A shrill whistle brought Lysis up short. She signaled to the column behind her to hold position. Most of them stopped immediately, but she could hear the telltale sounds of a number of her… soldiers… stumbling in the ranks because they hadn’t been watching where they were going. 

The young captain suppressed a sigh of irritation. The men and women behind her hadn’t had a whole lot of time to train, after all. A few errors were therefore to be expected. 

That didn’t mean they weren’t really annoying, however. 

Despite this fact, she was fairly pleased with the battalion she’d cobbled together from the citizens of Wanderer’s Bay and a few other villages they’d passed along the way to Khalin’s stronghold. She was reasonably confident that they now had enough people to take on the mad cultist. 

“What comes?” She called back. 

“Horse and rider, East by southeast!” Came the reply, shouted down from the rear of the column. “Displaying Atlantean colors!” 

Lysis’ eyebrows rose in surprise. The only ones who would be displaying that standard for a legitimate purpose would be Zhan and Brennar. 

Lysis turned in the direction indicated, shading her eyes. She peered through narrowed eyes until she spotted the telltale dust being kicked up by a horse. 

Within moments, the dappled black animal became clearly visible, as was the young man mounted on top of it. 

The newcomer rode the length of the column until the rider spotted Lysis, at which point he made a beeline for her position. 

It was then Lysis was able to recognize that it was Brennar. 

“What are you doing back here, and where is Zhan?” She asked curtly as the young man practically fell from his saddle. 

“I rode straight here after leaving Zhan behind- on his orders! I have an urgent message.” 

Lysis nodded and handed him a canteen, which he drank eagerly from while another soldier led his horse away. 

After a moment’s rest, Brennar signaled that he was ready to talk.

“All right.” Lysis’s eyes bored into the young soldier. “What happened? Where did you get the horse?” 

“Stole it.” 

“You stole-!?” 

“Not important right now.” Brennar interrupted. “Zhan sent me back to warn you, and to tell you to warn The G-… Pryvani… that Trell is back. Here. On Avalon.” 

*.*.*.*.*

With a grunt of exertion, Trell pulled herself onto of the rock ledge near the top of the mountain. She had left her followers, those that hadn’t gone back with Khalin, back in the canyon. She wouldn’t be needing their… services for this part of her mission. 

Cautiously, she edged along the narrow ledge that jutted out from the rock face. She also tried not to look down. Titan she may have been, but a fall from this height would kill her just as well as it would a human. 

After several nerve-wracking minutes of moving one centi-unit at a time, she reached a small metal structure bolted into the side of the mountain. 

It was a ventilation shaft for the compound that lay beneath. During her time pretending to be Pryvani’s lackey, she had memorized any and all possible entrances and exits from the compound, in case she’d needed an escape. 

That knowledge had proven useful once again. 

In the back of her mind, there was a small voice that was telling Trell that what she was doing was unnecessary, that she was taking a stupid risk in the name of petty revenge.

She chose to ignore that voice. 

She pulled at the metal grating and with a scream of rustled metal on rusted metal, it came loose. One of the benefits, Trell supposed, of being under a human gravitational environment. Casually, she threw the grate away where it banged down the side of the mountain. 

Trell shouldered her supply pack and dropped down into the shaft that led further into the mountain. 

*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*

Sulphur huddled in the corner of his cold and damp cell, shivering uncontrollably. Dahtnee’s curse had taken hold and he had indeed contracted the vile plague. The very thing he’d called the “mark of sin” to his followers. 

He’d laugh at the comedic tragedy of it all, but it was hard enough to breathe just then. 

There had to be a way out of this. Sulphur was too smart to end up rotting in some dank prison, dying of a plague. He’d survived too long to let it end now. 

If only there was some way of contacting Syon Fand. She’d be able to get him out of this. After all his loyal years, decades, of serving her… she owed him that much. 

There was a thud from outside his cell fall and a shadow fell over the narrow slit that passed for a window. 

“Hello Sulphur.” 

Sulphur looked up and his eyes widened at who he saw outlined in the window. 

“Irin!” The elderly preacher gasped. “How good it is to see you. Come. You must get me out of here. We-” 

Sulphur’s voice petered out when he noticed the stony expression on the young man’s face. 

“I don’t think I will.” 

“What?” 

“No.” The young man’s voice was hard as steel. Irin leaned forward and the shadows around his face receded enough for Sulphur to view the evidence of a second degree burn on the side of his face. “I see clearly now the poison that you’ve been spewing into our city, Sulphur. I can see that your words were never meant to offer peace and comfort to anybody, they were merely a way for you to control us.” 

“No!” Sulphur gasped. “That’s not-”

“So I find it a fitting end that you sit here and rot, until you inevitably succumb to the sickness.”

“Wait!” 

“You should know that your ‘loyal’ followers have already moved on from you, Sulphur. They’ve chosen a new leader to cast their lot behind.” 

“What!” Sulphur roared in indignation. “How is that possible? Who dares…?”

“Garteh.” Irin laughed humorlessly. “Garteh managed to escape the men who’d taken him in and has now laid claim to your mantle. But don’t worry.” Irin’s smile was completely without warmth. 

“I mean to put a stop to it.” 

*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*

“She’s what?!” 

Brinn looked back at the exhausted looking Pryvani. With the success of the prototype inoculation, and as soon as it was decided that Zara and Taron were going to be okay, the remaining Titans decided to undergo the treatment in shifts. Pryvani had immediately insisted that she be the first, that way they could work out any irregularities in the treatment by the time it came for Selil and Brinn’s turns. 

“I believe Sophia is losing her eyesight due to the disease. It’s not uncommon for sicknesses of this magnitude to take their toll on a body in this sort of way.” Selil was telling Pryvani, Zara and Taron.

“So what can we do for her?” Zara asked apprehensively.

“At the moment? Nothing.” Brinn shrugged and sighed. “It might be possible to restore her eyesight, or at least mitigate the damage… but that’s not something we can do here.” 

Pryvani sighed and wiped the sweat from her brow. “She’s still alive though. That’s the important part.” 

“Yes she is.” Brinn crossed her arms over her chest. “You really should be in bed.” 

“Yes I should.” Pryvani agreed. “But we both know that’s not going to happen unless you can manage to be more stubborn than I can. You think you’re up to it?” 

Brinn rolled her eyes and shook her head. “I’m not sure such a thing is even possible.” 

“Likely not. Besides, you’re a veterinarian. I don’t have to listen to you.” Pryvani grinned, before succumbing to a coughing fit. 

*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*

Trell stared down at the state of her clothes disdainfully and attempted to swipe some of the dust and grime from her pants and shirt. It didn’t work too well and after a few tries, she gave up. Not like anybody was going to be seeing her, and if they did, she had bigger problems than her appearance. 

Quietly as she could, she crept through to corridors of Pryvani’s compound, listening attentively for a sign of anybody approaching her. 

The halls were dead silent however, which Trell took to be a good omen. 

She worked her way deeper into the compound, using both her own excellent memory and a little blinking dot on her datapad to navigate and find her destination. She found she was being led towards the medical labs which, given the current events on the Avalonian moon, wasn’t too much of a surprise. 

After a few more minutes of walking, she arrived at her destination. The medical labs were locked, of course. On a whim, she tried her former access code. 

Denied. Which wasn’t a surprise, but it had been worth a shot. 

No matter. Trell unshouldered her equipment bag and dug around until she pulled out her electronic lock descrambler. This wasn’t the first time she’d had to hack her way past an electronic access code. Even one as sophisticated as Pryvani’s. 

She attached the node to the lock and waited, somewhat impatiently, as the device’s algorithmic de-encryption protocols were able to decode the access code. 

Finally, the lights on the panel blinked green and the door hissed open to allow her access. 

The interior of the lab was familiar; this wasn’t the first time she’d been there, after all. Glancing around, she spotted what she’d gone to so much trouble for. On one of the lab tables were a pair of small glass enclosures. 

And inside each of them was a small human. 

“Hello Nick.” Trell purred as she sauntered across the room. “Did you miss me?” 

Nick’s eyes widened and he backed away in fear until he ran into the back wall of his enclosure. 

“T-Trell!” He muttered fearfully. “How…?” 

“You don’t need to worry your feeble little brain about that…” The Titaness smirked as she loomed over the little man and his glass box. “The details of my escape aren’t terribly important. No, you should be far more worried about the fact that I’m here, and there’s nobody to stop me from getting what I want.” 

“And what I want…” Trell went on, reaching into the container and wrapping her fingers around Nick’s slender body. “Is to get my little toy back.” 

“Nick…?” Suddenly a voice interrupted them. “Is everything okay?” 

Trell blinked and looked towards the other enclosure, a slow smile creeping across her face. 

“Oh well, who do we have here? If it isn’t the little rodent who almost single-handedly destroyed my entire mission.” 

Sophia sat bolt upright in bed, a shocked look on her face. “Trell!” 

“Of course it is, fool.” Trell sneered. 

“What are you doing to him? Leave him alone!” Sophia felt her way to the wall of the container and pressed her palms against the cool glass. She could feel her limbs grow weaker, but she refused to fall in front of Trell.

“I don’t think you’re in any position to stop me, little girl.” Trell snickered. “But don’t worry, I’ll keep Nicky real close, okay? I’ll keep him safe.” 

“Don’t hurt her Trell!” Nick snapped from where he was still struggling to escape her grip. “She’s got the plague!” 

“Aww…” Trell cooed mockingly. “Has the little girl got a little stomach ache? Don’t worry. You’re not coming with us. I want you here to tell everybody what you saw.” 

The titaness bent lower until she was able to look straight into the enclosure. “I want you to live a long, long life knowing that I took Nick away and there wasn’t a thing you or anybody else could have done about it.”

“If you take me, they’ll come after me!” Nick shouted angrily. 

“Yeah they probably will.” Trell said, raising Nick up to dangle him in front of her cruel brown eyes. “I’ll deal with that when it happens. Now come along, we don’t want to run into them until the proper moment, after all.” With that, she stuffed Nick into her cleavage for safe keeping. 

“Bye Sophia, hope you feel better!” 

Trell waved mockingly and sauntered out of the medical lab, taking Nick with her.

All Sophia could do was watch her leave, and stare after the Titaness, until Sophia’s knees grew weak and she fell to the floor in a miserable heap.

Outside, in the corridor, Trell turned and found herself face to face with a very shocked Zara. 

Before Trell could react, Zara had thrown herself at her, grabbing onto her shirt collar and trying to hold the blonde titaness down. 

Trell wasn’t having any of that, she broke Zara’s hold on her and lashed out with her fist, catching Zara across the chin and knocking the other woman to the ground in a dazed heap. Trell sneered in contempt before turning to walk in the opposite direction. 

“Zara!” Nick shouted in concern. 

The dark haired Titaness shook her head to clear it and lurched to her feet. 

With a desperate yell, Zara grabbed Trell around the neck and pulled her down to the ground. The two Titanesses rolled on the ground, until Trell managed to work her way underneath Zara, wrapping her elbow around the older woman’s neck, Trell carefully applied pressure until Zara finally succumbed and fell unconscious. 

With a contemptuous grunt, Trell pushed the unconscious woman off of her and climbed back to her feet. 

“It’s a lucky thing for you that I don’t kill people.” Trell spat before turning to walk away. 

*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*

An alarm klaxon sounded, startling Brinn and Kharee out of their intense research. 

“What is that?” Brinn shouted over the noise. 

On the other side of the room, Pryvani was splayed out on the couch, which had been a compromise she and Brinn had reached that both could be unhappy with. “Trell… access code… alarm.” Pryvani muttered, unfortunately she couldn’t be heard over the sound of the alarm. 

“I don’t know, but we have to find a way to stop it!” Dr. Selil shouted over the noise. 

Pryvani groaned and rolled out of the couch, pushing herself to her feet using the furniture for support. While the two redheaded women were busy trying to find the ‘off’ switch, the young heiress slowly made her way over to her workstation. Through her delirium, she managed to punch in the right access code to make the alarm’s noise come to an abrupt end. 

The other women whirled around to face her. “Pryvani!” Brinn snapped in a scolding tone. “You shouldn’t be walking in your condition.

Pryvani gave her a sardonic look. “Doesn’t matter…. Tr-” Then her eyes rolled to the back of her head and she passed out on top of her desk. 

“I told her.” Brinn muttered, disapprovingly. 

*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*

Nick found himself surrounded on all sides by the hot confining flesh of Trell’s bust. Normally, this sort of thing would be enjoyable for him… if it was almost anybody but a sociopathic murderer would enjoy killing him in one of the most horrific ways possible. 

Unfortunately for him, that’s exactly who it was. 

Ever since Trell had finished rendering Zara unconscious, she’d shoved him so deep into her cleavage that he really couldn’t see what was going on anymore. The world around him rocked back and forth with every step the Titaness took. He couldn’t see anything, and all he could hear was the relentless beating of her heart and the air traveling in and out of her lungs. 

He couldn’t say how long he’d been in there, or what Trell was doing while he was trapped there… for all he knew she could be boarding a ship and flying away from the moon that very moment. 

Nick was somewhat doubtful this was the case, but he was unable to know for certain. 

Still, as it was, Nick didn’t know how much longer he’d be able to take this form of imprisonment. Whenever he did things like this with Brinn or Zara, he’d always had his head free to breathe fresh air. It was surprising how much of a difference that made. 

Suddenly a shaft of light pierced the darkness around him and Nick flinched away from the onslaught to his eyes. He recovered just as Trell’s long fingers gripped his body and pulled him free of her décolletage. 

“There we go, little man. Alone at last.” Trell smirked as she dangled Nick in front of her face again. 

“So I suppose you’re going to eat me now.” Nick sighed wearily. 

“Well, yes, eventually. But not until after the endgame. I want to make Brinn watch as I do that.” 

Nick rolled his eyes.

“However, that doesn’t mean that you and I can’t get reacquainted first.” 

Before Nick could react, the plush red lips in front of him opened wide and he was unceremoniously dumped onto the tip of her tongue with a dull wet splat. 

Thunderous giggles echoed around him as the light slowly faded away as Trell closed her jaws and then her lips. 

There was a moment of stillness and silence, where the only sound Nick could hear was his own breathing echoing in the cavern of Trell’s mouth. 

Then the tongue underneath him rose up and slammed him against the roof of her mouth. The large wet muscle held him pinned there for a moment, before dropping back down and roughly shoving him between her jaw and her cheek. 

Lazily, the titaness used her tongue to push his miniscule body around her mouth. She slid him along her jawline, and pressed him against her cheek again, idly sucking on his small body until a small torrent of saliva threatened to suffocate him. She pressed him against the roof of her mouth again as she swallowed and the excess saliva disappeared down her throat. 

Despite his earlier defiance, Nick couldn’t help but be terrified as he felt the suction exerted by her throat, even though he’d been spared the same fate… for now. 

Nick knew that unless somebody was able to do something about it very quickly, he’d be taking the journey to Trell’s stomach again, and this time he wasn’t sure there would be anybody to get him out of it. 

“Come on little man.” Trell spoke around his limp form, her deafening words booming around her mouth. “Let’s go see about getting this show on the road, shall we?”