Pink Cocks

"Will you look at that tag? Whoever made it must think he's soooo baaad, climbing all the way up there" Saki said, crossing her arms looking irritated at the big, pink caricature of a Cockatrice on the bridge crossing the road they were walking on. It was a railroad bridge, sturdy and high, with a twenty meter drop from where the tag had been made. There was at least thirty meters to the spot from either end of the bridge. A hard place to reach. The hooligan responsible had probably walked along the bridge and then dropped down to spray the graffiti. It looked neat enough to have required a stencil to have been made. Ross thought this was a two-man operation, at least. He told her as much when she asked.
"Hmm, so that's how you think the Pink Cocks did it?" she said, stroking her chin in contemplation. Ross took the opportunity she gave and leaned back a little to admire her rump, hugged tightly by her denim shorts. Saki was dressed for a date, which meant she tried to show as much skin as possible to make all the men who weren't Ross jealous of him. Or maybe it was for his benefit and that was just a side effect. The shorts, a pair of sneakers, a tank-top with her sweater tied up around her waist, a casual baseball cap advertising the cult classic movie  Shibari Shirohebi in bold letters,  with her dark brown ponytail poking out of the hole in the back of the cap, that's what she wore. It was certainly warm enough for that kind of get-up, but Ross was dressed in semi-Slavic sweats anyway. The important thing was that when out on the town with Saki, you had to wear the kind of clothing that allowed for movement and could get dirty or torn without ruining your finances or whatever plans you might've had later on.

"I think you're wrong" she said, her tail making a little figure eight.
"Oh?"
"Yes. I think one of them walked up there with the stencil, and the other shimmied along the side, hanging from the bridge the entire time" she said, nodding with confidence.
"Get real. That'd be thirty meters of shimmying, no way in hell could anyone do it. Where'd you even get an idea like that?" Ross asked, unsuspecting.
"Because that's how I'd have done it. And we'll do it, too, just to show you I'm right!"
Saki wasn't asking. She was telling. She'd seen a challenge, and she'd taken it up. He'd walked right into that trap of hers.
"Okay, I'll just... walk on the bridge then" he said.
"Aww, what's the matter? Are Rossie-wossie's little hands too soft?" she teased.
"Well at least I'm not a pretty girl with callused hands" he shrugged, teasing her back.
"Oh how you wound me" she said, using her tail as a whip to give his ass a little smack.
The soil on the hill was a little moist and therefore slippery, but Ross got up and then stepped on to the railroad, checking in both directions as far as his eye could see (there ran too parallel lines, after all) and then began to walk toward the middle of the bridge, while Saki jumped up and down in place, stretched out her shoulders and psyched herself up before grabbing on to the side of the concrete bridge and hanging down from it. There was hardly any surface to grip, or so it seemed to Ross at first, but then he realized there was a bit of an alcove in the side which left Saki with a foothold if she ever got tired, or if she just wanted to edge along without lifting her feet off of it at all. Maybe it wasn't so hard after all.

There was moaning and grunting and panting after a while.
"You okay down there?" Ross asked. The fall probably wouldn't be fatal for a girl like her, but he'd still want to make sure she didn't actually fall.
"Dhohhoh... heeiihhh... mhy phehhh!" she replied.
"It just occurred to me you might have wanted to wear gloves"
An angry grunt.
"Yeah, I know. But hey, you've only got fifteen more meters to go!"
An even angrier grunt.
"Gotcha"
Ross reached the middle and waited. He hoped there wouldn't be a train. That would be unpleasant. It's not like he'd get run over if it did, since there were two tracks and the space between was big enough that a lean guy like him could fit in just fine even if two happened to come at once. Saki on the other hand... would the vibrations of a passing train make her drop? Hopefully not. She had strong fingers, after all. But then again...
"ARGGHH! BOO YAH!" shouted the ninja girl, having reached where the tag was.
Ross walked over to her, and saw her knuckles were all white, her bare skin glimmering with sweat - that dripped down into her cleavage - and her muscles all tense so that he was once again reminded of what a beast she was.
"I suppose this is where I hand you the stencil" he offered.
"Haa... haaa. This... is where... you'd... hold it" she said in between her breathing.
"Okay, and then you'd hold on with one hand while painting it?"
"Yeah"
The two went quiet for a moment, first to contemplate the validity of the theory, then to listen to the increasing noise.
A train was coming. One from each direction. Thank you Fortune, for this opportunity to win the Darwin Award.

"Hurry, hurry, come on, get up!" Ross told his girlfriend, kneeling down to help her up. The exertion of her actions had left her unable to get up on her own. With the two of them up on the bridge, they looked at their situation. Thanks to the curve in the tracks, both trains would not spot them until it was too late to stop. Even if they started to slow down, they'd still run the couple over. If they were stupid and stayed on the tracks, that is. They naturally made way to the space between the tracks to wait the thing out.
"You know, I'd totally jump on a passing truck or bus if one went under the bridge now" Saki said, taking off her hat and wiping the sweat off her brow with trembling arms.
"No you wouldn't" Ross replied.
"Would too"
She probably would, at that, now that she felt she'd been challenged. They waited for the oncoming trains, and then as if to mock him, fate did send a truck down the road. Saki tensed up when she saw it.
Ross yanked one of her pointy ears.
"No. Bad" he said.
"Spoilsport"

With the trains gone, the couple left the bridge and returned to their walk.
"That was dumb" he said.
"Kinda" she agreed.
"I don't mean testing the theory, I mean the theory itself" he clarified.
"Oh?"
"You couldn't have held on to the bridge with one hand. What teenaged vandal could have?"
"Well it's not like Pink Cocks don't have their own Kunoichi"
Ross rolled his eyes. Not this again. She was fun to be around except when she got all tinfoily.
"I don't think such a gang exists in the first place, Saki" he said, dismissively. "And if it did, why would they have ninjas? Ninjas better than you?"
Saki frowned.
"If there wasn't a hidden clan of ninjas in this town, why would they put up their symbols like that?" she demanded.
"If they were trying to remain hidden, why WOULD they put up their symbols like that?" he retorted.
"To show everyone that even if we don't see them, they see us, and that they're in charge here" she offered.
"But they're not in charge here. I mean when's the last time we were stopped by sexy ninja ladies and demanded to pay protection money?"
"Hmph. Then YOU explain the tags!"
"Okay. How about this, right? Imagine there's these Leanan Sidhe..."
"Oh that's it, we're running to the cafe at the overlook!"
"W-what? But that's like..."
"I caaaan't heaaaar yoooouuuu~" she yelled back at him, already running.

	***

Even in modern times, there are those who practice the dark arts and black magic. Necromancers often find secluded locations to practice their art, and more often than not they are after capture diagnosed as having had tendencies toward necrophilia. It is therefore no surprise that they should put some considerable effort toward procuring females as their Undead servants, even in instances when these servants had no meat around their bones to speak of, as was the case for 251-b.
In life, she'd been a girl of sixteen. How her death had come about, she couldn't say, as she possessed no memories of anything before awakening as a minion of the man who loved the dead, often. Within a week of her awakening, men with guns and armour had busted into the secret lair and arrested the Necromancer, laying waste to many of the Undead who fought to defend their master in the process, as well as burning down those who had remained. The Undead were a peculiar brand of Monster, and the laws of the land only accepted their existence under very specific circumstances. None of those who had been raised here fit. Moreover, Undead raised to be minions were often confused and aggressive when their connection to their master was cut, resulting in significant danger to the living. Extermination of these creatures was therefore considered an acceptable practice even for the police, not just paladins.
Often it happened that some escaped. No official force had the time, manpower or will to hunt down some stray zombies in the sewers, and thus it happened that private individuals took up contracts for this kind of thing, hunting them down for small pay. Yes, the pay was small, but that was beside the point. Bloodthirsty thrill seekers found the idea of dressing up in medieval armour and fighting the Undead in sewers to be an irresistible temptation. One such person, an overweight young man with a heavy battle axe and a neckbeard, was in the sewers at the moment, his breathe wheezing behind his gasmask - medieval armour wasn't' enough to keep away the stink, after all - as he gave chase to 251-b, who had been on the run for two weeks.

The dark, dirty sewers had been almost impossible to navigate at first, and intolerably scary. 251-b missed her friends, and even her master, even if he'd touched her in weird places for no reason. Even so, that first week of her life - she thought of it as her life, no bully! - was a very precious memory to her. Hazy as it was. The spells hadn't left her with all that much of a will. These two lonely weeks, the two thirds majority of her entire existence, had been abysmal by comparison. She cried a lot. She had hoped she'd be back home. But when she found back home, there'd been nothing there. Everybody was gone, everything was wrecked, and there'd been an alert. And now there was this mean guy chasing her. Normally she'd have been happy to fight back. She'd killed all those rats that tried to eat her. But no matter how hard she'd punch or kick, she couldn't hurt a guy in armour. And one hit from an axe like that and she'd be crushed. Yes, running was the only option, and that's what she did.
The man chasing 251-b had a lamp on his head. A bright, white light, that left her completely exposed. It also showed her where she was going, and that was nice. Or it would have been, if it had helped her.
"Come back here, bitch! I'mma purge you! HEEE-HAAAW!" shouted the fat man. 251-b felt like crying again.

The sewers were a home to many curious things that people might not have expected. The urban legend of crocodiles was a fallacious one in this city, but there was something equally dangerous that had entered the sewers by being flushed down after growing too big. There once had been a boy who had found a Slime on the streets after a rainstorm, and took it home, thinking it was neat. He'd kept it hidden from his parents, but after it grew bigger and begun to talk to him, he had been freaked out and had flushed it down, never telling anyone about it. For years and years since then, Gomi the Slime had led a simple, solitary existence in the city's sewers. She didn't clog anything up or trouble anyone, and the only effect she had on her surroundings was turning the waste water cleaner, and as such, nobody knew she was there, and naturally nobody had ever tried to get rid of her.
Like 251-b, Gomi too remembered with fondness her past, thinking the company of others to her solitude, but she was afraid to wander into outlets and pipes, and only explored very carefully. Sometimes she had played with rats. Whenever people came, she'd try to stalk them and stay close, but never dared to go talk to them, since the last time she'd met a person she'd been discarded. On this day, however, fate brought together these two, tragic fates.

Gomi heard the splashing footsteps of the running Skeleton, but couldn't yet see her, or know that she wasn't a human. She could also hear the running of the man with the battleaxe, and was able to deduce one chased the other. Feeling uneasy at this, she dove beneath the surface of the water and waited. She'd move about so that they wouldn't step on her, and then she'd follow them quietly until they left to the surface world. That was a sound plan on her part, one she had used many times before, but one that wouldn't work this time.
251-b was the most curious sight Gomi had ever seen. The exposed bones were something she'd seen on dead rats before, but those had never moved. She'd seen zombies too, sometimes, and she'd seen them get purged. But none of them had been so skeletal. Sure enough, 251-b had some meat on her face, around the chest and ribs and back, and even on the hips, ass and crotch, but she was still very much a Skeleton, and even a Slime could tell that. Gomi also saw that the person chasing her, with those bright lights and the scary, loud breathing, was a bad guy. The Slime had no idea why anyone would hurt the Undead girls, after all, and seeing it happen had left her with some semblance of a sense of right and wrong.
When she leapt over the spot where the Slime was hiding, 251-b was crying. Her tears convinced Gomi that she had to help her. She was too scared to get up and fight the man with the axe, she'd seen what those things could do, but she could still help. 251-b tripped and fell. That was bad!
"Gotcha now, HEEE-HAAAAAW!" yelled the fat man, preparing his axe for a powerful downward swing. Unfortunately for him, he had both his legs in the area where Gomi's substance had spread. The Slime tightened up and stopped the man, who fell headlong into the sewage.

After a loud splash the light had disappeared, and 251-b realized her pursuer had fallen as well. This offered her some new possibilities. Being Undead, she wasn't really worn out by physical exertion in the same way as living people. The man chasing her was fat, wearing a lot of heavy stuff on him, and on top of that had a gasmask. He was probably very, very short on breath now. She could outrun him eventually. But that would diminish her magic, and her options were limited when it came to replenishing that. Preserving it was for the best. She could dive beneath the surface and wait things out, hope for him to miss her and keep running...
"GIT OFFA ME!" shouted the man as he struggled to get up. The light shining from his forehead illuminated where his head was turned, and 251-b could see that he was covered in... slime?

"Hurry up and run!" Gomi shouted, forming her face in order to shout at the curious looking Skeleton.
"Haah... di'in't know there was a Slime down here too! HEEE-HAAAW! It's my lucky day! TWO FOR ONE!" shouted the armed man obnoxiously, and swung his axe into the Slime. Two for one indeed, for two things happened then.
Firstly, Gomi learned that the axe she had been too slow to evade couldn't actually harm her. Secondly, that even if the blow was blunted by a thin layer of Slime Girl, a full-force swing from an axe to your own inner thigh - a spot NOT covered by any for of armour - was extremely painful.
The man yelled at the top of his lungs from pain and let go of the axe. Seeing her opportunity in this, 251-b rushed to help the Slime who had helped her, and grabbed the battle axe, holding it unsteadily in both hands.
"Game Over" she told the man, swinging with all her might at his head. Sure enough, she aimed with the blunt side, but the thud and crunch that followed hinted at some serious damage. The Slime let go of the man and let him fall down into the sewage.

For a while the two Monsters stared at one another in the light of the lamp attached to the man they had just slain together.
"Who are you?" asked Gomi.
"251-b" answered the Skeleton. "You?"
"Gomi. But that's a dumb name!"
"So is yours. Sounds like gummi. And you're not candy"
The two giggled at the silly names they both had, and finding that the light and the company much improved their moods, decided to take a rest and exchange life stories. In no time at all the two friends realized they shared some common experience, mainly that their lives had been much more enjoyable before coming to the sewers. They despaired soon, realizing that neither of them would fit in with humans, as one was a skeleton with hardly any meat on her, and the other was a pile of goo.
"But what if..." wondered 251-b, eyeing up the armour and clothing on the man they'd taken out.
"What if what?"
"What if we got in that?" she pointed at the armour.
"Both of us?"
"Why not? I'll wear you and you'll wear that. Nobody will be able to tell the difference. All humans have skeletons inside them. I'll be the skeleton, you'll be the meat, and we'll hide in that, and then go to town, and eat candy and stuff!"
"But what will our name be?"
"Huh?"
"Well we can't be Gomi and 251-b anymore. We'll need to use just one name!"
The two pondered this for a while.
"I can't think of anything"
"Let's put it on, it'll be easier!"
They got the human corpse out of the stuff, then Gomi climbed all over 251-b, both girls giggling at the way it made them feel, especially when Gomi's core made its way to where 251-b's heart would have been, and then they put on their new gear.
Their new name was still not immediately obvious to them.
"Well maybe someone else will give us a name after they meet us?"
Thus they decided to head out to the world of men, to make a name for themselves.


						***

"...and if I just hit it the right way, you'll be able to see stuff with an X-ray vision" Saki concluded her lecture of chakras and pressure points.
"That's nice and all, but there's no way you're shoving your fingers up my ass" Ross responded.
"Fair enough" she shrugged.
Ross slurped his coffee and wondered if having the power to see through layers of clothing might not be an ability worth an ass-shove. If it was real. Which is probably wasn't. All these goofy ninja techniques Saki talked about sounded a little too far-fetched. At least she had never tried to shoot lasers or fly.
"You know..." she started again, and Ross sighed in preparation. "...I can use that stuff for sex, too. I mean, not the butt-pokes since you don't like that, but there's plenty of other pressure points that I could use..."
Her voice took on a softer, more seductive tint, and she tried to put on the face of a femme fatale, having her eyes and lips half closed and half open. It looked goofy rather than sexy on a woman like her, but the effort was there.
"Oh yeah?" Ross asked, unable to take her flirting seriously.
"Oh yeah. Super-orgasms. Tantric sex. Contortionist-like agility on my part. Think about it"
He did think about it. This was their third date, after all…
“My place or yours?” he asked. She grinned at this.
“Why don’t we just find some shrubs?”
“Seriously?”
“The art of concealment, y’know?”
“Yeah, but seriously?”
“What, you chicken?”
“No, but I don’t think…”
“Bwuk-bwuk-bwuuk!”
Ross shook his head.
“That would be ‘indecent exposure’, Saki”
She frowned.
“You’re not on duty, lighten up, will you?”
“Let’s just forget about the shrubs and I’ll walk you home, okay?”
“Hmph”
“No pouting!”
“Whatcha gonna do, arrest me?”
Ross groaned. She could really act like a kid sometimes.

The argument died down though, and the two left the café without making a scene. They descended down a gravel path from the high hill where the lookout was, and Ross tried to think of something to lighten the mood. It’s not like he didn’t want to have sex with her, she was damn fine and her species wasn’t all that much trouble in the bedroom from what he gathered. But Saki’s idea about doing it in the bushes? He couldn’t do that. He was a cop now. Someone might see them, and he had to be a good example. There’d been a time when he’d have jumped at the chance, of course, but…
The image of a Mantis embedded itself in his head. A Mantis with bright pink hair standing up, a tank top that showed off her muscles, and that look on her face… most people couldn’t recognize a Mantis’ expressions. But when you get to know one, you can tell. And that one had been PISSED.
She’d flicked her wrist to open up her scythe like it was a switchblade.
“You’re going down, bitch” she’d said.

Ross’ reminiscence was stopped when Saki called his name, opening her mouth for the first time since they’d left the café. He turned to face her.
And then her leg rose up to kick at him. Without even thinking he blocked it with his own, moving her leg so they found themselves back to back.
“What the hell was that?” he demanded.
“You got all tense. Like, you were going to fight. But there’s nobody here but us. So…” her voice trailed off and Ross jumped away and rolled downhill, hearing just behind him a sound like the crack of a whip. Her tail.
“Is this really necessary?” he called out, feeling uncertain all of a sudden. Saki was a goofy girl at the best of times, but was he this nuts?
“Sure it is” she replied, her arms crossed, her legs parted, her tail swinging in the air menacingly. That thing didn’t exactly break the sound barrier, but it sure did sound nasty.
“Looks like I’ve got the high ground” Saki noted, looking around.
“So?”
“Well that means you’re probably too smart to attack. I’m coming down for you!”
The statement was immediately followed by her jumping in the air and… descending in slow motion. How the hell did she do THAT?
Of course that left Ross with enough time to add some distance between them, running away from the trail and into the ticket. He heard the thump of her hitting the ground, and then… nothing. He turned to look back and couldn’t see her. Wait, were those leaves… oh. She was up in the trees. Like a proper ninja. Of course she was.
He couldn’t see her though. Did that mean she was…?
She kissed his cheek. Her breasts were pressed against his back. Her hands caught his arms.
“When did you…?”
He didn’t have time to finish that sentence, for she dripped him then and there, and fell on top of him.
Her face was flushed, her chest heaving with her heavy breathing. She was obviously aching to keep going. But she didn’t.
“That was fun” she said.
“Was it?”
“How come you’re always questioning me? Of course it was fun! I mean, we stopped a little too soon for my tastes but it WAS fun while it lasted! Hey, you think that would happen to us during sex, too? Wanna find out?”
Ross sighed.
“Get off”
“Hmph!”
“No pouting!”
“Bleh!” she stuck out her tongue while getting off of him.

Ross brushed off his clothes and looked around. They’d gone through some bush to get here, and it actually was a pretty secluded location. Nobody would see them if they…
“You got any protection, Saki?” he asked, feeling a sudden change of heart.
“Sure I do”
“Then why don’t we put down some clothes to lie on…”
“Really?”
“Now you’re questioning me?”
“Done and done!”
That was impossible. Saki’s clothes were all on the ground now, and she was butt-naked, glistening with sweat.
Ross swallowed.
“Now, about those pressure points…”
“No butt stuff, I know” she said, taking a step closer to him. He swallowed again.
“If it’s all the same to you, I’d rather no pressure point stuff, period” he said nervously.
“You’re no fun” she said, stepping in close enough to remove his shirt.
“It’s a part of the job, sweetcheeks” he said, grabbing her rump with both hands and lifting her up, only to drop her on to the mat of clothing.
“Ooh, aren’t you the model officer? Wanna play good cop-bad cop?”
“There’s only two of us here Saki” he said, squirming out of his pants while kicking off his shoes.
“Then bad cop and robber?” she asked hopefully.
“None of that stuff now, let me just slip in and… what was the protection you had?”
“P-pressure points?”
Ross felt the sudden need to bang his head against a rock.
“You’re telling me you’d do what exactly?”
“Press some points on both of us to make us temporarily sterile” she said with a shrug.
“Is that even a thing?”
“M-maybe”
“Fffff-“
“Okay, wait, let’s turn around…”
Saki climbed on top of him and turned to face the other way so he had his view of the word limited to her thighs and neatly shaved crotch.
“Sixtynining?”
“Yup!”
Not like that was any worse. Ross buried his face in her crotch while she applied her tongue to his meaty lollipop as if it were the most tasty thing she’d ever had. This was a good end to a date, wasn’t it?

In a very un-gentlemanly manner Ross finished before Saki did, but she didn’t seem to mind. Rather, she simply stood up and fully enjoyed riding on his face until he’d made up the difference. They didn’t find their little hiding spot too comfortable, and so instead of staying here to bask in the afterglow of this act, they put their clothes on quickly and kept walking away, in silence.
It was getting rather late now, and Saki decided she’d take the bus to her place. Upon reaching the bus-stop, they found the glass broken on one of the three sides.
“Damn kids” Saki mumbled. But the copper in the company had a differing opinion.
“I don’t think this was broken by some kids” he said.
“Oh?”
“Yeah. Look at this frame here” he said, pointing at the metal frame.
“It’s bent?”
“Yeah. You know what that means?”
“That the damn kids who broke the glass bent it?”
“Initially, yes. But then the glass was replaced, and the frame stayed the way it is. The glass was forced into place, see, and then there was some wind, and crash it went” he explained.
Saki looked at him quizzically.
“Do you have any proof of that?”
“Not really”
“So why should I believe you?”
“Why should I believe the Pink Cocks exist and the graffiti isn’t made by a bunch of damn kids?”
Saki nodded with her arms crossed.
“Touché, touché”

They stayed quiet for a while, and then got on the bus. Ross decided to ride it for a couple of stops just out of sloth. He was a little worried his last remark had offended the ninja demon, and hurting her feelings wasn’t something he wanted to do. She was the first girl he’d been dating since…
He remembered the Mantis again.
“So how’d you end up a cop?” she asked all of a sudden. The Kunoichi, not the Mantis.
“What?”
“You, cop, why?”
“Oh, uhh…”
“Your dad was one maybe?”
“What, no, oh, no, nah, he works at the post office. Nobody in my family is a cop, as far as I know. Except for me, I mean” he rambled.
“It’s just that you got all stiff again. Like you were going to fight. Again. I just, y’know, wanted to calm you down?” she explained.
Ross gave a peck on her cheek.
“Thanks. There IS a story there, one I don’t really mind telling you…

						***

 The deal had gone sour, as they usually go when you involve someone with a lot of anger issues and no idea what he was doing. Ross had been like that then. He’d been pissed, on a mix of energy drinks full of caffeine and some stimulant drugs – that were strictly speaking legal – and the people on the other side were kind of on edge. He didn’t care. He didn’t even want to be there. He didn’t like any of the people that were present at the deal. He didn’t want what they were selling. Oomukade venom was the kind of stuff that did nothing Manticore venom couldn’t do, but it was “exotic” on account of being harder to get in this town. This would be the first drug deal his gang had ever done. Or it would have been. It never went through. One of the people on the other side gave him lip. He broke busted it open. And then the guy’s buddies were on him, and he flailed around and let fly kicks and punches like no tomorrow. He didn’t aim. He got hit a couple times. His own mates came to the rescue, and after a while they won. They had the advantage now, and nobody had been killed or maimed, so nothing had really gone down the drain. Everything could still have been resolved… if only the case with the venom hadn’t gotten broken in the tussle. The stuff was all over the alley now. His buddies yelled at him for being an idiot. The guys they’d managed to beat up told them they had to pay for the product, citing “you break it, you buy it”. Ross knew they couldn’t pay and then go back empty handed. Someone would have to pay for this with more than just a little cash. Everyone turned their faces to the one who had started the fight. He bolted.
The deal had taken place in a back alley, as was only proper, and he did what any runner worth his salt did, turning over trashcans after him and using his parkour skills to try and clear a fence. His lack of parkour skills resulted in him climbing the fence, but he still got a decent head start, and left the labyrinth of alleys, losing his pursuers in the light of lamps and passing cars, where they couldn’t freely chase him. They kept trailing after him for a while, giving up when he stole a bike and pedalled away. This didn’t save him, and he knew it. His gang knew exactly where he lived. His gang knew, and it stood to reason that in a short while the people they had been dealing with would, too.

That night Ross didn’t return home or go to any of his usual haunts. He wandered around in parts of town he’d never really been to with the stolen bike and cried a little. He was FUCKED. Not to the point where they’d kill him, no, but to the point where he’d fucked his chances of ever getting anywhere. He’d barely gotten through high school, and even then it had taken him four years. Since then he’d been doing nothing but try to get made. This had been his big break. If the deal had gone smoothly, he’d have gotten himself a fancy new tattoo in the presence of his seniors, most importantly HER, and he’d have gotten the right to boss around the hang-arounds and the prospects. And then she’d…

They tried calling him. He didn’t pick up. They texted him. He didn’t read any of them and after the first 20 just took the battery out of his phone. He had a lot of time to think about what they’d do with him. He’d never actually SEEN them hurt anyone, but the stories were always there. Always. And the seniors never denied anything. They didn’t let on at all if the stuff their juniors talked about were anywhere near true or completely fabricated. There was always a chance…
Morning was coming up, and he really needed to get some sleep, and so he slept on a bench in a park.
Ross got woken up by a woman in some dark blue. A copper. With a face that might as well have been carved into stone. She was like a female Clint Eastwood, he’d thought then. Later on he’d learned just how hardboiled she really was. But then she’d just checked if he’d been drinking and sent him packing on home, saying if she ever caught him at a place like that again he’d get to sleep at the station. Ross should have told her everything then and there. The Oomukade venom would still have been at that alley. Even if it had been cleaned up, there’d have been enough traces of it. And then his testimony would have gone a long way, and a lot of trouble could have been avoided.
But Ross wasn’t a snitch. Not then. He’d had backbone. Just not enough to go and face the consequences of his actions.

He’d gone home at around ten in the morning, showered, changes his clothes, grabbed his savings – nobody had broken in while he’d been gone, thank Fortuna – but he didn’t feel safe staying there in any case. Leaving the apartment he spied suspicious-looking people. Too suspicious-looking, these were fresh, new faces, hang-arounds who wanted to impress the seniors and get to join the gang by nabbing him. They’d been instructed to tell the seniors if they saw him, that was certain, Ross knew, but they were too eager. Two of them began to trail after him, thinking they might be able to impress everyone, maybe even HER, if they got him. Ross hadn’t slept well, and he was very emotional. Anger became the height of these emotions, and then… a calm rage. He let them get close. Once they were close enough to grab him, he spun around and gave a roundhouse kick to the head of the one on the right. He fell down writhing and crying. Of course he did, that kind of kick hurt. The other one got tangled up with his friend and fell over. Ross dropped his knees on his chest, grabbed his shirt and shook him up a little while asking him how many of them there were. The answer was five. Five people watching him?
Later on Ross had found out that while he’d been beyond anyone’s reach, the dealers had been negotiating with the leaders of his gang. Oomukade venom was a market that didn’t really exist yet, but it would be born quickly. And to resolve everything, all they’d need was Ross apologizing, and compensating for the lost venom, with some extra thrown in for the damages to the dealers, and it would all be water under the bridge. Well, that was what they’d wanted. And the leaders would need to discipline him, of course. And they’d do that happily. For a whole year after he’d recovered from that they wouldn’t let him try to prove himself again, no sir.
But nobody had been able to lay hands on him, or reach him. Why was that, they wondered. Surely Rossie-boy wasn’t planning on skipping town? Or maybe going to the cops? Five guys to watch the apartment wasn’t such a bad investment. Not when you took into account that he was known to be a martial artist.

The three who hadn’t immediately followed him were showing up now, and one of them was on his phone. These were all just young punks, high school dropouts or maybe even middleschoolers who had been held back more than a few grades. He could do them in.
Or he could have if it hadn’t been the middle of the day. People would see. Even in this neighbourhood, people would look out their windows and call the cops on a fight like that. So he ran where they wouldn’t see. He ran into some alley or other, then took a shortcut through a parking lot and found himself behind a bakery. The loading dock was behind a wall, the entrance was behind a wall, there was a steep hill with shrubbery and some trees growing there… yeah, this was a nice spot. There was gravel and grass underfoot, no cameras covering it, nobody saw. He waited, and thought if the punks were smart enough to try and come at him from two different directions.
They weren’t. All three rushed him in a line that turned into a row that turned into a tangle of limbs as the paint-sniffers got into each other’s way and flailed around, no clue how to fight. One of them broke his thumb when he made a fist wrong and hit Ross in the forearm. He beat all three hard enough to get them to drop – he didn’t knock them out, they just fell down and cried because they were wimps who weren’t used to pain – and then he saw the van. It was run-down and clearly should have been trashed, but in it came, rubber burning, and out flooded more men. More punks, of course… but also a couple of people like him. Including the ones he’d ditched the night before.

Ross was to this day proud of the way he’d played it. There had been eight enemies on their feet, and they’d began to try an circle around him. Before the fight started, he saw the guy he’d interrogated make his way there, with the guy he’d kicked looking a little uncertain, but in tow. And the ones he’d dropped got up when their seniors and peers were present. That made it thirteen-to-one.
He tackled one of the punks, rolled over him and ran. He’d made note of where the cameras at the loading bay were, and he knew where to stick to so as to avoid them. The others didn’t. He stayed out of sight while grabbing a wooden platform and using it as a shield. Some of his enemies were dumb and tried to punch or kick through it. Others were too dumb to realize it could be used as a weapon as well. He’d knocked some teeth out before they’d circled around him and gotten in position that required him to toss his protection at them and run back the way he’d come.
Hoping for the best Ross stuck to the wall behind the corner and listened for the steps of those coming after him. He prepared for it, and BAM, punched the one coming from around the corner in the throat with an open palm. The fucker dropped then and there, and he ran around the corner AT his assailants.
They hadn’t expected that. They didn’t have time to react before he’d attacked them, either. He aimed low with his kicks and got two guys down before the others regrouped, once again getting in each other’s way. Ross had never realized just how bad the average person was in a fight until now. He felt an increasing adrenaline rush. This must be what being a berserker was like, kind of.
In the dojo he’d been trained at until his second year in high school he’d been forbidden from using lots of moves. Now he got to do all the legs sweeps and shin kicks he wanted. He HAD to.

The fight’s pace was starting to change, though. For all his attacks, Ross barely managed to make any hits that could knock someone out. He didn’t reach their heads, and after a while they began to get their guards up. And he began to get a little winded, while they had the numerical advantage. He got in some body blows on him. Something had to be done.
A quick rush managed to get him past the wall of enemies again, and he ran up the hill. That was the only thing to do, really. To run. He dove in the bushes, and then… lied low, crawling in the shrubs.
The trick had been pretty desperate, but the people coming in after him weren’t thinking straight. They were still high on the fight as well, and they didn’t mind that the rustling of the branches in front of them had disappeared. They kept running madly in there, while Ross crawled out of the shrubs and ran down the hill. He didn’t make it out of sight before they spotted him, but by then it was too late. Or so he hoped. He was winded, he was out of breath, he was tenderized… even if he was in better shape than any of them, they’d get him eventually.
But their stupidity was on his side. They’d left the keys in the ignition. Ross grinned madly and jumped in the van, turned it around and drove off… right into a bunch of police cars with their sirens blazing.
He might have made it. He might have gotten out of the whole situation if he hadn’t taken the car. If he’d just stayed in the bushes, they might have missed him and then the cops would have taken them and nobody would have found him… but of course, with thirteen guys missing, even if none of them were full members, after what he’d done, the leaders would have been displeased with him. Very displeased with him indeed. Ross felt strange relief when he found himself in the backseat of the cop car. Alone. The others weren’t lobbed in with him; the cops knew he would have been in danger. Ross noticed that the cop whose car he found himself in was none other than the lady from the park. He laughed at the world then.

He’d been interrogated, and he told everything. There was no point in keeping anything a secret. After something like this, he’d be better off in police custody than where the gang could find him. Hell, they might have a presence in prison, but not the kind that would get him killed, right?
To his surprise, telling them everything resulted in quite a different outcome than what it should have. As it turned out, Oomukade venom wasn’t exactly illegal, and him being “friends” with the wrong crowd wasn’t a crime, either. Beating up all those people? Self defence. After all, he looked pretty bad, too. Him driving the car, well… that had been just an extension of the aforementioned self defence. He was a victim. A victim who could testify in court and then all this unpleasantness about hanging out with the wrong crowd could be forgotten. And someone with the kind of fighting skills and street smarts he had, why, a little education and he’d be an asset in the police force…
It took roughly six months to get the trials and such sorted out. His testimony did away with the thirteen he’d been caught with, but there wasn’t any real dirt on anyone higher up he could provide, and since he’d cut his ties with the gang all official-like by doing this, the leaders ended up thinking it would be for the best not to go after him. Besides, the fools had been caught on the security cameras. It had been their own fault, hadn’t it?
Still, just to be sure, Ross moved to one of the dorm rooms at the police academy, where he’d gotten accepted, as the officer-lady had suspected he would. Five years later he found himself partnered up with Janice Belka Anderson, a woman who may or may not have been the reason his life turned around.

						***

The bus came to a halt around then, and it was time for Saki to get off.
“Maybe I’ll finish another time” Ross said, giving her a peck on the cheek for good night.
“You better. I’ll be seething with jealousy over Miss Anderson getting to spend all that time with you” she replied, then planted a quick kiss on his lips to one-up him.
The bus went on its merry way with Ross still on, and Saki turned to face the Temple of Five Nightly Sighs, forever shrouded in a moist mist thanks to the power of the high priestess, who was a Ryu. Saki walked to the end of the asphalt road and stepped in through the neatly defined wall of mist, beyond which was a gravel road leading to the stop for the tour buses and the parking lots for campers and tourists. The temple grounds were rather popular for that kind of thing. Everyone wanted to catch a glimpse of the martial artists practicing. Sometimes they did. Some of them got lucky and saw them bathe, too. Saki smiled at the thought. The days of skinny dipping and pretending not to notice the peepers were past her for now.
The walk to the entrance into the temple’s walled-in area, with the living quarters and the actual temple in it, had no gate. There was only an empty doorway and a couple hundred steps. Saki skipped them three at a time, humming to herself, her tail swinging happily in the air. Ross was a pretty interesting guy.
Saki reached the top of the stairs, and the inner wall was before her on the plateau on which the living quarters, kitchens and baths were built, below and all around the temple and the dojos. She turned around to look at the view behind her. The mist only covered the temple from being seen from the outside, but she could see out just fine from here. The lights of the city were a glow already, and the hum of the nearest freeway was audible to her highly trained ears. As was a sort of sniggering noise.
“Come on out Chi Qi, I can hear you giggle” Saki said, crossing her arms and tapping the tiles with her foot.
A blur shot out from one of the trees planted in a neat row around the temple’s inner wall, and a loud, obnoxious laugh began.
“You totally smell like dick!” the Kakuen laughed at her, standing on her hands and shaking her ass for no real reason. She was wearing absolutely nothing. Again.
“And you’re naked” Saki retorted.
The Kakuen known as Chi Qi jumped in the air, did a triple somersault and landed on her plump ass, sitting in the lotus position, and grinned smugly.
“It gets so hot, thinking about all the dick you got. I’ve been cooling off. Still sweaty!” she explained and rubbed her tits in a vulgar manner.
Saki smiled. She totally got laid earlier.
“I totally got laid earlier” she agreed.
“I know right? That’s hot! Tell me! Tell me how big it was!” the Kakuen demanded, one hand deftly moving to her crotch and two fingers slipping inside her slit with no resistance at all.
Saki shook her head and sighed. She was NOT telling.
“Come on, don’t be stingy! I’ll use your practice spear as a dildo if you don’t tell!” Chi Qi threatened.
“You do that anyway” Saki pointed out.
“Yeah but I won’t wash it this time!”
“You don’t wash it any time!”
“I do too!”
“Sucking it off is not washing it!”
“Is too!”
The frustrated Kakuen was jumping up and down at this point. Her disapproval of the situation might end up in some of what the instructors had come to call Monkey Madness. Monkey Madness was bad.
“Now listen here, I’m not going to get into a fight about this, I’m all worn out and…” Saki began, then realized her mistake. Shouldn’t have brought that up.
“Worn out? Ooh, he fucked you good! He fucked you soooo goooood~” Chi Qi had doubled over and was supporting herself with three limbs, while one hands was stuck in her pussy and her tail was quite nimbly spanking her own ass.
Saki began to limber up. If Chi Qi lost it, she’d be a pain to fight.
“What are you kids doing at this time of night? It’s already past your bedtimes!” a new voice said with a yawn. Recognizing it, both Saki and Chi Qi turned to face the source and gave quick bows, which in Chi Qi’s case meant standing upright first.

The newcomer was a Panda or Ren Xiangmao as they are called in the scientific circles. She wore pink pyjamas with pictures of bunnies on them and looked quite like she’d rather be asleep now. Lewd-Tze was master of martial arts, renowned far and wide for her exploits in both combat and the bedroom. She travelled from one temple to another as an instructor nowadays, and had been staying at Five Nightly Sighs for two months. During this time the students had come to respect her otherworldly abilities. On the surface she looked like a soft and slightly plump girl with constant bed-hair and the kinds of pouches under her eyes that never left but didn’t make her particularly unattractive either. She had a reputation of giving male students extra lessons in private, but both the ones receiving them as well as the ones spying on them were disappointed at the lack of lewd activities.
“M-m-master Lewd-Tze, we were simply…” Saki began, her head still bowed, but then the Panda patted her head with a fluffy paw. A shock struck up her spine when she realized how far they’d been from another just before it happened.
“I know, I know. Running off to do some sparring, no doubt. Good, good” she emphasised the good by ruffling Saki’s hair.
“And you just smell like love all over, lucky girl!” she continued, still ruffling.
“But I’m not so young anymore, and can’t be running up and about all night like I used to…” she kept talking in a smooth tone, but her paw began to feel very heavy indeed.
“So why don’t we do something about all that excess energy you two have?”
Saki dared to look up now, and saw that Lewd-Tze was wearing a warm, friendly smile.
“W-what did you have in mind?” the Kunoichi inquired.
“Oh, a little spar, a little spar is just the thing” the Panda said in a sing-song voice and headed up to the temple proper.
Saki and Chi Qi followed.

Lewd-Tze led them to one of the many arenas, this one with a garden around it and a carp pond surrounding it like a moat.
“You two limber up and take in the ambiance, I’ll go get the stuff” Lewd-Tze said and ambled off. “And Saki dear, do take your clothes off.” she added.
Saki did, and when both of them were in the nude, they began to do stretches. For Chi Qi it was all unnecessary, on account of her being quite warmed up and ready for action already, but what else was she going to do?
After a bit Lewd-Tze returned, carrying poles. Three smooth spear poles with rounded tips on one end and sharpened on the other. She threw two to the students and stuck hers into the dirt of the fighting area so deep it was firmly in place.
“Do follow my lead, dears” she said and clapped her paws to get them moving. The two struck their poles into the ground.
“Now do as I do” she instructed, and, removing her clothes with superhuman speed, putting her hands behind her back, and caught the pole between her plump thighs and breasts, licking at it lightly.
Chi Qi wasted no time in following suite, and Saki found this lesson to be to her liking as well.
“Now, hh, rhaise your, hhnnh, selves, hn, uphnh, from, hnh, the ground!” Lewd-Tze commanded, and gripped the pole so tightly she was able to support her weight on it, thus lifting her feet off the ground.
The students did so.
“Now, hnhn, go up to, hhnnh, the top!” she said, and using a sort of wriggling motion she scaled the pole up to the top, licking at it all the while. Once she reached the rounded tip, she began to perform fellatio on it with gusto.
Saki found that climbing up the pole without using her hands was a lot harder than it looked, but she managed. It also rubbed her nicely. This was a lovely little lesson. Chi Qi was moaning loudly, and seemed to like it quite a bit, too.

It was getting strenuous to stay in position, actually. And performing fellatio meant that there was no room for breathing through their mouths. Huh. This was actually going to be hard, wasn’t it? Saki though.
“Aaahhhn” Lewd-Tze moaned as she pulled her mouth away from the tip. “Alright dearies, let’s go down again! Let’s see those asses wriggle!” she ordered, and down she went. Of course they could have slid down the poles smoothly, but that wouldn’t have been a workout, would it?
“And keep licking!” she added.