Sophia’s mouth fell open in horror as she watched the lump that was her friend Nick travel down that monster Trell’s throat and disappear behind her collar bone. She stood by the duffle bag, mind numb with shock. She had done it, she had really done it. If they didn’t find a way to get themselves out of this mess soon… he was done for. 

Of course, if they couldn’t figure out a way to save themselves, she would probably join him. 

Trell ran her hand down her neck and over her belly, licking her lips and chuckling. “That was amazing.” She moaned. “Why didn’t I think of recording that? I would have made a fortune!”

She looked annoyed at herself for a moment before shrugging nonchalantly. “Oh well. At least I’ll always have the memory.”

She paced around the room aimlessly for a moment, enjoying the sensations Nick was providing in her stomach. It didn’t feel the same as all the other times she had swallowed a human. The normal first reaction from her little victims had usually been blind panic, usually manifested in the creature kicking or beating on the walls of her stomach desperately. 

But with Nick… It was a completely new experience. She felt him gently stroking her flesh, rubbing against it almost… tenderly. 

Of course, as Trell reminded herself with a satisfied smile, Nick had been drugged. He thought he was inside Brinn right now. Trell was certain that once the drugs wore off, then the familiar fight of desperation would begin. 

She was looking forward to it. 

Sophia cursed herself as she made a sudden realization. She quickly dashed over to where the Titaness had left her bound and threw herself down on the tabletop. She quickly crossed her ankles and clasped her wrists behind her back and pretended to still be struggling with the threads that had tied them together. 

Not a moment too soon, either. Within seconds of Sophia returning to that spot Trell was looming over her, a cruel smile on her features. 

“Still struggling, little pest?” She taunted. “Save some of that energy for later.” Trell leaned forward and licked her lips with deliberate slowness. “You’ll need it.”

Despite herself, Sophia’s eyes widened in fear and her gaze focused on Trell’s mouth. She knew that despite the fact that she wasn’t actually tied up anymore, there was still a better than even chance she might find herself on the wrong side of those jaws. 

“Is there anything you’d like to say to Nick? Now’s your chance.” Trell opened her mouth wide, giving Sophia a disturbing close view into the glistening cavern and the abyssal tunnel at the back. “Go on; just yell right in there, I’m sure he’ll hear it!”

Sophia shut her eyes, unable to look for another second, lest she fall into a full blown panic attack. 

Trell chuckled. “No? Well, that’s fine. I’m sure you two will have plenty of time to talk… afterward.” The gigantic woman straightened up and began to walk towards the door. “Now, I don’t mean to be rude, but I really do need to check in with the ship’s crew. Don’t worry, I’ll be back soon and then we’ll have all the time we need.” 

The door hissed shut behind her and Sophia breathed a sigh of relief. She pulled herself to her feet and walked back over to the gigantic duffle bag that Alex was still digging through, looking for some clue to their salvation. 

“Alex?” Sophia called up to the top of the bag. “You okay in there?”

Alex’s head poked over the side of the bag. “I’m fine, but man she really is a psycho.” 

Sophia shuddered. “Tell me about it.” 

“It’s a good thing she’s never seen any James Bond movies though, otherwise she’d know not to leave the good guys alone long enough to make their escape.” 

Sophia rolled her eyes. “Right. Have you got any ideas on just how we’re going to do that?” 

Alex grinned down at her. “Actually yes, but I need your help to dig it out.”

Sophia jumped as high as she could and grabbed hold of the side of the bag. It was a bit of a struggle, but the threat of a long and painful death is a good motivator. She made it to the top of the bag in record time. 

Alex lowered a hand and helped her clamber to the top of the bag, near a hole in the zipper where he was standing. 

“You see that thing down there?” He asked, pointing out the object in question. 

Sophia nodded. 

“Good. That’s what I need. One of us will have to go in the bag and lift it up, the other will pull from up here.” He grinned. The item wasn’t terribly huge, just about the size of a medium sized log. The two of them would probably be able to pull it out of the bag easily enough. “So. Ladies choice, which end do you want?” 

Sophia thought for a moment. “I guess I’ll stay up here.” 

Alex nodded and jumped down into the bag. Sophia waited, as she heard the young man’s grunts of exertion as he lifted the tube towards the open zipper above him. After a few minutes the end of the tube poked through the hole and Sophia grabbed onto it. 

“I got it!” She called down and began struggling to pull it up. “Good god this thing is heavy!” She grunted. 

“Tell me about it.” Alex agreed. “Alright, one good push ought to do it. On three ready?”

“Sophia nodded. “Yeah.”

One… two… THREE.” The two of them heaved as hard as they could on the heavy object, sweat (from both exertion and fear) running in rivulets down their bodies… but it wasn’t any good. After about ten seconds they both gave up, panting like dogs. 

“Damn.” Alex muttered, wiping his brow with one hand and supporting the item with the other. “All right, we try again. Ready?”

“Uh huh.” Sophia gasped. 

“One… two… THREE!” They both pulled and pushed (respectively) as hard as they possibly could, until their muscles screamed in rage and it felt like their hearts were going to burst. But, this time it paid off. With a gasp, Sophia fell backwards with the long tube on top of her. It slid over her body and dropped down onto the floor below, where it rolled across the room and underneath a shelf on the opposite side. 

“Are you okay?” Alex asked, as he climbed out of the bag just in time to see what had happened. 

Sophia felt tears coming into her eyes. “I’m sorry. I should have held onto it better. This is all my fault.”

Alex patted her back. “Whoa, hey, no worries. We can still use it; I’ll just have to modify my plan a bit. Listen, here’ what we’ll do…” 

*.*.*.*.*.*

Nick sat in the pool of warm sludge, a feeling of contented bliss washing over him. He was safe inside Brinn, his mind told him. Nothing could harm him while he was in here. He reached out a hand and stroked the ribbed moist flesh that his head rested on. He could hear the soothing bass drum of her heartbeat all around him. 

“Safe, with Brinn…” he muttered sleepily as his vision swam, and he began to feel light headed. 

“…Nick?” The voice from the darkness shocked him back into wakefulness and he was suddenly aware of another presence beside him.

“Who is it? Who’s there?” He sat up, peering into the gloom to try and make out a face to go with the voice. 

“It is you, my young friend.” The voice spoke, its tone tinged with sadness. “The demon has taken you as well.”

“Demon?” Nick smiled and shook his head. “No, no. I’m safe in here.”

“You appear to be under some sort of curse.” Tulak muttered. “We must pray that the Goddess will free us from this torment soon.”

“Whatever you say…” Nick muttered sleepily.

*.*.*.*.*.*

After about an hour, Trell returned. She entered the room practically bouncing with happiness. She hummed a little tune as she made her way across the room to where Sophia was still laying, and still struggling with the bonds around her wrists and ankles. 

“Hello, my little pet.” She cooed, gazing down at the finger sized woman. “Did you miss me?” 

“Go to Hell!” Sophia spat. 

“Ooh, temper temper little girl.” The giantess tsked. “Such a little mouth on you!” 

She drummed her fingers on the wood near Sophia’s head. “We’ll have to see what we can do about that.”

Suddenly, with a burst of movement, Sophia leapt to her feet and dashed away along the wooden top. “Not today Trell!” She called as she jumped off the edge of the shelf. 

“Hey!” Trell shouted, making a futile grab for the escapee 

Sophia freefell for what felt like hours before landing on the ground with a roll. Her ankle felt like it had burst into flames, she had probably sprained it, but was willing to deal with that when her life wasn’t in immediate danger. 

Adrenaline and fear kept the pain at bay as she ran as fast as she could away from the now enraged Titaness. 

“Get back here!” Trell screamed as Sophia disappeared under the table. The giant woman fell to her knees and reached underneath it as far as she could, but she was just a second too slow. Sophia was out of reach. 

With a snarl, she stood back up, bumping her head painfully in the process. She shook her head, slightly disoriented, then started to walk around the fairly wide table in pursuit of her quarry. 

“Must go faster, must go faster!” Sophia muttered to herself as she gasped for air with burning lungs, her eyes blurred by tears. She shot out from under the table just in time to see Trell come around the other side. 

Sophia didn’t stop, she lunged forward and slid under the shelf, barely being missed by Trell’s reaching fingers. 

Sophia scrambled back to her feet and ducked back behind the tube that had fallen there earlier, where Alex was waiting. 

“Cute trick!” Trell snarled as she dropped to her knees. After another tense second, her torso bent forward and her face appeared in front of them. 

“Surprise!” Alex yelled as he body slammed the tube in its center. There was a popping sound and a cloud of blue mist launched right at the psychopathic Titan’s face.

“What the…!” Trell snarled as she reared back in surprise, the smoke burning her eyes. “You…little…” Her voice faded into a mumble, and a second later there was a great THUD as she fell backwards onto the floor, unconscious. 

“Holy shit, it worked!” Alex yelled, pumping his fist in the air. “It actually worked!” 

“Ding dong the witch is dead.” Sophia panted as she collapsed onto the floor, trying to catch her breath. 

“Unfortunately, not.” Alex offered her a hand and helped her to her feet. “This stuff only knocks them out.” 

“For how long?” 

“I don’t know. Awhile, hopefully.” 

Sophia leaned on the taller man as the two of them hobbled back out into the light. 

“Trell?” The two of them jumped at the sound of the voice. They both spun around, frantically searching for its source. “Trell, is everything okay in there?”

Finally, they both realized the voice was coming from an electronic communicator strapped to Trell’s wrist. 

“Holy shit that scared me.” Sophia muttered, breathing deeply to try and calm her frantically beating heart. 

“Trell? We heard a huge banging noise, are you all right in there?”

“That must be the pilots. You’d better answer them.” 

Sophia’s eyes widened. “Are you insane? Why?” 

Alex shrugged. “If they don’t get an answer, they’re going to come in here. You have a better chance of pulling off a Trell impersonation than I do.”

Sophia gulped, but cautiously made her way to the device. Carefully she pressed the big red “TALK” button. 

“Uh, nothing to worry about. Everything’s fine in here. I just… uh… tripped. That’s all. No problem.”

There was a pause from the other end, it seemed to last days to Sophia, but was probably only a second or two. 

“Okay. Just thought we’d check on you, Trell.

“S-Sure.” Sophia suddenly had an insane idea, which seemed to be par for the course that day. “Say, are we being pursued?” 

“…Yes… Pryvani is still chasing us…” The pilot’s voice sounded confused. “Nothing much has changed in the last ten minutes.”

“What are you doing?” Alex whispered, but Sophia held up a hand to silence him. 

“Good! Good. Um, listen I’ve just received new order from… the boss. We’re supposed to try and ransom the disk back to them. For money.” 

Another pause. “…The boss said that?” 

“Are you questioning orders?!” Sophia snapped. 

“No! No, of course not, Trell.” The voice on the other end hastened to assure her. “What does the boss want us to do?” 

“That’s better.” Sophia sneered in her best Trell impersonation. “We’re to slow down until they catch up with us, then you’re to communicate with them and tell them to send two people over to parley with me.”

“Parley?” Alex sniggered, Sophia waved him back into silence.

“Two people?” The pilot sounded vaguely confused. 

“Yes!” Sophia’s mind whirled. “And, um, if she’s on board… make sure one of them is my sister Brinn. And Pryvani can’t be in the party.” 

“Not Pryvani?” The pilot wondered. 

“Stop questioning my orders and just do it!” Sophia snapped.

“Right, right. Sorry. We’ll get right on it.” The voice faded into a mutter. “Man, I can’t wait until this job is over with. This woman is insane.” 

“You know you still have your finger on the button…?” A second voice whispered from the speaker.

“Oh ch-!“ There was a click as the line went dead again. 

Sophia collapsed on the ground, breathing heavily. She could not believe that actually worked. 

“Well.” Alex mused, a wry smile on his face. “That was ballsy, but it seemed to have worked.”

“Yeah.” Sophia panted. “I can’t believe it.” 

Alex helped her back to her feet. “Why ‘no Pryvani’?” He wondered. 

Sophia shrugged. “Well, I don’t know. I figured that would be something Trell would say, like she wouldn’t want to deal with Pryvani again…?” 

Alex shrugged. “Sure, why not?” 

Sophia rubbed her arms. “And, I just really want to see Brinn and Zara again. Brinn was just the one Trell would most likely asked for.”

Alex nodded sympathetically. “Makes sense.”

“Now can we please move away from Sleeping Creepy, here?” Sophia poked at Trell’s limp form with the tip of her foot. “She’s making me nervous.”

“Yeah sure.” Alex nodded. “Let’s see if we can’t get back up on that shelf.” 

*.*.*.*.*.*

To say that Rixie had grown steadily more frustrated over the last few hours would be an understatement. Rightly or not, she blamed herself for allowing Trell to escape with the disk in the first place. Yes, Pryvani had made her own mistakes as well, but when it had come down to it, Rixie had been in charge of the data’s security. 

And she had failed. 

On top of this fact was the situation they were now in. They were chasing after Trell, who had a head start, in a ship that was not any faster than hers. They hadn’t lost any ground in the chase, and they weren’t gaining ground either. That meant that unless something drastic happened, Trell would reach her destination first. 

And then the data would be lost. 

So Rixie sat in the cockpit, poring over the controls looking for some way to push the ship to go faster. But there wasn’t one. None that she could see, anyway. The ship was already going as fast as it could and if she attempted to push it any more, it might just tear itself apart. 

Which would hardly solve their problems. 

Brinn sat in the copilot’s seat. The girl had been silent for hours, just staring at the display in front of her. Rixie was pretty sure that she wasn’t really seeing anything on the screen though, it just happened to be where her eyes were pointed. 

“You okay?” She asked the redhead, more to break the silence than anything else. 

“Huh?” Brinn started and turned those big turquoise eyes on the former soldier. “Oh. Yeah. I’m all right. Or at least as all right as I could possibly be, given the circumstances.”

“Are you worried about your sister?” Rixie asked cautiously, not really sure whether this line of conversation was a good idea or not. 

“Not really.” Brinn sighed. “It’s become increasingly obvious over the last few hours that Trell really isn’t my sister anymore. It’s also become obvious that she’s always been an evil manipulative little creep, and I was just too blind to notice it.” 

“Yeah, well…” Rixie muttered awkwardly. 

“No, I’m really worried about Nick and Sophia.” Brinn stretched her arms above her head. “I’m worried she’ll do something awful to them. When I first got Nick I promised him I’d keep him safe. That living with me would be okay… and now this.”

“Have… did you have him for long?” Rixie asked, again not entirely sure if this was a good line of conversation to be having.

Brinn smiled softly. “Not really. I bought him from Titan Station. Apparently he and a bunch of other humans had been confiscated from some smugglers.” 

Rixie’s eyes widened and she snorted in wry amusement. “Yeah, I know. I made that bust.” 

Brinn giggled. “Really? I’d love to hear the story from a first-hand account.” 

Rixie had just opened her mouth to begin telling the tale, when suddenly a light flashed and a beeping noise started on her console.

“What is it?” Brinn asked with a concerned tone to her voice. She stood and looked at the console over Rixie’s shoulder. “Tell me it’s not more bad news.” 

“I… I don’t know.” Rixie muttered, hands flying over the controls. “The ship is slowing down… and they’re sending us a message.”

She turned and looked at Brinn, wide eyed. “Go get Pryvani. Hurry.”