Post by oberonfrost on Mar 13, 2012 16:06:54 GMT -5
Ultimate Crimson Fox #5
Twenty Pieces of Silver Part 5 (Conclusion)
Grotesqueries
Vivian was trapped. If she dared step out from behind the curtain, the skinless thing would surely notice her. Even worse, she wasn’t sure she could actually move without vomiting. The room smelled foul, like rotting meat and the squelching noises made as that creature dressed the real Doctor DeChampes in his previously-stolen, now returned skin were sickening. She couldn’t watch the horrific display going on across the room. Vivian averted her eyes to anything that could keep her from peeking out from behind the window dressing: the well-worn grain of the wooden floors, the several weeks’ worth of dust that had accumulated on the windowsill, and the nails that kept it closed against both burglars and sweet summer breezes.
A firm, wet-sounding snap brought her back to reality. Vivian couldn’t help but look. She wanted desperately to find a way to escape without that thing noticing her, and the window would provide no egress. The sounds, she discovered to her horror, was DeChampes face slipping back into place over the putrid muscles of his head. Vivian felt her stomach turn, doing summersaults in her belly like an acrobat. She could not fight it; her dinner spilled up from deep in her belly to land on dark wood of the floor at her feet.
As she wiped at the mess running down her chin the curtain was ripped away, bright lights from the city streets poured in through the now-unobstructed view. The skinless creature was illuminated like some twisted theatre star finally stepping onto the stage and finding their spotlight. Every fiber of muscle, every vein, bones and nerves and organs- it was all displayed for Vivian, who was crouching on the floor, over a puddle of her own sick.
Vivian’s stomach heaved and voided its contents once more. As the last remnants of her dinner landed on the floor, a wet and bloody foot landed against her chin. Vivian flew backward, knocking over a small table, the vase and dead flowers it contained shattered as they hit the floorboards.
“I don’t know who you are,” Aliki said, as she rolled sideways, to the dressing table. “I do not know what you’re doing here,” she reached out, her hand landing on the blood-stained scissors she had used to cut DeChampes out of his skin. “But I do know you will not be leaving this place.”
Aliki lunged at her, scissors thrusting forward, aimed for Vivian’s neck. She panicked, grabbed DeChampes’ body and used it to block the scissors from slicing into her. She tossed the body aside, feeling the flesh slip over the internal organs and the smell was too much. The motion managed to deprive her attacker of her weapon, as the blades went with the body, shoving completely into the rotting mush that had been his chest as DeChampes slammed into the wall.
Vivian shook the gore left by the body from her hands, and readied her claws. The skinless thing had caught her in a moment of weakness and taken advantage. Now, the battle was joined; Vivian bared her teeth and dived for the monster.
***
The woman in white sat cross-legged on the white shag carpeting of her downtown apartment. She was naked, a blanket like fresh snow draped across her shoulders, obscuring her body from those that might be watching. Lying on the carpet in front of her was the American she had sent her Lumpy Men to kidnap days ago. He was curled in the fetal position, naked himself, swollen and covered in thousands of bee stings he’d received every day since the night he’d first arrived. There was reason for the stings. Her pet had to become one with pain, otherwise he would never survive what was to come.
The real sculpting would begin tonight. This man, her pet, he was to be her masterpiece. The Lumpy Men were meant to be slaves, and soldiers if she had need of them. They were not meant to bring beauty or joy into her world. The woman in white had intentionally made her creations hideous and disgusting, something she did not want to see, and something she hated and could hurt and kill without thought.
Those grotesque creations were nothing like the beast her new project would become. The woman in white was ready to create a thing of beauty from the American. She patted the blistered skin on his back softly, petting him as if he were a housecat napping beside her. Her other hand traced down the length of his naked thigh, disturbing the fine hairs that protruded from the swollen stings that covered his flesh. With a mere thought, the woman in white invoked the flesh magic she’d worked so hard to learn.
As her index finger traced over the bumps and bruises left by the bee stings, the American’s flesh seemed to melt. The wounds flattened, blood and puss oozing up out of his skin and running down his legs, staining the stark white carpets with red-black and yellow ichor. The American’s hair was pushed out of the follicles where it grew, not just on his left thigh, where the woman’s finger worked, but all over. Hair fell from his head, arms, chest and genitals, soaking into the blood and gore already seeping into the floor. The woman in white traced her finger lower, down the American’s thigh to his knee. She pressed hard on the side of joint, forcing her power down past the flesh and into his bone.
The American’s kneecap shattered with a thought from his master. The man tried to scream, but tongue-less as he was, the sounds was shrill and guttural but flat. The woman in white continued working her magic on the bone fragments that had once been her pet’s knee. She focused her power, knitting the pieces of bone back together, melding them into the other bones of his leg, removing the joint all-together. As his moaning and sobbing continued it wore on the nerves of his mater, and she stopped the gentle petting of her right hand. She raised that hand and balled it into a fist, bringing it down on the side of the American’s head. Again and again she assaulted him, bringing her fist down on his head while her other hand melted the muscle from his leg. Tears ran down his face, and he cried as silently as he could make himself.
***
Aliki leapt to the side, narrowly avoiding Vivian’s opening attack. She rolled across the floor as she recovered from her jump and came back to her feet. In her haste she had taken her eyes off the invader. Aliki glanced hurriedly around the room, yet did not see her attacker. Bloody footprints trailed across the floor as Aliki walked slowly and deliberately to the closet where she’d stored not only DeChampes’ body, but also her own flesh. She peered inside, but finding nothing, continued to search the rest of the bedroom.
The bed crashed across the room, overturned by Aliki as she searched for Vivian. The bedroom was small, and did not provide many places where one could get out of side. She retrieved her scissors from the rotting corpse and ripped into the mattress with the bloody blades; feather’s flew around the room and stuck to Aliki’s exposed insides in places. “Where are you!” she bellowed, as she hurdled the broken bed and making toward the living room.
“Up here,” Vivian said from her position, perched above the bedroom door. She was having a difficult time maintaining the position; her claws had sunk further into the old wood and plaster of the buildings walls than she thought they would. If it weren’t for the pressure she was able to exert on the ceiling with her own head and back, she would’ve fallen to the floor seconds earlier.
Aliki’s eyes wandered upward, slowly the realization dawned on her that she no longer had the upper hand in this conflict. All her training as an acrobat seemed to be matched in the form of her opponent.
Vivian pushed off the wall with her legs, the plaster cracking under the pressure as she kicked herself into the air. This time, she made contact with walking-corpse, her claws digging deep into the muscles near her left shoulder blade. The scissors in Aliki’s hand fell to the floor with a clatter.
Vivian pushed her claws all the way through, feeling them sink into the floor. She crouched atop her opponent, her other claws poised to strike, just inches from Aliki’s face. “What are you?” Vivian hissed into the things face. “What did you do to Doctor DeChampes?” Vivian kicked the scissors away.
Aliki tried her best to force a laugh, though she knew better than to struggle in this situation. “I skinned him,” Aliki said, voice pitched high and broken by her strained laughter. “Alive.”
Vivian twisted the claws that pinned her adversary to the floor. Aliki howled in pain. “He loved it!” the creature cackled through the fiery pain shooting up and down her arm.
“What are you?” Vivian said again, turning the claws more.
“Daddy’s favorite daughters! Skinthiefs!” Aliki said, beginning to struggle against the piecing pain now.
“Stop!” Vivian said, her free hand forcing Aliki down against the wooden floor.
***
The American was standing now, on all four of his new legs. He had never cried so much in his life. He had never bled so much in his life. The carpet, in a ring around him was soaked in the many fluids the human body possessed. Blood stained the white carpet red. Puss turned it yellow. Tears just diluted the blood and let the stains spread. He could no longer control his jaw, since the woman in white had touched the joints there and unhinged them; now saliva dripped down his chin and joined the other juices on the carpet. Sweat covered his skin. Liquid flesh- extra skin and muscle that the woman in white could not use in her final design melted down leaving burns across the American’s skin and the white carpets. He was glad she had removed his nose.
***
“Why? Why wear his skin?” Vivian asked.
Aliki laughed but did not respond. There was a blood pool forming under her shoulder, she was losing a lot of blood. She might go into shock soon, and Vivian needed information before she could let that happen. She withdrew her claws from skintheif’s shoulder and let her pheromones go to work. The order of the day was seduction, it was the surest way to get the information she wanted. ‘I wish I’d thought of this before,’ Vivian thought as she let her powers work on the woman prone beneath her. ‘Information will probably be more accurate this way than what I would get otherwise.”
“What is your name, darling,” Vivian said leaning down, her face close to the skinless visage of her rival.
Aliki’s face lunged forward, “Aliki Marceau,” she said, trying to steal a kiss.
Vivian pulled away. “Well, Aliki why were you wearing Doctor DeChampes’ skin around? Why masquerade as that fat, balding buffalo when the real you is so… exotic?”
Fingers, wet with blood, brushed Vivian’s cheek. Aliki had raised her good arm and was trying to pull Vivian back down, close to hear. “Just a kiss, love. Then I’ll tell you everything you want to know.”
***
The American was now seven-feet-four-inches tall. He stood on four legs, each perfectly straight and no bigger around than a baby’s arm. The legs possessed no joints. His digestive and reproductive systems had been removed and any outer evidence they had ever existed had been discarded or sealed. Except his mouth; the lower jaw had been distended, protruding a good six-inches out from upper, each tooth wickedly sharp and the size of a steak knife.
The woman in white had moved his ears up on his head, lengthening and narrowing them as she worked. They resembled rabbit ears, though they were covered in a hard shell, like a tortoise and spiked. The American’s eyes had been sewn shut, and a new eye grown where his nose had been. She had widened his shoulders, but narrowed his hips. The ends of each rib protruded through the flesh of his chest and had been molded, sharpened into fine needle-like points.
All the while, the woman in white had smiled at her handiwork. During every step of the flesh-casting she had been grinning ear to ear, perfect white teeth displayed in a sadistic, yet joyous grin.
***
Vivian tried to pull away. She pushed, but her gloves slipped against the blood and feathers clinging to Aliki’s body. “One kiss….” Aliki hissed the words as her lipless mouth pressed against Vivian’s. Her tongue pushed its way past Vivian’s clenched lips and then inside, where it left the taste of blood and spit on Vivian’s own tongue.
The Crimson Fox fought the urge to throw up. Her stomach was empty, yet it still heaved in response to the forced kiss from this fleshless abomination. She tried to pull away but Aliki pulled her closer with equal force. Vivian tried not to breath.
“Oh, lover!” Aliki exclaimed as she pulled back.
Vivian scrambled away as fast as she could. “Tell me what I want to know Aliki! No more games.”
Aliki followed Vivian obediently, her eyes glazed over with lust. Vivian dialed down her pheromone production. “I was DeChampes because I needed to be. Daddy told me to.”
“Why? What did he want with D’Armis?” Vivian pressed for more information.
Aliki giggled sidling closer to Vivian. “They make things that make the world ugly. Daddy wants to live in a world where everything is beautiful. Like him.” Aliki ran her hands down the curves of her body, “And like me.” She cupped her hands where her breasts should be, “But he also needs the poisons.”
“Poisons?” Vivian said, turning to face the skinthief.
Aliki took the opportunity and wrapped her arms around the Crimson Fox. He hands crawled over Vivian’s body, streaking her costume with blood in the few places it wasn’t already covered. “All kinds of poisons,” she said as her hand eagerly grabbed at the zipper on the costume. Vivian tried to push her away, but felt a hand grab her buttocks and instead smacked the woman across the face.
Aliki cried out, shocked. “So, you like to play rough, lover?” she asked and jumped for Vivian.
The door opened suddenly, a young blond man dressed in purple slacks and shirt stood under the arch. In one hand he held a sewing kit, filled with specialized needles and threads made for work on flesh both living and dead. “Aliki!” he cried out as he caught site of the two women rolling around on the floor. “Where is your skin!?”
Zachariah’s sudden arrival snapped Aliki out of the Crimson Fox’s pheromone induced desire and back to reality. “My… my skin…?” she said weakly, her mind still cloudy. “It’s… I left it in…”
Vivian was already on her way.
“…the closet!!!” Aliki shrieked.
The Fox had seen the skinthief check in on her own fleshsuit when she was perched above the doorway between the bedroom and living room. The Crimson Fox sprinted as quickly as she could in the small apartment, leaping over first the couch and then an overturned chair. The man in purple, Zachariah, was right on her heels; himself closely followed by the skinthief, Aliki.
Vivian slammed the door, but Zachariah barreled through it, shattering it into splinters with his passing. She tossed the mattress, only half-stuffed after Aliki’s earlier assault. It delayed him just long enough for the Fox to swing open the closet door and grab the fleshsuit on its hanger and haul it out with her. It was heavier than she expected, but still no more than a few pounds.
Vivian wasn’t sure what she was dealing here. This all seemed impossible. Beyond impossible, her own abilities still seemed impossible to her. This skin was the only clue she was likely to get now that the man in purple had interrupted her time alone with Aliki. Desperate, the Fox ran and leapt through the window. Glass shattered and splintered around her. She used the fleshsuit to shield her face and eyes, even as glass caught its surface, slicing into the delicate skin as it passed.
“NOOOO!” Aliki wailed, watching the Crimson Fox escape into the night with her skin. “I… I can’t live like this Zachariah,” she screeched, grabbing hold of the man by his shoulders, blood soaking into the cloth. “We have to get my skin back!”
Twenty Pieces of Silver Part 5 (Conclusion)
Grotesqueries
Vivian was trapped. If she dared step out from behind the curtain, the skinless thing would surely notice her. Even worse, she wasn’t sure she could actually move without vomiting. The room smelled foul, like rotting meat and the squelching noises made as that creature dressed the real Doctor DeChampes in his previously-stolen, now returned skin were sickening. She couldn’t watch the horrific display going on across the room. Vivian averted her eyes to anything that could keep her from peeking out from behind the window dressing: the well-worn grain of the wooden floors, the several weeks’ worth of dust that had accumulated on the windowsill, and the nails that kept it closed against both burglars and sweet summer breezes.
A firm, wet-sounding snap brought her back to reality. Vivian couldn’t help but look. She wanted desperately to find a way to escape without that thing noticing her, and the window would provide no egress. The sounds, she discovered to her horror, was DeChampes face slipping back into place over the putrid muscles of his head. Vivian felt her stomach turn, doing summersaults in her belly like an acrobat. She could not fight it; her dinner spilled up from deep in her belly to land on dark wood of the floor at her feet.
As she wiped at the mess running down her chin the curtain was ripped away, bright lights from the city streets poured in through the now-unobstructed view. The skinless creature was illuminated like some twisted theatre star finally stepping onto the stage and finding their spotlight. Every fiber of muscle, every vein, bones and nerves and organs- it was all displayed for Vivian, who was crouching on the floor, over a puddle of her own sick.
Vivian’s stomach heaved and voided its contents once more. As the last remnants of her dinner landed on the floor, a wet and bloody foot landed against her chin. Vivian flew backward, knocking over a small table, the vase and dead flowers it contained shattered as they hit the floorboards.
“I don’t know who you are,” Aliki said, as she rolled sideways, to the dressing table. “I do not know what you’re doing here,” she reached out, her hand landing on the blood-stained scissors she had used to cut DeChampes out of his skin. “But I do know you will not be leaving this place.”
Aliki lunged at her, scissors thrusting forward, aimed for Vivian’s neck. She panicked, grabbed DeChampes’ body and used it to block the scissors from slicing into her. She tossed the body aside, feeling the flesh slip over the internal organs and the smell was too much. The motion managed to deprive her attacker of her weapon, as the blades went with the body, shoving completely into the rotting mush that had been his chest as DeChampes slammed into the wall.
Vivian shook the gore left by the body from her hands, and readied her claws. The skinless thing had caught her in a moment of weakness and taken advantage. Now, the battle was joined; Vivian bared her teeth and dived for the monster.
***
The woman in white sat cross-legged on the white shag carpeting of her downtown apartment. She was naked, a blanket like fresh snow draped across her shoulders, obscuring her body from those that might be watching. Lying on the carpet in front of her was the American she had sent her Lumpy Men to kidnap days ago. He was curled in the fetal position, naked himself, swollen and covered in thousands of bee stings he’d received every day since the night he’d first arrived. There was reason for the stings. Her pet had to become one with pain, otherwise he would never survive what was to come.
The real sculpting would begin tonight. This man, her pet, he was to be her masterpiece. The Lumpy Men were meant to be slaves, and soldiers if she had need of them. They were not meant to bring beauty or joy into her world. The woman in white had intentionally made her creations hideous and disgusting, something she did not want to see, and something she hated and could hurt and kill without thought.
Those grotesque creations were nothing like the beast her new project would become. The woman in white was ready to create a thing of beauty from the American. She patted the blistered skin on his back softly, petting him as if he were a housecat napping beside her. Her other hand traced down the length of his naked thigh, disturbing the fine hairs that protruded from the swollen stings that covered his flesh. With a mere thought, the woman in white invoked the flesh magic she’d worked so hard to learn.
As her index finger traced over the bumps and bruises left by the bee stings, the American’s flesh seemed to melt. The wounds flattened, blood and puss oozing up out of his skin and running down his legs, staining the stark white carpets with red-black and yellow ichor. The American’s hair was pushed out of the follicles where it grew, not just on his left thigh, where the woman’s finger worked, but all over. Hair fell from his head, arms, chest and genitals, soaking into the blood and gore already seeping into the floor. The woman in white traced her finger lower, down the American’s thigh to his knee. She pressed hard on the side of joint, forcing her power down past the flesh and into his bone.
The American’s kneecap shattered with a thought from his master. The man tried to scream, but tongue-less as he was, the sounds was shrill and guttural but flat. The woman in white continued working her magic on the bone fragments that had once been her pet’s knee. She focused her power, knitting the pieces of bone back together, melding them into the other bones of his leg, removing the joint all-together. As his moaning and sobbing continued it wore on the nerves of his mater, and she stopped the gentle petting of her right hand. She raised that hand and balled it into a fist, bringing it down on the side of the American’s head. Again and again she assaulted him, bringing her fist down on his head while her other hand melted the muscle from his leg. Tears ran down his face, and he cried as silently as he could make himself.
***
Aliki leapt to the side, narrowly avoiding Vivian’s opening attack. She rolled across the floor as she recovered from her jump and came back to her feet. In her haste she had taken her eyes off the invader. Aliki glanced hurriedly around the room, yet did not see her attacker. Bloody footprints trailed across the floor as Aliki walked slowly and deliberately to the closet where she’d stored not only DeChampes’ body, but also her own flesh. She peered inside, but finding nothing, continued to search the rest of the bedroom.
The bed crashed across the room, overturned by Aliki as she searched for Vivian. The bedroom was small, and did not provide many places where one could get out of side. She retrieved her scissors from the rotting corpse and ripped into the mattress with the bloody blades; feather’s flew around the room and stuck to Aliki’s exposed insides in places. “Where are you!” she bellowed, as she hurdled the broken bed and making toward the living room.
“Up here,” Vivian said from her position, perched above the bedroom door. She was having a difficult time maintaining the position; her claws had sunk further into the old wood and plaster of the buildings walls than she thought they would. If it weren’t for the pressure she was able to exert on the ceiling with her own head and back, she would’ve fallen to the floor seconds earlier.
Aliki’s eyes wandered upward, slowly the realization dawned on her that she no longer had the upper hand in this conflict. All her training as an acrobat seemed to be matched in the form of her opponent.
Vivian pushed off the wall with her legs, the plaster cracking under the pressure as she kicked herself into the air. This time, she made contact with walking-corpse, her claws digging deep into the muscles near her left shoulder blade. The scissors in Aliki’s hand fell to the floor with a clatter.
Vivian pushed her claws all the way through, feeling them sink into the floor. She crouched atop her opponent, her other claws poised to strike, just inches from Aliki’s face. “What are you?” Vivian hissed into the things face. “What did you do to Doctor DeChampes?” Vivian kicked the scissors away.
Aliki tried her best to force a laugh, though she knew better than to struggle in this situation. “I skinned him,” Aliki said, voice pitched high and broken by her strained laughter. “Alive.”
Vivian twisted the claws that pinned her adversary to the floor. Aliki howled in pain. “He loved it!” the creature cackled through the fiery pain shooting up and down her arm.
“What are you?” Vivian said again, turning the claws more.
“Daddy’s favorite daughters! Skinthiefs!” Aliki said, beginning to struggle against the piecing pain now.
“Stop!” Vivian said, her free hand forcing Aliki down against the wooden floor.
***
The American was standing now, on all four of his new legs. He had never cried so much in his life. He had never bled so much in his life. The carpet, in a ring around him was soaked in the many fluids the human body possessed. Blood stained the white carpet red. Puss turned it yellow. Tears just diluted the blood and let the stains spread. He could no longer control his jaw, since the woman in white had touched the joints there and unhinged them; now saliva dripped down his chin and joined the other juices on the carpet. Sweat covered his skin. Liquid flesh- extra skin and muscle that the woman in white could not use in her final design melted down leaving burns across the American’s skin and the white carpets. He was glad she had removed his nose.
***
“Why? Why wear his skin?” Vivian asked.
Aliki laughed but did not respond. There was a blood pool forming under her shoulder, she was losing a lot of blood. She might go into shock soon, and Vivian needed information before she could let that happen. She withdrew her claws from skintheif’s shoulder and let her pheromones go to work. The order of the day was seduction, it was the surest way to get the information she wanted. ‘I wish I’d thought of this before,’ Vivian thought as she let her powers work on the woman prone beneath her. ‘Information will probably be more accurate this way than what I would get otherwise.”
“What is your name, darling,” Vivian said leaning down, her face close to the skinless visage of her rival.
Aliki’s face lunged forward, “Aliki Marceau,” she said, trying to steal a kiss.
Vivian pulled away. “Well, Aliki why were you wearing Doctor DeChampes’ skin around? Why masquerade as that fat, balding buffalo when the real you is so… exotic?”
Fingers, wet with blood, brushed Vivian’s cheek. Aliki had raised her good arm and was trying to pull Vivian back down, close to hear. “Just a kiss, love. Then I’ll tell you everything you want to know.”
***
The American was now seven-feet-four-inches tall. He stood on four legs, each perfectly straight and no bigger around than a baby’s arm. The legs possessed no joints. His digestive and reproductive systems had been removed and any outer evidence they had ever existed had been discarded or sealed. Except his mouth; the lower jaw had been distended, protruding a good six-inches out from upper, each tooth wickedly sharp and the size of a steak knife.
The woman in white had moved his ears up on his head, lengthening and narrowing them as she worked. They resembled rabbit ears, though they were covered in a hard shell, like a tortoise and spiked. The American’s eyes had been sewn shut, and a new eye grown where his nose had been. She had widened his shoulders, but narrowed his hips. The ends of each rib protruded through the flesh of his chest and had been molded, sharpened into fine needle-like points.
All the while, the woman in white had smiled at her handiwork. During every step of the flesh-casting she had been grinning ear to ear, perfect white teeth displayed in a sadistic, yet joyous grin.
***
Vivian tried to pull away. She pushed, but her gloves slipped against the blood and feathers clinging to Aliki’s body. “One kiss….” Aliki hissed the words as her lipless mouth pressed against Vivian’s. Her tongue pushed its way past Vivian’s clenched lips and then inside, where it left the taste of blood and spit on Vivian’s own tongue.
The Crimson Fox fought the urge to throw up. Her stomach was empty, yet it still heaved in response to the forced kiss from this fleshless abomination. She tried to pull away but Aliki pulled her closer with equal force. Vivian tried not to breath.
“Oh, lover!” Aliki exclaimed as she pulled back.
Vivian scrambled away as fast as she could. “Tell me what I want to know Aliki! No more games.”
Aliki followed Vivian obediently, her eyes glazed over with lust. Vivian dialed down her pheromone production. “I was DeChampes because I needed to be. Daddy told me to.”
“Why? What did he want with D’Armis?” Vivian pressed for more information.
Aliki giggled sidling closer to Vivian. “They make things that make the world ugly. Daddy wants to live in a world where everything is beautiful. Like him.” Aliki ran her hands down the curves of her body, “And like me.” She cupped her hands where her breasts should be, “But he also needs the poisons.”
“Poisons?” Vivian said, turning to face the skinthief.
Aliki took the opportunity and wrapped her arms around the Crimson Fox. He hands crawled over Vivian’s body, streaking her costume with blood in the few places it wasn’t already covered. “All kinds of poisons,” she said as her hand eagerly grabbed at the zipper on the costume. Vivian tried to push her away, but felt a hand grab her buttocks and instead smacked the woman across the face.
Aliki cried out, shocked. “So, you like to play rough, lover?” she asked and jumped for Vivian.
The door opened suddenly, a young blond man dressed in purple slacks and shirt stood under the arch. In one hand he held a sewing kit, filled with specialized needles and threads made for work on flesh both living and dead. “Aliki!” he cried out as he caught site of the two women rolling around on the floor. “Where is your skin!?”
Zachariah’s sudden arrival snapped Aliki out of the Crimson Fox’s pheromone induced desire and back to reality. “My… my skin…?” she said weakly, her mind still cloudy. “It’s… I left it in…”
Vivian was already on her way.
“…the closet!!!” Aliki shrieked.
The Fox had seen the skinthief check in on her own fleshsuit when she was perched above the doorway between the bedroom and living room. The Crimson Fox sprinted as quickly as she could in the small apartment, leaping over first the couch and then an overturned chair. The man in purple, Zachariah, was right on her heels; himself closely followed by the skinthief, Aliki.
Vivian slammed the door, but Zachariah barreled through it, shattering it into splinters with his passing. She tossed the mattress, only half-stuffed after Aliki’s earlier assault. It delayed him just long enough for the Fox to swing open the closet door and grab the fleshsuit on its hanger and haul it out with her. It was heavier than she expected, but still no more than a few pounds.
Vivian wasn’t sure what she was dealing here. This all seemed impossible. Beyond impossible, her own abilities still seemed impossible to her. This skin was the only clue she was likely to get now that the man in purple had interrupted her time alone with Aliki. Desperate, the Fox ran and leapt through the window. Glass shattered and splintered around her. She used the fleshsuit to shield her face and eyes, even as glass caught its surface, slicing into the delicate skin as it passed.
“NOOOO!” Aliki wailed, watching the Crimson Fox escape into the night with her skin. “I… I can’t live like this Zachariah,” she screeched, grabbing hold of the man by his shoulders, blood soaking into the cloth. “We have to get my skin back!”