Jack Silver stretched and yawned as the island sun shone into his room. Last night's dreams of Nemesis had been unsettling to say the least, and despite the fact he knew her to be a tenuous ally at best, his attraction to her was now unmistakable. He rose from his bed and began to walk toward the bathroom which joined his room to Avalon's. He then remembered the somewhat awkward scene from the night before and placed a careful knock on the door. He was greeted with Avalon's youthful voice from inside.
"Just a minute...I'm almost finished," the young scribe said. "Sorry to have taken so long, but the shower felt so good this morning."
"No problem," voiced Jack Silver through the door. "No hurry, it's early yet."
Inside, Avalon wrapped a towel around his nakedness and continued looking into the mirror. He raised one arm up and flexed it slightly watching the muscles beneath his skin tense. He once again was almost thankful for the treatments that had given him this body. He was strong, both physically and mentally and thus more worthy of his dark queen. The youth knew in certainty know that his dream had not been just an adolescent fantasy, but a portent of things to come. He quickly cleared his mind of all these thoughts, as he felt his body began to react to his mental wonderings. He really didn't have time for another shower.
Outside, Jack Silver also looked at himself in the mirror. He ran his fingers through the thick silver hair on his head. Did he look old because of it? He had gone entirely gray by the time he was 16, and had never thought twice about it, but now he wondered. Would she find it unappealing. She couldn't he comforted himself. The Harbinger was much older than he, and she seemed to appreciate his company immensely. Then he thought of the youth Avalon, and he began to doubt again. Flashbacks of the awkward incident the previous night filled his mind. The boy was extremely well muscled and proportioned. This was a fact that he had never noticed before because of the robes that he wore in the scribe position. Would she find that youthful musculature more appealing. He turned toward the mirror and looked at his own well chiseled chest and stomach. He touched the muscles there and let his fingers enjoy their firmness. He flexed slightly and then let out a small laugh. What was he doing......preening like a peacock in front of a mirror. They would be calling him Gregor soon at this rate. Nevertheless, he laid out one of his best suits for the breakfast he knew he would share with Nemesis.
"I'm done, Mr. Silver," said Avalon. "It's all yours."
"Thanks, son," said Jack as he entered the bathroom.
Avalon went to his wardrobe, being more cautious than ever before about his selection. Sliding one Smashing Pumpkins t-shirt after another to the side, he finally decided on a well tailored pair of khakis and a polo shirt that fit his athletic build to a tee.
"Never hurts to dress the part," he thought, and without even realizing it, Avalon shut the door and started downstairs to breakfast whistling "I just can't wait to be king" from the Disney classic "The Lion King."
When Nemesis appeared on the steps leading down into the dining room, both Silver and Avalon stood. The Harbinger followed Nemesis down the steps. Nem looked fresh and alert this early morning as opposed to The Harbinger who looked more sour and tired than usual. What could he have been doing while she slept?
"Good morning, my fine gentlemen...don't you two look good enough to eat," teased the Black Queen. "Let's just hope breakfast is just as tasty..hhmmmm?"
Both men blushed profusely and both wondered why the other was so embarrassed.
Jon sat beside Gregor in the skimmer craft as it rocketed across the water in hover mode. The waves splashed noisily against the windows as Gregor looked out.
"Avalon would have sound buffered this thing by now," Gregor said to himself in an almost fatherly tone.
"We have our own mechanical geniuses at the IFHC, Gregor...and I'll have you know this is a prototype not even known about by most yet, so if it's a bit rough still it's understandable," returned the sharp-eared White Queen.
"No offense meant," said Gregor stoically.
"None taken, of course," said Jon as she patted his leg.
Suddenly a bolt of blue obscured the window, and then was gone.
"What was that?" said Gregor trying to catch sight of the flash.
"Probably a dolphin breaking water," said Jon a touch acidly. "The roar that this loud beast is making is probably causing them to surface to see what's going on."
Gomurr clung to Grover's back like a jockey on a speeding thoroughbred although Grover was going faster than any horse in history.
"Do we have to go so fast," the old man bellowed into his blue friend's ear.
"You wanted to get there quickly didn't you?" returned Grover as he adjusted his course towards Key Trofeo.
"Well I can fly on my own, young man, and this isn't flying....this is just......hotdogging. Why did you buzz that skimmer. It clearly had IFHC markings." continued the wizened mage.
"I know you can fly, old one, but it takes magic...and you know the White Queen would be able to detect it on the mystic plane." countered Grover. "This was your plan after all. Let me see if I remember it correctly. You said 1: Neither one of us can check out a club transport without suspicion.....2: We have to fly low and fast as to avoid radar......and 3: We have to be non-psi or mystic readable coming in. So you came up with this exact scenario."
"And a good plan it was, I just didn't think it would be quite so rough." grimaced the old man. "If I thought for one minute, you were making this extra bumpy on my poor old bones I'd port you to the crimson dawn and let you spar with some shadow ninjas as an object lesson."
"Sure you would, master Gomurr," said Grover trying hard not to laugh. "but then who would you have to share your sparkling conversation with."
And with that Grover again increased his speed and pushed ever closer to Key Trofeo.
The smell of dampness and decay grew worse as Morph moved further into the complex, guided by the powerful force that had taken possession of him. He realized that only the entrance to the structure was above ground, and this fact unsettled him more than it should have. He couldn't help being reminded of the curious earth notion that hell and eternal damnation lay beneath the surface of the planet. In what part of his mind that he could still call his own, he knew that the idea was simply metaphorical for an altered state of being, but in the situation he was in it seemed very fitting.
"Yes, my malleable young friend," he felt himself saying in the voice of the woman. "Hell is an appropriate term for the place where we are going."
Morph's mind sent out a shudder he knew would never reach his body. Was he doomed to spend the rest of his existence trapped like this in connection with a mad woman? The woman journeyed onward completely unaware of the pitch blackness that surrounded them. How could she know where they were going? She finally stopped and Morph wondered what was coming next. He heard faint clicking as he felt his fingers operating a computer terminal. Then suddenly there came a high pitched whining as systems throughout the complex buzzed back into life after a long period of slumber. The lights quickly came up and Morph found himself in the middle of a large chamber surrounded by very high tech computer equipment.......in fact too high tech for this species at this juncture on the timeline thought Morph.
Morph's alien eyes took in the strange futuristic consoles and glistening surfaces as he tried once again to find out a way to rid himself of his psionic parasite.
"YES....finally!", Morph heard his voice say as he looked down to the scrolling text on one of the monitors.
He felt his hand deftly run over the console and through his mind link with the other, he finally understood what they were doing. They were searching for a body......a body maintained in some sort of stasis.....a body that he was now replicating. After a few more keystrokes, a sudden jet of steam erupted from one of the shiny metal walls...and an opening slowly appeared in what had at first appeared to have been a seamless siding plate. Slowly but surely a cylinder slid from the opening and Morph felt the excitement within "the other" build to incredible levels. He went to the cylindrical case and looked in it's glass cover. The other kept his hands moving furiously to clear the steam from the glass of the object, and when it was cleared he saw an exact replica of the body he was morphed into. There seemingly in a peaceful slumber lay the beautiful form of Nemesis. A gale of laughter erupted from the mind of his parasitic counterpart and was thus followed by a high pitched cackle from his own throat.
"Home at last, dear sister." he heard himself say in the woman's voice. "And soon I'll be taking back what's mine."
He felt himself reach out to the locking mechanism on the case, but was greeted with a powerful electric shock. For a moment he thought the blast had knocked out the controlling force and that he was free of the mind link that "the other" held on him, but as he struggled to escape a psionic hammer blow brought him to his knees.
"Oh no you don't," a voice hissed into his mind. "I refuse to let my pony go before I've won the race."
Suddenly, a computerized voice filled the room with it's icy presence.
"UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS. CEASE IMMEDIATELY. ANY FURTHER ACTION WILL RESULT IN TERMINATION OF STASIS ENVIRONMENT AND SELF DESTRUCT ENGAGEMENT," the robotic voice droned.
"Damnit," Morph screamed in the voice of the woman. "Harbinger and his paranoia.....I need that body. As delightful as your shape-shifting can be my friend, I need to go back home...and that body's it."
"Well," said the voice stilling it's own rage. "Harbinger put me in this cage, and it looks like it's gonna take the Harbinger to get me out. Come along my friend, we've got a date to keep with an old.....acquaintance."
And with that, Morph felt his body willed back out of the complex and into the thick lush jungle of Key Trofeo. In what little part of his mind that he still controlled he cringed at the thought of this Harbinger person. What kind of person could be friends with such a vile creature like the one that was now in possession of him...and did he really want to find out?