Elry/Body Shock's Story

"So, do we have a deal?"

	The woman in the chair in front of Boss McGlade shifted her legs in a way that was almost definitely meant to be intimidating and perverse all at once.

	McGlade didn't know what made her more uncomfortable about the woman sitting in front of her in the warehouse. Perhaps it was the cloyingly sweet perfume that only barely veiled her smell like death. Perhaps it was her pallid skin; like that of a living corpse.

	Perhaps it was the fact that she was, indeed, an actual living corpse, her lich body as soulless as the smile on her bald head. Or, perhaps it was the fact that she was using various women; also living corpses; as a living; shuddering; quivering chair, stitched together in a fashion that appeared quickly done but immaculate in formation.

	Probably that last one come to think of it.

	"Yes, but with some caveats." McGlade replied. "Miss Lynne, this 'magic' of yours, I have not had the most... reliable dealings with most beings hawking such services. What makes yours different?"

	McGlade ground her sharklike teeth nervously, trying not to betray her disquiet with the woman in front of her. McGlade knew she herself wasn't much of a looker, being immensely short in height with her pallid skin; sharklike teeth and red eyes. And her minions weren't the most couth, considering the one at her side looked like if Clamato sponsored a power rangers monster, the one guarding the door was like an angsty pangolin Mechagodzilla made of radio antennae, and both of them grew from specially incubated fetal pods from her back. But at least she didn't put on... airs like this.

	"Ahuhuhuhu!" laughed Lynne. Her laugh was ethereal and airless. "You do not think that the craftsmanship of my wives are..."

	She stopped, and lewdly licked the side of one of the twitching women in the chair. It shuddered and groaned. "Proof enough?" she said, grinning wickedly.

	The clam-tomato-humanoid at McGlade's side stepped forward. She pushed him back "Quite frankly, no," McGlade said. "I've seen enough would-be puppeteers of the enigmae to be skeptical"

	A snarl of hideous fury popped up onto Lynne's face, like a grotesque leering hate-mask in the flesh. And then, it faded back to the calm; placid; subtly-hateful expression she had. "Well, come then, let me show you."

	She slinked away from her seat; whose component parts relatxed as she stepped off of them, towards the box clattering in the corner. Oh yeah, that was the most disquieting thing that Boss McGlade had seen. It was a steel box with only a few barred windows higher up, clattering and banging and slamming like the devil's kettle. The thing had been making such a persistent; pained cacophony she'd tuned it out. She hated to think of what was inside that box. It reminded her too much of childhood.

	But, Lynne calmly, simply, strode up, placed a hand between the bars, and with a wet quick rip pulled out a still-beating heart

	The box stopped for a moment, and then continued to rattle and bang as if nothing had happened. She held the heart in her hand and shoved it into McGlade's face. It was dripping on McGlade's coat as it beat; steadily; smoothly; showing no signs of stopping.

	“Can you now comprehend?”

	“I comprehend,” McGlade said stepping up onto her chair to inspect it. She'd have to be the bigger woman in all of this.

	Lynne yanked the heart away and threw it back through the bars of the box. There was a brief pause, a wet sound of a heart being placed into a chest cavity, and then a resumption of the clatter. “So, will you sign the agreement of purchase for my services?”

“Indeed,” McGlade said, pulling out a scroll of paper from her coat. “Let us just negotiate the finer points of this contract so everything may b-”

	McGlade sniffed. There was a smell of ozone that suddenly crackled through the air. Oh shit. Body Shock.

	Suddenly, the previously mentioned angsty pangolin Mechagodzilla made of radio antennae burst through the wall, followed by the woman who had punched her through the wall. She looked like a crackling neon-yellow squamous-spiked dynamo freak of nature as she followed through with the swing of her fist; built like a brick shithouse had a baby with a lightning strike. More importantly, she looked pissed as all hell.

	McGlade looked mortified. Lynne simply smiled. “I believe it is now time for my contingency plans,”

She snapped her fingers, and her chair shuddered and flexed, shaping itself into a portal. And as it did that; the door of the rattling box slowly swung open.,,

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	Body Shock was not in a good mood. The city streets were as cold as Jack Frost's balls, the investigation had led her all over the goddamned map as she moved, she had to punch the lights out of some god-forsaken shambling thing made of rotten hamburger and currently stank like a beached whale carcass post-dynamiting.

	Well, now of a beached-whale-carcass post-dynamiting covered with metal shavings of the first of McGlade's mutants she punched the lights out of, and now also covered in Clamato as she sent a jlot of electricity from her spiny skin towards the clam-tomato-thing's face as it tried to reel her in with its vines.

	She yanked herself away, the thing tried to yank her back, she wound up a fist, and Newtonian physics decided the rest of the battle. She wiped the filth off her rough; pitted scales and looked around.

It was a barren place, with a sad little linoleum chair on a dusty concrete floor; florescent lights half-working, only livened up by splattered monster fluids and a glass bottle of flat ginger-ale. Oh, and the lurid gangrenous portal made of twitching muscular women, that was important too. And the metal box with the barred windows too. Along with the massive shirtless grey-skinned hulk of a woman punching her way out of it. That too.

	There's something to be said for understanding the human perception of schema, the idea that one's worldview has a baseline produced by previous experiences that fills in the blanks of one's experience. Perhaps that's why her first response was to flare up and respond to the thing moving towards her at brakeneck speed with a punch. And perhaps that was also why the woman in the box grabbed her hand when she punched and tried to move it away, and then tried to kick up at BodyShock's hand as she reared up for another,

	Onward and together they danced a dance of blows, a left hook dodged by the grey woman followed by a right hook towards Body Shock twitched back by a jolt of electricity. Perhaps it was the horndog amongst the ragebeast in Body Shock, but she couldn't help but notice how beautiful the grey woman was. A flat chest corded with muscle that twitched as she got in a good blast; rippling and glistening as it twisted like a ragdoll only to straighten out as she charged back into the fray. The wide sensuous hips that moved as she got in a good kick to Body Shock's ribs only to leave an open for a stomach punch.

	“Dear god, how the fuck is she still standing?” Body Shock thought as she reeled back into the fight. It was like punching a wet bag of meat. The grey woman merely cricked her neck and spit out some black ichor. She wasn't sure whether to be furious or amazed by that.

	BodyShock ran in with with a blow surging with electricity, the sort of punch like a mac truck that one'd call a fight ender. And it did. For her.

	The grey woman deftly dodged and sent Body Shock flying into the concrete. The gray woman flipped her over, and grabbed her by the arms; pinning her to the floor. And, calmly and simply, she said “I ain't your enemy pal.” Body Shock looked into the woman's eyes as they stared into hers. Were they having a moment? She thought that they might be having a moment. Though, Body Shock was always terrible at reading people.

	The gray-skinned woman rolled over and let Body Shock up. “No hard feelings, right?” Body Shock said as she pushed herself off the ground in one fell press, the scales thankfully hiding her blushing “I mean, ya can't be too careful in this business ”

	“Nah, no worries, I've dealt with worse.” Ellry said, something between a smile and a smirk on her face, “Besides, the Mistress said she'd expected that from you. I don't like the Mistress very much but she 'keeps' me around, so I can't do much about that. Presumably I was gonna be the meat shield while she ran off into there.”

	Body Shock looked into the portal. She could faintly see the image of what was on the other side. It looked like a pastoral landscape of rolling hills. Until she saw the humanoid shapes beneath the grass, and saw them twitching.

	“Maybe ya should get goin then kiddo.” Ellry said. She patted Body Shock on the shoulder “So, howdja get into this 'hero' stuff I mean”

	“Well, you get fucked up by life, then some weird science gets your special kinda fucked up turned into  scaly hellbeast mutation shit, ya kinda gotta help folks who've been as fucked by life as you, yanno?” Body Shock paused a little, “Sorry, that ain't the most relatable feeling. Mutation shit and all that”

	Ellry was silent for a moment. “I used to be a florist” she said, taking out a photograph. It was of a slim young woman in her twenties, sharing almost nothing in common with Ellry but her eyes. Those bright; beautiful eyes. “Things changed.” she simply, sadly said. “Thanks to the Mistress.”

	Body Shock looked into her eyes. They were definitely having a moment now. Then, quickly, embarassedly, Body Shock looked off the portal. “Well, maybe I should get goin'.”

	“Yeah, probably.” Ellry said.

	“Hopefully I get somethin' done there. For me or for you.” Body Shock looked at Ellry and handed her a piece of paper. “Call this number if you find a way to get out. It's for the boardinghouse, I guarantee they'll let ya in cheap as a friend o' mine.” Ellry smiled, as Body Shock revved back and made a running leap towards the putrid portal.

	Of course, she did manage to accomplish a mission in there, even if it wasn't quite what she thought she would. It was getting back that was the real doozy actually, considered it took her most of a weekend and involved a detour into The Memory Palace. But, that's a story for another day...
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Lynne and Ellry belong to Toby/gh0stdoe, who is a great artist who you should totally check out, All others belong to me, and are freely usable with creator credit.