Silver Bullet #3- Malus

Santiago Enlace, a boy with a maturity that belied his form, walked along the marble inlaid floor. The mansion of the Compte was decadence itself. The white haired boy, wouldn't even be able to afford a floor tile from this place. The man in a boy's body sneered at the ostentatious surroundings while still keeping vigilant. Like the rest of the Silver Bullets, Enlace was paid government wages while being expressly unaffiliated with them in any possible way. As such, he therefore could not possibly be a spy. The government pay scale mandated that he couldn't possibly be rich either. Unfortunately, one of those impossibilities was actually true.

The mansion was large enough that was a slight breeze as he walked soundlessly down the hallway towards the fountain in the atria. This was easy enough, his current cover as student rubbing elbows at a fellow student's somewhat gaudy party, gave him the leeway to move as he wished. After verifying that the few subdued partygoers in the atria weren't paying him much attention, Enlace sat on the shadowed bench in the corner of the room facing the fountain. The gurgling sound behind him had Enlace turning in an instant to see the purple gloppy form of a girl drifting towards him from the shadows.

Santiago tensed, ready to draw one of the many weapons concealed on his person. The Dark Slime was unruffled and glorped onto the bench next to him. Upon reformation she was slightly shorter than him, a man whom the Silver Bullets' shota-fication process hadn't been kind to in regards to height. The small opaque purple girl of slime was generously proportioned despite her height, and was on the lighter side of chubby. Like most of her kind she forsook clothing and was nude. The only concessions to human notions of modesty about her were the lack of anatomical detail of her form, and more importantly the opaqueness of the purple gel layers around her core. She could change the refraction of light through her matrix, making it more or less clear, though she couldn't change her coloration from some sort of purple.

"No need to be like that, dear Santiago. We wouldn't want a scene, now would we?", said the woman who he'd once known as Soffi Babayan -- that had been long ago, when she'd not been so diminutive, nor so purple. Santiago deliberately un-tensed, he hated to admit that she was right on that point.

"I'm not surprised they let you in Tatiana. The way they let the dress code slip these days, it might as well be a puddle on the floor.", replied Santiago breezily as his hand itched in agitation. He wasn't certain if the urge was to reach for her, his knife, or his jacket to toss over her distressingly nude form. Enlace stretched his hand, keeping it limber, salving whatever urge was coming upon him. Concentrating on the here and now, leaving the past behind.

"As witty as ever. How droll.", said the being who now called herself Tatiana Demonique. She immodestly cupped her bosom, the proportions much larger than the usual Sabbath work. Her wet hands pushed it up and down for a moment as she spoke, "And you've yet to shed that prudishness. Funny isn't it? That I have to look after you. Still not much of a big brot--"

"Enough!", said Santiago, his voice slightly too loud for the moderate party's atmosphere. He knew that his normally reddish skin was probably flushed with anger, remorse, and a thousand other things. He glared at the few revelers looking in their direction. Tatiana waved away their attention with an offhand gesture. The disparate groups around the atrium took in her gesture, and turned back to their conversations. The hairs on the back of Santiago Enlace's neck stood on end.

"All right, no need to shout. I suppose if it means that much to you, I can dress to impress. Certainly better than your half tied cravat.", said Tatiana with humor in her tone, the pleasure she took in nettling him clear in the lines of her gelatinous form. At her words, some of her flesh formed the facsimile of a opaque purple dress covering her from bosom to ankle. Somewhere in the conversation, his hand had found the knife's hilt. The pistol in his jacket's inner pocket was unnaturally heavy.

The Dark Slime Tatiana Demonique, who had once been Soffi Babayan took in his demeanor with a glance. Several angry ripples ran through her form, though she still retained the purplish dress outline. For the first time in the conversation, Enlace could see clear emotion showing on her face. Soffi hadn't been the fearful sort, but now it overtook her form as plain as day.

"Oh, you know. You got here too late Santiago, too busy crippling our Malus project single-handedly I expect." she said, the rasp of grief in her voice as she spoke, "The Sabbath has spent outrageous amounts of time, energy, and research on it. Quite a thorough job you did too, even destroying some unrelated projects to confuse us. There was only one lab doing the Malus project left for you to destroy, they'd just made a major advancement in it too. Hence the very high security here."

Santiago's mouth had gone dry, the atrium they were in was at the dead center of the mansion. The false revelers seemed content to go about their fake partying, there was slight chance they were actually enjoying themselves, thought Santiago dazedly. In a remarkably level voice, he asked, "So they sent you here to ki--".

"No!", she hissed viciously, "I'm not here to kill you. I begged the Sabbath! Me begging! Goddessdamn it, can you imagine? To be here, not to kill you, but to save you." Her normally light voice was bitter, pained, and her mirthless chuckles made Santiago ache to hear them. Slow despairing ripples trailed down her purple dress shape.

"Please hear me out, Santiago. It's almost too late. The Sabbath won't let you continue, the Malus project is too important. This is the last laboratory capable of continuing the research. Your choices are limited." Tatiana drew back and flipped her ersatz hair-shaped gel. Hand still on his knife, Santiago Enlace scanned the room. Nothing new had occurred, her gesture hadn't brought the pseudo-revelers any closer. They were still keeping their distance, pretending to party and make small talk while waiting for this to play out. The Silver Bullet found the symmetry between their situations humorous in a darkly ironic way.

"You'll want to leave now before it gets messy, Sof-- Tatiana.", said Santiago Enlace, focusing his mind and body. No real need to hold back or conserve for tomorrow now, it was quite a liberating cheerful feeling. He'd had a reasonably good caree-- a wet stinging slap brought him out of his thoughts. Santiago Enlace was aware that it hurt in some faint remote sense, both emotionally and physically, but he couldn't really feel it. He turned to her with bland curiosity.

Her dress-shape had been retained, but now it was purplishly transparent at her waist. A dark purplish sphere was now visible within her.

"I meant every offer Santiago. Every time, you idiot! You can still join us. I'll make them take you in. The corner over there is out of the way, so you can't use your prudishness or anything else as an excuse. No one will see us, we can do anything you want! Don't do this! I'll die a spinster, Santiago. Take me, damn you!", her voice was fast and desperate as if she already knew his decision. He wasn't really surprised, she'd always been a sharp girl in any shape.

He leaned in slightly, pitching his voice low. "You know me absolutely too well, kid. To be absolutely honest, there's something I'd like even more than that Soffi.", he said using her old name for the first time in ages. As their eyes met, he could tell she knew how much it meant to him. She'd learned that at least, a lifetime ago. Once she'd nodded, he told her. Then she'd wept clinging as he held her. It was the least he could do for the girl that had spent so long pining after him. When she had finished sobbing she told him where the last laboratory was located in the mansion. Then she had slithered off in respect of his wishes, that had taken real resolve from her. There was actual feeling of pride in his heart. The fake partygoers had waited for her to leave before closing in. Santiago Enlace had to respect that. It didn't earn them the slightest bit of mercy from him, of course. All of the mercy he'd ever had in his heart had just slid out the atrium mere moments ago. He did have a moment to reflect while bleeding, broken, and bloody after barely fighting his way to the final lab of the Malus project. The first reflection was obviously that he was glad that he'd brought so many explosives. Even deeper in his heart, he was glad that Soffi had escaped. She'd never been fond of fireworks back then either. Stupid kid.