Toinette And Chastity Continue To Do The Thing Part 3

“Swing looow, sweet chaaarioooot…”

Toinette had been keeping this up for an hour.

Some observations. One was that while the room was dark and rank, it seemed to be surprisingly clean. A situation like this, you expected mess smeared on the walls, crap crammed in the corners, and every single part of the room caked in some kind of crud, like someone had entered the room with a high powered hose and a grudge against sanitation.

The second was she wouldn’t have to worry about Chastity being cross that she’d stolen her outfit. Her ‘unexpected taxi’ had relieved her of it.

Third, she was PRETTY sure she heard slithering in the walls.

“This better not be like one of those weird animes,” she said, mostly to herself.

She made another spirited attempt to swing up and grab her feet to untie them. Like the many other times before it, it just caused the chain to start swinging and frustrate her attempts. With a growl of frustration, she settled down again. It was cold in the room, so she chose to ignore it.

“For, like, the twentieth time,” she shouted, “anyone home?”

The door swung open.

...Oh look, it was Ellie.

...maybe. Because between the last time she’d seen the girl, it seemed like said girl had introduced her face to a weed whacker. Toinette didn’t know much about ritualistic scarring, but she had enough sense to know what was up.

The giant hulk whose face was a mass of blisters and...something else. Some sort of infection she couldn’t place, running down his bare chest. At least he was wearing pants.

“Watch it Gulk. She reeks of magic.”

The hideous mass of twisted muscle and lack of antibiotics just emitted a low wet chuckle. He had...was that a meat thermomet...no. An ice pick? Not quite. It looked like some kind of pen...or syringe….

It was, however, long and sharp, and he was shuffling towards her with clear intentions to use it.

Toinette frantically thought of a way to de-escalate the situation.

“Look,” she said, “if you’d wanted to get into some kinky shit, you could have asked! I mean, we were kinda strapped for time… we could have improvised! Hey! Tell your meat man to back off!”

She still had Astra, but probably wouldn't hit anything vital. This creature might have redundant organs and stuff, if only by accident. She had to wait…

“You think the flesh you wear can just do that? Afraid not, Toinette...you’ll be serving a higher purpose.”

At the least, the pen-needle-thing was jabbed in her cheek. There were worse places. Gulk made that nasty chuckle again.

“Blood blood blood…”

Okay. Time for Plan B.

...which was coming up with Plan C. So what was Plan C?

Toinette desperately hoped that the chains weren't iron, and shifted. Small woman went to fashion model went to alien went to starlight in a second, and the figure threw its hands up, spraying starfire at Gulk and the ropes holding her feet.

Well, the good news was, the ropes broke. And she DID stagger Gulk…

But he didn’t melt like the first bad men. Oh, he didn’t ignore it. The way the blisters burst like overripe fruit indicated that. But as he adjusted his stance, the astra just seemed to be...negated? Eaten? Neutralized? In any case it didn’t kill him. In fact he looked positively pleased.

“Gulk, the meat needs tenderizing.”

Gulk, with a hand rife with scars and looking like it had never been washed in his life, reached out to grab Toinette’s face.

Well...this night had rapidly gone right into the shitter.

“I TENDERIZED YOUR ASS LAST NIGHT!” Toinette's voice now shrieked like violins in an argument. She backpedalled furiously. Exit, exit, exit… shit, no way out except past Pinky and the Brain here. Well.

She tried to dart past Gulk, and was brought down by a heavy blow to her shoulders. She fell with the natural dignity of a Fae at maximum glamor, but it still hurt. And sucked.

Great. Well, GG, no re. Rory was gonna be so pissed.

Unless…

Toinette raised a hand, shooting more starfire towards Ellie.

Ellie, as it turned out, could NOT take starfire to the face and smile. So she had to dodge, the doorway warping under the unnatural energies as Ellie screamed for Gulk to break her legs...but hey, EXIT!

Toinette shifted back to normal and made a break for it.

Bad news: the way out of the room just led to an equally dark hallway, and worse, now she was running on something squishy, sticky, and immensely foul smelling. She had no idea where she was going, and at the moment, that was fine. Toinette did not really have an end goal for this escape. She was rating this town very, very low right now. Men were shit, women were shit, no scenic landmarks. She needed to get the fuck home, pronto.

Around the corner, through a door, through a room…

Those were bones. Lots of bones. Polished and arranged ceremoniously on the walls and…

Yeah, those were DEFINITELY skins hung up next to them. One was an animal. Two were very definitely not animals.

Which is when the hand reached behind her, clamped over her mouth, and dragged her through another door.

“SHHHHHHH. QUIET. VERY QUIET.”

Chastity’s voice hissed in her ear, as she dragged a filthy tarp over the pair.

“Do not move, and breathe. SLOWLY.”

The reason for Chastity’s warning became very clear swiftly, as another screaming voice that sounded a lot like Ellie was coming closer, with heavy footfalls and snorting, snuffling wheezes, like the walker had both their forefingers jammed up their noses and was trying to breath through it.

“These people...infested. You really, REALLY DON’T WANT THEM TO BLEED ON US.” Chastity’s voice was a raspy hiss.

Toinette just nodded, slowly. Chastity had saved her bacon - the smart thing to do right now was to just follow her orders and escape the crazy cannibal people. Then give her a great big kiss once they got out. If they got out. Was something to look forward to.

She waited.

Footsteps thudded and crashed around. Chastity slung an arm around Toinette and clamped her hand over her mouth again.

Then they were painfully jabbed with...something. Something blunt. Someone was seeing if there was something under the tarp.

Just...keep...still…

Another painful jab.

That was the last one though. The footsteps turned and thudded away. Evidently, the poker had decided that if nothing cried out or came running, there was nothing important under the tarp.

“...hail to the lazy.” Chastity whispered, pulling the tarp back up and settling it over Toinette as a makeshift cloak. “Did they make you eat anything?”

“Not whilst I was in the locker.” Toinette looked down and made sure the tarp covered everything. “At the club, maybe? I don't remember a whole lot. Who the fuck are these people?”

“Lambtons. Why I’m here. There’s a nasty criminal war happening, but...that’s not the main issue. Someone set it off. Because it means people look less hard when others vanish.” Chastity said. “You ever heard of puppet parasites?”

“Sounds pretty self-explanatory. Sooo, don't get bit?”

“Actually, them biting you would be okay. It’s bleeding that’s the issue…”

Chastity withdrew a vial from her belt. Inside was a bloodred worm, eight inches long, and with a head that seemed to consist of three interspiraling, extended jaw...things.

“The Lambton Worm. Normally just called a tugger, or a gasper. As is, they just infest the body and can be killed with some strong pills. But this breed...Redsin’s work...and you don’t know who he is. Super mad scientist, left all sorts of nasty shit on my world. These don’t infest so much as...well, alter. Makes people a mess, but they feel amazing. Get some weird powers sometimes. But...all the Lambton worm cares about is multiplying. And so that’s all they care about. The stronger the host, the better. You must have been a lottery winner if they didn’t infect you already. Probably wanted to do it with ceremony. Which means they will really want you. And you don’t have to be in one piece as long as you’re alive. The worms will...make do.:”

Toinette, staring at the worm, had multiple visions. One of them was what Fae would do if they got their hands on something like this. The other was what if one got into her. A third one was mostly this building on fire.

“We're stopping this, right?”

“S’why I’m here. I’d just nuke the little festering crack they have here, but there might be victims inside. Like you. And I don’t have time to call one of my sneaky friends. I need to TRY and make sure there’s no one here that doesn’t want to be here and is still...well, if they’re infested, there’s still a chance, but...it’s not a fun cure. Can you use weapons?”

“Kinda. Usually use magic, but lunkhead there shrugs it off. I can use a knife.”

“Don’t have a knife.”

Chastity yanked the whip off her belt.

“I do, however, have Nekketsu here. It’s self-working. Er...just flail it at someone and it will...mostly do the work itself.”

“Of course you have a whip.” Toinette gladly took it, nonetheless. “Where do I start looking?”

“With me. Anything gets near you, whip it. Just...don’t let them bleed on you. Some drops are probably okay, but more...scream my name. I’ll...sterilize. Which...will probably leave you running around in your birthday suit again. So yes...don’t get bled on.”

“Nice. Let's go.”

Chastity took the lead, pulling Toinette towards the door of the room they were in, some sort of storage room for...wood and plants? Chastity opened the door, said door opening into the room.

It was not Gulk that was standing at said door. He was just as ugly though, with the same blisters, along with a mass of...warts? Boils? Tumors? They had consumed most of the left side of his face, his eye having been squashed amongst the defiled flesh. He was...even bigger than Gulk too.

And in a second, he had a sword impaled up through his jaw and out the top of his head. Toinette felt a rush of intense heat, and then the man’s head burst into flame, fire exploding down his body, Chastity yanking her sword out and kicking the flaming corpse backwards. Small squeaks came from the body, fiery masses trying to rip free…

Nests…

Chastity raised a hand, and even more intense fire exploded onto the man, heat buffeting Toinette as Chastity did what she said she’d do. Sterilize.

“...I’d use a gentler touch with you, but...let’s not have to do it at all, shall we?” A one sided smirk, and a wink.

Toinette looked at the corpse, then at Chastity.

“Forgive the awful pun,” she said, “but that was hot as fuck. You're badass.”

“It’s pretty too.” Chastity said, tapping said assets with her sword, glowing a dull red. Toinette, somewhere in her brain that still had logical functions, noted that certain things did not happen that should have happened if heated metal touched bare skin. Fire-producer, and fireproof.

“Now let’s get it, and yours, and anyone else, out of this damn place before someone with a differing opinion on what to do with it comes along.”

“Sure,” said the part of Toinette's brain that wasn't devising a million things to do once they escaped. “I got your back.”

Toinette and Chastity's Excellent Adventure - Part 2

Some things were constant across a lot of worlds. The nightlife in a rather seedy town seemed to be one of them.

Well, sort of. Toinette felt like she had stumbled into one of those museums Julius had dragged her to, twice. The level of tech was what Toinette would call ‘boring ass backward’. No electricity, no vehicles, and by extension no televisions and all that jazz. The town was made up of buildings forged of stone, wood, and straw. If Toinette had any care for such things, she would have found the stonework was sublime in its design, more like the buildings had been crafted by hand manipulating clay instead of mining out big rocks and sort of stacking them on each other where they fit. But she didn’t, so she didn’t.

No matter where she went though, some things always tended to catch eyes. And wearing an outfit like the one Toinette had ‘borrowed’ was one of them. It was an outfit designed by someone who might have a little too much obsession with spiders. It covered her body by dint of a lot of crisscrossing leather straps, and didn’t leave much to the imagination - probably because the aforementioned designer didn’t have much of one. Toinette liked it a lot, even though she'd had to do a lot of work to get it to fit her body. There was more Chastity in the world than Toinette.

Unfortunately, it mostly seemed to make the people she were meeting, who tended to top off at ‘rough’, think she was a woman of the night of a different fashion.

“Back off”, she snarled, batting away what felt like the twentieth hand. Okay, maybe this wasn’t the way to fit in. But she didn’t really have much choice in clothing options - it was this or something REALLY incongruous. She picked up her pace and hoped to leave the latest annoyance behind.

Unfortunately, again...in a place like this...there was an extremely dark take on the phrase ‘won’t take no for an answer’, as she rapidly realized she was being followed. And not in a “appreciate the view’ sense.

Suddenly Chastity’s assessment of the state of the town made a little more sense. And unfortunately, Chastity did not stock spare weapons.

Toinette sighed internally. Looks like it was time to cause a scene.

She threw a glance back over her shoulder, to let them know the she knew she was being followed, and then headed into the nearest alleyway. It was cramped and stunk of basically every body fluid a human had to offer, but it'd do. She waited until she heard footsteps behind her.

This could only go one way, and it wasn't theirs. Astra fizzled at her fingertips.

Apparently, they were not so unprepared that they just walked into anything. No. They gleaned she was going to fight, and one whipped a rock at her head with a sling.

She caught it, an alien smirk on her features. The men wondered what had happened in that intervening split second.

“Look,” she said, “you bastards ever read a shitty fantasy novel? 'cause here’s how things go…”

Toinette changed. The men saw her grow taller, become more beautiful, filling out the hastily adjusted outfit. But then her features became thin, fox-like, her body taking strange proportions…

Then there were stars.

Passers-by became aware something was very wrong when an arm, Astra still corroding up the bone and flesh, sailed out of the alleyway and landed jauntily in a fruit merchant's crate of apples.

They rapidly decided it was not their problem, and it would be even more not their problem if they cleared out. Well, at least SOME people had gotten a clue she wasn’t someone to mess with.

There had been a few shocked words from the men. They’d TRIED to defend themselves, one had even made his little axe glow green, but they were too slow and their defenses had proven to be...porous at best. Toinette had caught snatches of words, stuff like ‘Blackbird’ and ‘Skin Weaver’, not that she had any context for such terms. Still, no sense letting a few assholes ruin the night. Assholes were another thing that was constant, after all.

Oh wait, one person was still around. The fruit merchant. He didn’t look scared. In fact, he just looked resigned. He’d clearly seen it all. Yeah, he was definitely old and weathered enough to have seen it all. Would explain why he was doing business in this seedy town at night.

“You just ruined m’whole batch, y’know. What is this shit and why did you have to dump it on my fruit?”

Toinette emerged, back to normal and looking sheepish.

“Uh, sorry. Don't touch that. Unless you want another arm. Which might help you, actually!” He didn't look amused. “Sorry.”

She gingerly lifted the arm from the apples and dropped it on the floor. It hissed in the mud.

“Is everyone like that here?” She asked, for lack of better topics. “I really don't want to spend most of my day murdering people.”

“Why in the nine damnations would you be wandering around in Gaudyns at night wearing THAT then?”

“I like leather.” Toinette shrugged.

“...motherloving Blackbirds...you going to pay for my fruit or am I out three days work?”

“Oh yeah.” Toinette mimed reaching behind her for a purse that she didn't have. When she held her hand out, six gold coins winked up at him. “Uh, will that do? I'm not big on the exchange rates…”

“I swear if these turn into mud when you leave...mrgrgr.” It was clear the old man was basically stuck at taking her at her word. But he accepted the coins.

“They won't!” Toinette was not a trickster. Well, uh, not anymore. Those coins would remain good as real. For a long time. They'd probably revert back to mud in a rich man’s bank account somewhere, at which point nobody would be paying attention to six gold coins

She kept telling herself this as she went down the street again, looking for something or someone to do. There did not appear to be many options. The men had proven themselves to be terrible, and she supposed the only other entertainment here was getting drunk. Which was what had caused this mess in the first place.

She walked on, daring something to interest her.

Well, seedy place or not, that didn’t mean they didn’t have good bars. Or taverns, technically.

The one Toinette found was called the Needling Tooth. Compared to the unpleasant dark menace of the streets, it was lit and noisy. Looks like they did have parties even back at this corner of the world. You just had to look around.

Nice.

Toinette grinned and headed in.

The next few hours were blurry. Despite her previous worry, she drank a whole lot. She found a nice girl called Kamilla. She drank some more. She found another nice girl called Amber and introduced her to Kamilla. She drank a lot more. She danced on a table. She met yet another nice girl called Ellie, who was very interesting and also got along well with Amber and Kamilla. She drank yet more.

She woke up upside down. Her feet were tied together, and the rope used to do it was hung on a meat hook.

“For fuck’s sake,” she groaned.

At least she didn’t have a hangover.

Toinette and Chastity's Excellent Adventure Part 1

Toinette opened her eyes and regretted it. This was not the sands of the Caribbean. Grass is not sand. The sky was definitely not the blue clear skies of the beach. This sky was grey. Definitely no sounds of tourists enjoying themselves, and no waves on the shore.

She definitely had the same party hangover as usual, though. Great. Four months of restraint on Rory’s behalf, and the one time you get to party you end up somewhere else. What had she done now? Where the hell was she? Where was Rory? What time and place was this? Damn it, this happened a lot more than was ever reasonable.

Welp, time to figure out how to get back -

She squinted. Something was standing over her, blocking out the sunlight. She looked up.

Hmm. That was a lot of pink. A lot of leg. A lot of… wow, a lot of everything. And not a lot of clothing. That’s interesting.

“Hi,” she managed.

That was also a very sharp sword point on her throat.

“Where you from?”

“Huh?”

“Where you from?”

“...what?”

“...Okay, you’re not tangled up in this.”

The point of the sword moved to the ground, Chastity Faith kneeling down to check the strange woman.

The pyrokinetic generally had two sets of outfits when it came to trouble. One involved a lot of light armor and was worn against beasts, in massive battles, and generally any place where she was unsure of how to dance. The other was in the vein of what she wore now. There was a lot of criticism directed to the drawing trend of putting female warriors in ‘chainmail bikinis’, but as Chastity had found, letting it almost all hang out was a wonderful way to distract, manipulate, and get a lot of men to underestimate her. Fighting was a lot easier, half the time, when the primary thought that came to mind was ‘possess’, not ‘defend’.

This time, the outfit was a mix of barbarian and post apocalyptic. Fur boots, fur ‘panties’ with a belt (well, maybe fur ‘short shorts’, it was kind of halfway between the two), fur shoulders, fur gloves, a collection of necklaces, and feathers woven into Chastity’s hair to create a mohawk style layout. She did not wear a bra: instead she wore tiny patterns of gems seemingly embedded into her skin that just obscured enough so that she wasn’t wholly topless. Besides that, she had some pouches on her belt, a whip tied to her side, and two swords on her back, one on the ground. And sunglasses, or what looked like sunglasses.

If Toinette had any idea where she was, she probably would have guessed that Chastity was not as exposed as she looked. With the magical items known as Intricacies, you could be packing far more protection than bare, exposed skin. Not as much as when she wore full armor, but if someone tried to gut her, they’d find the passageway into her body was not quite so easily claimed.

“You all right? How many fingers am I holding up? What did Chris do….concussion, yeah?”

Chastity snapped her fingers, and a small, intense flame bloomed at the end, providing a light for her to check Toinette’s pupils.

Toinette was having a very hard time focusing straight ahead.

“Uh, yeah. I'm good.” Julius had said something about this. She'd fallen into another world, clearly, and this was one of the incredibly attractive natives. She had an adventure to go on! He'd advised her on… what was it?

It was probably “Don't do anything.” Killjoyyyyy.

Fae ancestry compelled her to be suave, despite her messy hair, clothing more fit for Ibiza (the t-shirt was not protecting her against the elements) and bleary expression. She tried a smile, or something like that.

“Can I get a name for my beautiful saviour?” Toinette instantly realised that an intense migraine was not a good tool for chatting up the ladies.

“Smooth. Like sandpaper.”

Chastity peered around.

“Hold that thought...just want to make sure that you dropping out of the sky didn’t attract anything bad.”

“Like who?”

Chastity began clicking her tongue as she thought.

“I think...three things that might want to eat you if given a chance? Yeah, three. Four if a wyrm comes wandering along, but that’s...not a good chance? I think? I dunno where they like to go, I usually went to them...look, you’re clearly not okay dokey. I better get you back to Gaudyns. God I miss Chris being around for the doctor stuff...now I have to remember what alleyway has the doctor and which ones have the muggers who want to pry out my teeth…”

Chastity removed the sword from the ground, tapping it on her shoulder.

“Can you walk or do I have to carry you?”

“I can walk!” Toinette scrambled to her feet, swaying a little. The grass spiked on what she now realised was bare feet. Her t-shirt, in the cruellest of ironies, had “EAT ME” emblazoned in very large font on the front. She glared down at the betrayer for a moment, then back up at Chastity.

“Uh, I’m Toinette. Hi, again!” She made the effort to look chipper. “Where is this place? Uh, guessing I'm not at Randy Avalon's Casinotel.”

“No. You’re outside the city...town...PLACE, of Gaudyns. Part of the principle...place...they changed last year...I don’t know their darn name. The bigger town that looks after this area and that town! Except they don’t. Country of Ionis? Ringing any bells?”

“Nope!” Toinette resolutely kept her eyes on the stranger’s face.

“Continent of Anacorum? World called a few things, I call it Earth?”

“I've been on AN Earth. Just came from there! But nope, no bells ringing here.”

“An Earth?...the name Kobber ring any bells?”

Toinette grinned. “That's the one!”

“...well shit. Where’s that redhead then?”


“No clue. Last I remember, I was doing a line of shots as long as the bar. Then here I am!” Toinette shrugged. “Shit happens.”

“No shit.”

Chastity again tried to check for general head injuries, before giving up on the basis she had no idea what she was doing.

“You must have come along after we left. My friends and I hung out with the Kobbers last year or so...by crossing worlds like you did. But we did it on purpose. Wonder if that’s why...never mind. Let’s get into town before some Warmfangs wander along looking for an easy meal.”

“Sure. Lead the way!”

“...I better walk beside you in case you fall over. Or barf. I don’t want you barfing on me. It sucks.”

Toinette bit back a million innuendos and shrugged. “Fine. But if I barf, you being barfed on is, like, the least of your problems.” And she took up a steady walk beside Chastity, looking around to take in her surroundings.

“You listed, like, a million monsters that wanna eat me. Uh, how bad are we talking?”

“Nothing I can’t cook.”

“Nice.”

They walked in silence for a while.

“Still not got a name, bee tee dubs.”

“Chastity.”

Toinette turned and looked Chastity up and down.

“...I don't believe you.”

“That is my name.”

Toinette opened her mouth, thought about it, and closed it again.

“Fair 'nuff.

“You can call me something else if you want.”

“Nah, 's cool. My actual name is Ti Far Yon, but nobody remembers that and Toinette's more exotic anyways.”

“Yeesh, who named you, a fancy empty food store?”

“My parents. They musta ran outta names at child four hundred and twenty six.”

Now it was Chastity’s turn to look Toinette up and down.

“I suspect you are full of stories. But let’s get you bedded before we do any more talking. Oh yeah, and if we get into town and anyone yells angrily at me, duck and cover.”

Toinette, who'd perked up immensely at the word “bedded”, just nodded. Then she frowned.

“Wait, who's mad at you?”

Chastity paused, and then started counting on her fingers.

“....about half the town.”

“... Mostly husbands?”

“Very funny.”

---

The bed was...actually pretty shitty. Stuffed with straw and the mattress, while clean, was patched and scratchy-itchy. And the pillow was one step up from a stone.

“This is a disappointment.” Toinette tried not to look glum. She failed.

“It’s a backalley doctor. Be lucky you’re not sharing the room with horses and goats. But don’t worry. Crappy place aside, the guy gets the job done. Better than me anyway. We should know if something is wrong. You said something about killer barf?”

Toinette blanched. “Um… how do I put this… I'm made outta stardust. If I vomit on you, you'd dissolve. Or mutate horribly, if you're unlucky.”

She saw Chastity’s face. “...I probably shoulda lied about that. Sorry.”

“I prefer honesty. Except when I hate it. So don’t tell me if you think I look fat. Now, what else should I know?” Chastity grabbed a chair and swung it around, sitting backwards on it.

“I'm… a Fae? From, like, a weird space world. I like vodka and girls with long hair. I can do magic. Also, I'm incapable of seeing people as people.”

Toinette looked at Chastity. “You got any magic protection on ya?”

“That’s what they told me these were.” The woman indicated her necklaces. “So were these but after I modded them they might not work so well.” The gem pattern ‘bra’. “Now what was this about people not being people?”

“Good. You'll need it.” Toinette thought about sitting up, but didn't bother. “ Now, uh, I guess it's story time. You got a moment? I'm not great at stories.”

“Neither am I, so you’re in good company.” Chastity flipped the chair around and crossed her legs, drawing one of her swords. “Go ahead and talk, I’m just going to sharpen Math fab Mathonwy.”

Toinette winced.

“Once upon a time, there was a king. He had a painting of his dead wife. It was rad. It was like, six feet tall. Really colorful. He was a cheery king.”

“He was also a dumbass. He invited a Fae Duke around. Duke sees the painting and goes ‘I gotta have it.’ King goes ‘What, are you high? You’re not having it.’ Duke gets mad and storms out.”

Toinette turned over. “That night, a Fae snuck into the castle, stole the painting, and brought it back to the glen. The Fae marvel over the colors. They’ve not seen anything like it.”

“They burn it, because they think it’ll burn the same colors as the paint. It doesn’t, because Fae are also dumbasses. Then they got mad and blamed the king, who by now was the saddest man to ever live ever. Then they declared war on him.”

A moment of silence. Then Toinette’s glum look slipped away like oil in water, revealing a cheerful smile.

“So, how was your week?”

“That doesn’t explain the barf mutants. Sorry, that issue just really struck me.”

“Astra’s a bitch.” Toinette sat up. “Hey, is there anything to drink around here? Apart from whatever medicines I’m sure I’m gonna have to swallow.”

“Ya mean, water?”

“...Sure.”

“You don’t mean water.”

Chastity reached down and unzipped her boot, withdrawing a small, thin metal flask.

“Now, I wouldn’t drink this straight, because we don’t know…”

Gulp. Grabbed. Gone.

“...and I didn’t even finish my sentence. I’ll just be over here now.” Chastity scooted the chair backwards.

Toinette burped and tossed the flask back. “Nice. Any more?”

“...That would flatten most men twice your size.”

“We’re built tough.”

“...all the same, you should get some rest. I need to check my sources. Do some cleaning, in a few ways. You need to stay here. Oh, and if anyone asks, you don’t know me.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s not wives after me. It’s pieces of shit. And this is my turf and they don’t get to squat all over it.”

“Sure.” Toinette shrugged. “Not like I’m going anywhere.”


She waited until Chastity’s footsteps were no longer audible, then hopped out of bed. Haha, like hell. New world, new stuff to see and do! Let’s goooooo.

The wardrobe caught her eye first. Chastity’s outfit had been great, fantastic, awesome, and she wanted to see if the rest were like that. Plus, she wasn’t gonna stay in this t-shirt and jean shorts combo forever. She was gonna get in character! She had to fit in if she was gonna make it here.

She flung open the wardrobe doors.

There was a lot of leather, and chainmail. Not in the sense of there being a vast quantity of it, but more in the sense that that was the main component. The items themselves looked more like swimwear that was worn by rich people with hidden tastes, or by comic characters from a certain era. There were a few extra accoutrements, here and there, but the majority was from the world’s most dangerous underwear catalogue. Toinette whistled in approval.

There was also a box. Toinette opened the box. It had many things in it. Toinette closed the box and made a mental note of it, in mental red pen, with many mental lines under it.

Then she picked out a snazzy leather number and got to work.

Ride

"What is it you want?"

Vince turned. He couldn't read anything in his sifu's face. The question had come from nowhere.

"...What?"

The old woman sighed. "Young Vince, when people come to my dojo, they all want different things." Her round face was sliced in two by the shadows cast from the sunset, making her folorn smile unnering to Vince. "The tourists want to experience our 'culture', whatever that is. The kids want to be their heroes on television. The young men want to impress the young women, and the young women want the young men to go away. But I have trained you for two months and you have not said anything to me about why you are here."

"I pay you." Vince looked around the open air dojo, a palm-leaf roof on wooden struts that gazed out over the ocean. "Six bucks a week to learn how to defend myself. Isn't that enough?"

For an answer, she swept out a leg. He almost managed to keep his balance this time.

"Money doesn't fuel people, Vince." Her voice was reproachful but not angry. He'd never seen her angry. "People who only want money aren't people at all. You want something else."

"Yeah, to not get beat up by old ladies." Vince climbed back to his feet, wincing. "Can I go now, or do I have to tell you my life story to get away?"

She looked disappointing in him. "Very well."

He wondered if he should have answered. Then he wondered if he had an answer that would have been good enough anyway.

---

The store didn't like him doing this.

Oh, it wasn't concerned for his safety. It could look after itself. It had figured out how to blend in on the new island, although so far it had trouble understanding that people on holiday didn't want to watch anime. No, what it was concerned about was that he wasn't doing it properly.

The neon green chunk of plastic rested on the bed behind him as he changed.

The vacation was doing him good. He'd gotten some muscle tone and lost a bit of weight, and he no longer looked like a zombie. So that was an improvement.

He hefted the ice hockey chest and shoulder pads over his head.

No, it wanted him to use the machine. Do the jingles. Say the catchphrases. But he wasn't gonna do that. He was his own person, not a product. Besides, he wasn't really doing this to help people, although it was a nice side bonus.

On went the ski goggles and the bandanna over his mouth.

It wasn't even as if there was much crime on this island anyway.

He picked up the rubber mallet in gloved hands. He looked like he could pass at a con. Ghetto Rider cosplay. Heh.

Vince went out into the night.