOT LIE." 'Blake' grabbed ahold of the other thing that had been forced to hang between his legs after the umbrella had pulled down his clothes. Taking his semi-erect penis by the tip with one finger, she slowly slid her hand up the length of it towards the base, then retracted the path until her hand was back at the tip, like how she had treated her weapon as she had retrieved it from his last piece of apparel. She lifted him by the tip to be horizontal with the floor, rubbing it along the bottom of his shaft with her other hand.
"Please, no, don't, we can't... Blake, please... we can't. It's not safe. I haven't finished the job. We can't do this. I'm not done saving them." He forgot that she wasn't Blake, his fracturing mind fighting itself as he tried to remain steadfast against the manipulation while his heart began to race.
She is so beautiful.
Her hands ceased roaming and caressing him, coming to a standstill. Her head angled to the side and she gave him a curious look.
"We can't be together until... until the faunus are free." His cheeks were wet, and not from the waterboarding.
The hands released him, but his turgid arousal kept him level with the floor without support.
"ADAM TAURUS, HAVE YOU EVER DONE IT WITH BLAKE?"
Poignant silence.
"ADAM TAURUS, ARE YOU A VIRGIN?"
More silence, before 'Blake's' face again took on the alien, wicked grin of his captor. He knew it wasn't her – Blake would never make that smile – and he tried to focus his mind on the awful wrongness of it.
He tried.
The hands came back onto him and began forcefully kneading the shaft between one another, eliciting a lasting groan from him that stretched until he reached his full size, at which point the attention suddenly ended and she moved a step back again to admire her hand-iwork.
High above Bedlam and Neopolitan, in a well-furnished building owned by Ozpin's secret society, where Qrow had brought the children he had somehow become responsible for, asleep in her bed and made content by the reformation of her huntress team, Ruby Rose moaned out as she slept: "Now that's a katana!"
Weiss Schnee, unable to get to sleep on the floor (where she had been forced since she had arrived after beds had been claimed) as quickly as her roommate and team-leader, heard this and shook her head with disgust. She sat up and launched her useless, soft pillow at Ruby's face.
"You've been reading that filth again, you dolt!" Weiss hissed, before realizing that she now had no pillow, which was worse than having a bad pillow. Her shoulders sagged with resignation as she got up and strode to where her 'super-bestie-better-than-the-restie' lay on the mattress, the sheets pushed down to Ruby's waist to alleviate the heat of the summer night.
"I'm taking this," Weiss informed the sleeping sniper, taking the harder pillow from under Ruby's head. A frown came upon Ruby's mouth, making Weiss feel charitable. "You can have this one," she whispered as she shoved the soft pillow under Ruby's head as a meagre replacement to the one that Weiss had claimed for herself.
Weiss crawled back to her pile of blankets on the floor with her pillowy prize, snuggled back up and tried to make herself comfortable despite the circumstances; then she whispered, "goodnight, Ruby."
"I'VE REALIZED I WAS GOING ABOUT THIS ALL WRONG," Neo-Blake said as she left the room, giving Bedlam a precious moment to pant haggardly while his thoughts remained in disarray.
She returned soon, dragging the stool and holding a small brown leather purse from which she produced a plastic square that had a circular, ring-like impression pressing it out from its interior. She tore the condom wrapper open and approached him, dutifully dressing his manhood with the stretched plastic sheath.
"STILL NOT FULLY COVERED", Neo-Blake picked up the earlier-discarded blindfold from the ground, stood on the stool and forced him back into darkness. He heard her step down from the stool, kick it aside so that it bounced against the foam wall, and stand in front of him. Her hands gripped back onto his dick, running up and down along its length again, now covered by the contraceptive device. "YOU ARE STILL A DIRTY FAUNUS, SO THIS IS TO MAKE SURE I DON'T CATCH ANY OF YOUR MENAGERIE OF DISEASES."
If he was of sounder mind, he would have remarked that Menagerie was relatively disease-free; likely due to the arid climate and hardiness of the population.
Smooch, he faintly felt her lips light upon the top of his shaft, giving it a gentle kiss through the thin film. One hand continued to run along the bottom length of him while her mouth began trailing kisses, one at a time at regular intervals, from the midsection where she had placed the first towards the tip. Her other hand typed into her scroll.
"THAT'S A GOOD BOY. WHO'S A GOOD BOY? IS IT YOU?"
Her kisses reached the tip of his erection, and rather than leaving after placing the final mark of affection upon him she kept her mouth touching to him.
"THAT'S A BIG BOY. WHO'S A BIG BOY? IT IS YOU."
Neo moved forward, her lips expanding to endeavour to engulf the head of his cock while the hand not using the scroll continued to massage along underneath, sliding from the skin directly underneath his glans down to where the shaft met his brimming balls.
"I MADE A MISTAKE, THINKING THAT HURTING WOULD GET YOU TO TALK..."
Her tongue darted out and interposed itself between her lips and his tip, trailing slick saliva as it did before her lips made a new bid to let the entirety of his crown pass through.
"YOU ARE USED TO THAT. BUT YOU'RE NOT USED-"
Her lips made it over the flare of his head, and drool slopped down the shaft, spread across the totality by the diligent ministrations of her hand as it picked up speed and jurisdiction: no longer content with just the underside, it lathered itself in her spit and wrapped itself as much as it could around his circumference.
"-TO THIS!"
Clinging tightly to the plastic, her fingers sprinted up and down from his balls to where her mouth gently suckled his tip making obscene sounds which did little to allay his growing physiological response. His mind was shutting down, overwhelmed by the torturous durance of the previous session, his lack of sleep, and his own confusion about his feelings for Blake.
She told me that we could not be together so long as our people needed us to focus on the cause.
Neo's mouth began making progress to move further, denying her hand the freedom to roam as it had before, slowly reducing its phallic habitat as her lips continued their determined advance.
We would have a family in a world where the faunus were free of human tyranny.
The tip of him reached the back of Neo's mouth, causing her to spasm and cough, gurgling for a moment before the steady consumption continued unabated once she managed to repress her gag reflex.
Always preparing for the day when we would emerge triumphant over our enemies, keeping myself purely for her. Saving all my love for our moments together.
Neo slid back up to the tip, then released him from her mouth entirely while her palm went down to pat him gently on the bottom of his hanging testicles.
"I HAD MY TURN TRYING TO DROWN YOU, NOW IT IS YOUR TURN TO TRY AND DROWN ME WITH THESE." Bedlam felt his dick twitch, making him wonder how long she planned to do this. He wasn't sure if it was a fearful or optimistic concern anymore. His body was rebelling against his mind, and his mind was in anarchy.
Her mouth slid back down and her hand reached around to grip the back of his thigh, grasping into his smooth, hairless skin to give her move leverage as she thrust her body forward against his groin. She hit her limit and held herself in place, her tongue dancing inside her mouth to lustily greet its new occupant. After what seemed like an eternity of such treatment, her hand's grip relaxed on his leg and she pulled her head off of his dick.
She gasped for breath. He heard sporadic dripping between her desperate attempts to restore oxygen to her lungs, her amply applied oral fluids falling against the wet cement underneath where he remained prisoner, mixing with the water and numbing drug residue. Her hand came back to cup around his balls again, lifting them up to feel the measure of their mass.
He felt her forehead brush against his dick as she leaned forward to press her lips against his balls, kissing each one in turn before licking up from between them back to the tip, where her lips parted once more to fit as much as him into her mouth, then her throat, as she could manage before reaching her limit. Her tongue slavering across every surface of him it could reach inside her mouth, lubricating him so that as she began rocking her head up and down each new plunge into her throat reached slightly further.
Bedlam bit his lip, unable to focus on anything but Neo's treatment of his body.
All he could hear was the slurping, the gasping, the rhythmic suction her mouth made as it slowly made headway towards the rendezvous of his throbbing shaft and his firm balls.
All he could feel was her hand pressing between his leg and the table as she pulled herself forward. The chill of the metal table where it met his body's perspiration. The soft attentions of her tongue and the moist tightness he discovered behind her lips.
All he could smell was the combination of their slick sweat.
I can't let this happen, a shard of his mind screamed, I can't let this human demean my love for Blake like this. There had to be something he could do to protect himself against her predations. There had to be some way to make her stop.
Neo's lips finally reached his balls, her nose pressed lightly upon the skin of his groin. She hummed in triumph, the vibration felt along his entire length.
I can't let her make me feel good like this. He didn't want this.
Neo reared back, coughed and gasped, then shoved her head right back down to the base, her nose burying itself into his muscle-toned flesh. Her tongue shot out between where her underlip adhered to his shaft and lapped greedily at his balls, prodding them and slathering them, too, with her drool.
I can't allow myself to want this. I can't allow myself to enjoy this. I have to save myself for Blake. If he deviated from that line of thought, then what did that make him? Who am I if I'm not devoted to Blake?
Content that his genitals had been completely doused with a covering of her spit, Neo reared back again and gathered her breath.
"WHERE IS CINDER?"
Desperate for her to stop, desperate for his body to cease craving for her to continue, he broke. "I don't know!"
She stopped, and he heard her stand up.
He sighed with relief. She had stopped. He sighed mostly with relief.
Bedlam was not sure what to make of the sound of her belts being unfastened, then hitting the floor one by one. Was she going to whip him with the belt, now? Knowing that he'd lied to her about having information about Cinder's location, perhaps she would give in to anger. Compared to what she'd just done, he looked to the promise of conventional torture as a blessing.
Then the sound of a zipper being pulled down. "OH WELL."
Another chaste kiss on the tip, followed by her hand playfully batting at the dick from either side so that it swung wildly between his legs like an off-beat metronome. He felt both of her hands come up to take hold of his vulnerable balls, which, like all of him, found themselves completely at her mercy despite the promise of protection his aura offered. The condom did a bit to dull the sensations cast upon him, but Neopolitan overcame that by exerting more pressure through the plastic, toying with his balls – now with a single hand – and continuing to fill his ears with the sound of her debauched kisses and a new, wet sound with an unknown source closer to the ground. Her mouth latched onto his dick again, immersing the tip in her lips.
"No," Bedlam pleaded weakly.
He felt Neo's teeth graze tauntingly along his tip, before she brought her chin down to slam into her testicle-filled hand while burying her nose back in the dimple forming in the firm flesh between his dick and belly button. She pulled back, then thrust down again. Her tongue became flat on the bottom of her mouth, contentedly observing the passage of his dick back and forth along it as it travelled from her lips to the depths of her throat over and over again. The mysterious wet sound continued at a steady pace, shlick shlick shlick. He tried not to think of Blake, but a faint fishy smell – probably wafting in through the door, implying to him that he was near the docks – made him remember her attempts to get him to give up his vegetarian eating habits.
Resist! Screamed part of his mind.
Release! His body demanded.
Think of Blake! Save yourself for her! His heart commanded, but there wasn't much his soul could manage to do to save himself in this dire situation.
Think of Blake! Her eyes! Her body when she bent over! Body called, much more eager to participate in the activity than the rest of him was comfortable with.
Blake would never have done this with you, another section of his mind whispered, all her talk about waiting, finishing the job, it was all a front. Concealing her true nature.
Let yourself loose! Body continued to insist.
In the end, Blake was afraid. A coward. Just like the rest, continued the whisper.
As Neo continued to repeatedly bury him into her throat, Bedlam felt something building up within himself. It was like he was being filled with energy, reaching a limit at which he would overflow. Momentarily he thought that it was Moonslice: had his brothers begun charging his semblance in the hopes of helping him escape his situation? Were they aware of his plight? Even if his semblance was fully powered, he had little ability to make use of it without his sword to channel the energy, making such an effort futile.
The energy accumulation felt disturbingly alien; just like how 'Blake' wasn't Blake, the feeling within him wasn't Moonslice. Similar, but bizarrely wrong.
He feared that he knew what it was. He had heard about it often enough; he might have been unacquainted with the finer details of the act, but sexual relations were not entirely foreign to him.
Climax. Orgasm. The release of his precious cargo, preserved faithfully for Blake, stolen by Neo.
She was approaching her victory over him. As she continued engulfing him with the pleasure of her motions, he tried to rally himself to resist her methods. He could hold out for longer than this. He had to.
As Neo's face struck into his groin, his faunus senses betrayed him as they allowed him to experience the act beyond what a human could perceive. As his cock came to the deepest reaches of her that it could, he felt himself fall over a threshold and gave in to the sensation, permitting the release of the built-up pressure through whatever outlet it needed.
Even through the blindfold he could see the glow of his hair as it produced its signature glow, and for a moment his aura extended in a pulse and he could almost 'see' the entire room as everything flashed white. Aura-sight, or extrasensory perception, was an advanced technique that Adam had dabbled in utilizing ever since he'd learned about it. If his attentions weren't distracted by everything else, he'd probably have felt pride in the breakthrough.
While his brain struggled with the sudden sensory overload, he felt Neo try to rear back in alarm. She tried to emit a squeal that was squelched by his member in her throat, before spasming. She slumped to the concrete floor in a sodden splash, her body finding itself in the puddle of fluids that had accrued there from his imprisonment in the room and her cruel attentions over the past few days. That will teach her to waterboard me in a room without a drain. He heard a stream of liquid continue to momentarily splash against the concrete before the room went silent.
After several minutes, Bedlam's mind finally settled down and blood began to flow regularly through his body again. As his body recouperated, he came up with an idea of what had just happend. My brothers must have charged Moonslice after all, and my body used the condom as a substitute for Wilt. I can't believe I never thought about using something other than Wilt and Blush for redirecting stored energy before now...
I was not unfaithful to Blake; my purity is still reserved for my love. He had not climaxed, as far as he could tell; not that he had any prior experience to compare it against.
His fatigued body and mind cried out for sleep, but an alarming thought came to him just as the whiff of a metallic odour, probably Neo's blood, made it through the thick hood. If he had just accidentally killed Neo, who was going to get him out of these chains? He cursed the situation. If she hadn't interrupted with that seductive sequence, he felt like he could have convinced her to join 'him' (see: Brazen) in the hunt for Cinder so that he (see: Bedlam) could be left alone to pursue his own agenda.
It hadn't had to end this way. Nobody had needed to die here.
Also, mental notes. First: work harder at mastering extrasensory perception with my aura, now that I've made some progress on doing that. Second: figure out what happened here in more detail later so that when I do eventually experience similar circumstances with the real Blake, I don't accidentally kill her with my semblance.
What some people would call torture, Bedlam preferred to think of as a learning experience, an opportunity for growth.
He rattled his shackles, racking his mind for a solution.
BRAZEN
Brazen raced through the dark streets back to Lichen's house. He had spent the entire day, and much of the evening, searching the undercity for clues of Bedlam or Cinder's whereabouts. Hazel, back in town for a few days, could be dealt with eventually. Before he could face the burly man again Brazen needed to secure his aura's integrity. That meant finding Bedlam wherever he had ended up. Also, he had learned that the three of them having identical pants had resulted in Bedlam getting dressed in Brazen's clothes, which meant he had gotten captured with Brazen's wallet in his pocket. Not life-threatening, but there had been a substantial amount of lien in there from their little trick before the second split in the White Fang throne room.
As Brazen wandered the lamp-lit streets searching, he felt Moonslice gaining power but in a strange way: like if he were to watch himself practicing swordplay in the mirror. It felt backwards. He knew Dominic had stayed on guard at Lichen's house, on the off-chance that she tried to betray Adam anyways or if Bedlam showed up at the house with no means of communication. Brazen and Dom, having means of communication, took full advantage of their linked scrolls as Brazen sent Dominic a message telling him to meet him in their room.
My twin also had nothing better to do, Brazen accepted. Between waiting for his ship to sail into port and waiting for word on Bedlam's status, Dominic was all too happy to accept guard detail.
It worked to Brazen's benefit now, for as he approached the house his brother was visibly waiting for him through the open window of their bedroom. As he approached the safety of Lichen's house, Moonslice discharged: he felt that whatever energy his semblance had stored up had been released.
"Did you feel that?" Brazen asked as he clambered through the opening.
"It felt like our semblance was charging up, but it felt different. Like flying a bullhead upside-down and wondering why the sky looks strange and full of trees."
"It felt weird," Brazen agreed. "You didn't do it, though, so that means that something must be happening with Bedlam."
"What does that mean for us?"
Brazen and Dominic pursed their lips, each thinking it over.
"Maybe he... maybe it ended." Dominic said, removing his glove and holding out his bare hand. Brazen mirrored the gesture, and as before they called on Dai to manifest the relic on Brazen's hand alone. Nothing happened. So he is still alive. If he is alive, he can fight, there's still hope of finding him.
Can still fight, Brazen realized.
"Let's fight," they said together, drawing their respective version of Wilt in tandem. If Bedlam is charging Moonslice, and having difficulty doing it right, we can help out even if we don't know where he is by charging it like we did on the train.
If Bedlam was captured, maybe the problem wasn't that he couldn't use Moonslice – maybe the problem was that he couldn't charge it properly.
Their swords met, ringing through the room. Within a minute of their swords repeatedly clashing against one another, Lichen opened the door with a blunderbuss rifle aimed from her hip; "what's going on in here?" the fox-faunus cried out in alarm, clad in pyjamas. I guess these rooms can be soundproofed only so much. Apparently the sound of armed combat between the two brutal killers was enough to be heard even downstairs.
"Just sparring, Lichen," Brazen shouted matter-of-factly as he parried a blow from Dom.
"Learning some moves from my brother while I have the chance," added Dom as he readied his own parry.
"We haven't even pulled Blush into this," Brazen continued, advocating the case that they could be louder if they tried.
Lichen's sour expression demonstrated that she found such arguments persuasively lacking. "Doesn't look like you need much practice if you ask me," muttered Lichen as she slowly retreated back through the doorway, "making me think they were being killed upstairs... full house of beefcake working up a sweat in my house, oh what my sisters would say if they ever saw this..." her words trailed off as she went back down the stairs, out of earshot of the duo.
"Let's hope this works!" Dominic said.
"Yeah! That son of a relic has my wallet!" Brazen muttered.
BEDLAM
Bedlam felt Moonslice charging up. Energy was building up, ready to be redirected at a target like it had always functioned before today. My brothers are definitely responsible for it this time, he thought, still uncertain as to how he managed to kill Neopolitan. Maybe if he had not had his vision impaired by the blindfold he would have seen, it would have made sense to him. Smell, touch, hearing, and especially the aura-sense, had only given him more questions about the event.
He shook his hips, wagging his dick, its semi-flaccid state not as much a hindrance as the fact that it was not aimed towards any of the cables that kept him tied to the vertical slate. Even if it could be aimed to hit one of the cables, the condom had fallen off when Neo had slid off: the ample lubrication of the criminal's fluids had let it just come off with her.
I need another blade, something in my hand that I can use to liberate myself. Moonslice had to be channelled through an object, something that let him manually direct the energy. He preferred Wilt because the sword was like an extension of his arm, and its dust-infused metal added an extra kick to the power of his semblance.
Bedlam examined his options. He felt around with his feet, but nothing was close enough down there to grasp for use as a make-shift weapon. His hands were equally bereft of suitable tools.
Think! He coached himself, trying to motivate his brain to overcome the problem. What do people without tools do when they need one?
His brain raced, and he was thankful that blood was slowly being redirect away from his groin to feed the rest of his body. Between the tortures and the subsequent blood loss, it's a small wonder I haven't lost any of my extremities from this debacle. Bedlam chalked it up to his healthy, faunus constitution. Yet another point in favour of his species!
He wondered why Neo had avoided physically maiming him (scars don't count!). Maybe it was just because she was leaving that for later: starting off with the psychological before engaging in the physical act of dismemberment, slowly increasing the severity of her malice. Bedlam's mind recalled the sight of Neo's illusion of his fingers and toes being put through the attention of the pliers.
Fingers.
Bedlam couldn't see, but he looked towards where he felt his right hand. What do people without tools do when they need one?
They make one.
"This is going to hurt," he said to nobody in particular, "but I have the strength to do what's needed."
For the faunus, Adam?
No. For myself.
Impending agony was okay, though. His semblance would dull the pain. He had demanded sacrifice from his followers; now that it was time to lead by example, he refused to quail at what was necessary for freedom.
Very carefully, he brought up his aura on the thumb and ring finger of his right hand to increase his strength, while purposefully leaving his middle finger unprotected. Grasping onto the nail of his middle finger from each side with the aura-empowered digits, he grit his teeth and began to pull. Only one shot at this, so I cannot afford to let it fall after I do it.
When his first attempt failed, he twisted his hand around and forced the fingernail against the metal of the table, using it to create leverage.
His clenched teeth did little to distract him from the pain as he applied more and more force against his fingernail, thankfully long from having not been trimmed for several weeks while his focus had been on the attack on Haven and reports on the situation in Menagerie.
Once the nail was sufficiently loosened by the act of forcing it against the steel, his other fingers managed to gain purchase on it to begin the slow process of wrenching it out.
He was glad that nobody was there to hear him scream and cry from the pain as he carefully tore out his middle fingernail, but more glad that he managed to catch it before it fell away. The length of severed cuticle was pinched between his thumb and unmutilated fingers. He kept his hand steady despite the pain, and kept a firm grip on the prize despite the slippery blood that spread out from the wound onto his other fingers.
He felt Moonslice, charged with a plethora of energy by his brothers, and aimed his makeshift tool at the cable preventing his right arm from moving. It would be a point-blank shot, which evened out his inability to see where he was aiming. His vision again went red as his hair lit up with a crimson glow, then everything flashed a total black before slowly regaining some lightness that managed to get through the blindfold.
His right arm fell to his side, still wearing the shackle as a bracelet but free to move, his dripping blood the testament to his unwavering conviction to his goals.
I'm tired, he thought. He felt Moonslice begin charging again. His brothers would help him as best as they could, endeavouring to keep his semblance fully powered until he returned to their side triumphant.
Raising his free arm to feel the top of his head and making to tug off the blindfold, an unexpected sound made him halt before he could liberate himself from the darkness. How? he thought incredulously, before tearing the blindfold from his head and tossing it away into a corner. Seeing the sight before him, he grabbed onto the dangling cable just in time so that cursory inspection would not notice that he had broken his binding.
Neopolitan rolled over and smiled, her eyes unfocused, tongue lolling out of the side of her mouth, and her remaining clothing soaked by water, blood, and whatever else was in that puddle. Her left hand searched around for her scroll, while her right was shoved down the front of her unzipped pants. She found her scroll and typed into it.
"I MIGHT NOT BE ABLE TO USE YOU TO GET INFO, BUT AT LEAST I CAN USE YOU TO GET OFF." Her hand wriggled out from her pants and she locked her eyes on his as she displayed the fluid clinging to her fingers. "WITH THE LIEN YOU HAD IN YOUR WALLET, I PROBABLY DON'T NEED YOUR BOUNTY REWARD FOR A FEW WEEKS. LOTS OF TIME FOR US TO GET TO KNOW ONE ANOTHER."
Neo examined her glistening hand herself; having not noticed that Bedlam's blindfold was lying in the corner, that his eyes had been able to meet hers, and the implications that those things held for her.
Let's see how you like it when you get hit by surprise, Neo, Bedlam thought as he anticipated what was to come.
