Fortress
- Location
- 'Murica
When she finally sighted her sister's island fortress, the raider princess' once-proud imperial greatcoat was no more than a pile of tattered, scorched rags stained black with her own blood. The air was bitterly cold, the water choked with craggy ice, but she wore her tattered coat open. Even if it'd retained enough shape and strength to be of any use against the frigid wind, the raider princess could never have gotten it closed.
Her pallid belly was swollen with demonic legions. Her bone-white skin oozed oily blood from the many tears her girth brought with it. Her body screamed in agony with every passing wave as the craggy forged-iron horns of her spawn ground against the raw, bleeding flesh of her womb.
There were hundreds inside her now. There had been thousands, but that was before. The weak had been culled, their bodies devoured by the strong in a Darwinian symphony as stark and brutal as it was exquisite. The very essence, the meaning, of life distilled to its most crucial attributes and played out in microcosm inside her womb.
The princess was not one for sentiment, preferring to keep her mind clear and free of such trivialities that she might better concentrate on The Hunt. But… even she was moved almost to tears by the beautiful miracle she carried within her.
Her mirthless mouth twitched into a smile and she dragged one massive talon around the curve of her distended middle. She could feel her demons squirming within her. Some twitched inquisitively at their mother's touch. Others, the strong wasted no time in capitalizing on the mistakes of their lessers.
"Oh!" The Princess grit her teeth, agony of the finest vintage electrifying her nervous as her demons erupted into all-out war once again. She knew full well how horribly torturous the process of birth was, but all the same… she whispered a silent thanksgiving that she was able to feel this battle unfolding inside her. That before the agony of delivery she could enjoy this one moment of pure, undefiled bliss.
Her rigging melted away as she stepped onto the fortress' shores. Her vast iron boots bridge choppy surf to frigid concrete in a single step and a long, exhausted gasp slipped through her lips. She'd sailed for so long… she'd forgotten what stopping felt like.
Her sister, the Snow Queen, the liege of this fortress and master of its seas, sat opposite her in a massive throne of twisted metal and piled concrete. Her long legs were crossed, her greatcoat open while a demon nearly as large as she was suckled hungrily at her frigid teat.
"My…" The raider princess collapsed to her knees, almost more from exhaustion than reverence. "My queen."
"No," The snow queen leaped to her feet, shooing her hungry demon aside like so much chaff in the wind. She tore to to the princess's side. "No no… sister…"
"I…" the words were agony for the princess's lips to form. So long had she been at sea, focused only on getting to saftey, getting to a graving dock that could handle her mortal wounds, she'd forgotten how to speak. Her throat was dry and fouled with rust, her words coming haltingly to her lips. "I must… request… sanctuary. Until…"
"No," The snow queen dropped to her knees beside the princess, planting both hands on her sister's head and stroking her pallid cheeks with mighty talons. "Sister, you are welcome in my domain, at any time."
The princess stared wordlessly at her sister, her eyeless face a mask of… of exhaustion and resignation. "I… failed," she murmured.
"Perhaps," said the snow queen. "But…" She closed in, her nose just brushing the princess' as their lips met. She cradled her sister's exhausted body in her mighty talons, supporting her battle-savaged frame as they kissed. She felt the princess reach for her, wrapping her arms around her as strongly and swiftly as her injuries would allow.
A hot breath curled from the snow queen's nose as the two warships became one. One flesh joined in carnal union, six turbines and twenty-four boilers beating in perfect time to the same marching beat.
Slowly, the snow queen pulled away. A tiny bridge of sweet saliva still linked the two ships, and she tenderly brushed a lock of the princess' ash-white hair back over her cracked horn. "You're my sister, and I love you."
The princess smiled weakly, her cheeks flush from the kiss. It'd been so long… so long with only her demons as company. It feel good after all those days at sea.
"You must be starving," the snow queen drew her hand along her sister's body, tracing the curves of her naked breasts down to a heavy belly roiling with demonic legions.
"I… I am," The princess's voice was barely more than a horse whisper.
"Sturmbannführer!" The snow queen snapped at one of her attendants. "Assemble our prisoners. Now!"
The officer snapped his heels in a salute, then hurried off to put his queen's will into action.
"You will feast, sister," cooed the snow queen, gently guiding her sister's exhausted collapse into the soft swell of her own bosom. "Until then…" She shuddered as the princess' craggy teeth closed around her icy nipple. She smiled and stroked her talons through her sister's long hair a she nursed her back to health. "Drink your fill."
But Hood was, whatever else she was, a lady. She was firm, polite, and above all collected. The girl doubled-over in the gloom of a cold Scottish evening, hauling down air in desperate gasps might look like Hood, but Green couldn't imagine the Hood he knew would ever act like that.
"Y-yes," The girl—Hood—said at last. Her voice was terribly ragged and came between staring gasps. Her skin glistened with sweat. Her hair was matted to her neck like it'd been glued in place. And as he grew closer Green could see her jumper was soaked through around her neck.
"Hood!" Green bolted to her side and tried to put her arm around her, rank be damned. It didn't help of course, Hood was forty-seven thousand tons. She'd crush him flat if she let him bear even a fraction of her weight. "What's happened to you!"
She shook her head. "Nothing, I…" She panted and shook her head. "I… I went for a run."
"A run?" Hood might outrank him, but… but she as clearly not well. Green was a gentleman as well as an officer, and right now that part of his mind that processed naval etiquette had been shooed away by the part that saw a lady in distress. "At this hour?"
"I couldn't sleep," confessed Hood a little sheepishly.
Green shrugged, but the noticed something he hadn't before. Hood's eyes, so beautiful and clear normally, were bloodshot and clouded. Her nose was ruddy from the cold, her gaze constantly flitted from one spec on the horizon to the next. "Hood…" he asked cautiously. "When was the last time you slept?"
Hood bit her lip. The lithe battlecruiser stiffened and pulled her sweat-stained jumper smooth like it was her polished uniform blouse. "This… this morning." She cracked a tiny smile, a mask as painfully transparent as it was forced. "During breakfast, in fact. Nodded of."
"Hood," Green put his hands on his hips. "I mean slept, not nodded off."
Hood held her mask together with every fiber of her soul, but even that wasn't enough to keep it from cracking a few moments later. "Days," she admitted. "Nine… maybe ten."
"My god, Hood!"
The battlecruiser shook her head. "Whenever I try to sleep… whenever I close my eyes, I see her." She shivered in the brutal Scottish cold. "Bismarck is back, Lieutenant. She's back and she's loose. And…" She gulped down a starving gasp of air. "And something bad is going to happen, I know it."
He'd had his post for less than a month before all hell broke loose, barely enough time to get his bearing and familiarize himself with the pilots under his command and the missions they'd be carrying out. Then the bottom fell out, all hell broke loose—quite literally as he'd gathered. The Navy lost… he didn't even know how many. They were still getting scattered and conflicting reports when the invasion hit.
That was two… almost three years ago. Since then he and his men—what was left of them anyways, and that wasn't much—had been prisoners in their own base. Blinded and completely cutoff from the rest of the world. All he had to go on was his own two eyes.
And, judging by the fact that he was currently being guarded by what could most aptly be described as 'demon Nazis who'd crawled back from the pit of hell', he had to figure the war at large was… strange. Assuming, of course… there still was a war out there.
Which there was. There had to be. He couldn't… wouldn't accept that his country had lost. That… that everyone had lost. From what he'd seen of the enemy, they were no mortal threat, but omnicidal demons from the depths of the really fiery parts of the old testament. Either they lost, or life died.
A sharp whack against the twisted rebar wall of his cage brought the general crashing back to reality. This was not, as he'd hoped a thousand times, some twisted nightmare. He rolled off his battered cot—they had, at least, allowed him to scavenge that—and pulled his uniform smooth.
It was a ragged mess of course. The tiger-stripe pattern was faded to a uniform muddy gray, the fabric was torn and seams frayed. But simply the act of straitening out his appearance gave him strength. He was still an officer of the US Air Force, even these demons couldn't take that away from him.
"Yes," he glared at the soldier waiting by the door. He was a fallschirmjager—a paratrooper—, judging by the awkward, side-loading rifle slung over his shoulder, and he didn't have a face. None of them did, none of of the thousands of troops he'd see in his three years of captivity.
Some had… skulls. Masks of bone covered with scraps rotting flesh, like corpses hauled up after years under the waves. Others, like this paratrooper had only the featureless black rubber of a gas mask.
The paratrooper said nothing, they never did. But as he opened the gate to Toth's cage, an unearthly growl echoed through the trooper's gas mask. It was like granite boulders crashing against each other. Loud, stern, and utterly devoid of even the faintest shred of humanity. Still, Toth got the message. Assemble his men for… something. Inspection, maybe?
The general nodded, but he couldn't ignore the gnawing terror in the pit of his stomach. Even by the twisted standards he'd grown used to, something was very wrong.
Her pallid belly was swollen with demonic legions. Her bone-white skin oozed oily blood from the many tears her girth brought with it. Her body screamed in agony with every passing wave as the craggy forged-iron horns of her spawn ground against the raw, bleeding flesh of her womb.
There were hundreds inside her now. There had been thousands, but that was before. The weak had been culled, their bodies devoured by the strong in a Darwinian symphony as stark and brutal as it was exquisite. The very essence, the meaning, of life distilled to its most crucial attributes and played out in microcosm inside her womb.
The princess was not one for sentiment, preferring to keep her mind clear and free of such trivialities that she might better concentrate on The Hunt. But… even she was moved almost to tears by the beautiful miracle she carried within her.
Her mirthless mouth twitched into a smile and she dragged one massive talon around the curve of her distended middle. She could feel her demons squirming within her. Some twitched inquisitively at their mother's touch. Others, the strong wasted no time in capitalizing on the mistakes of their lessers.
"Oh!" The Princess grit her teeth, agony of the finest vintage electrifying her nervous as her demons erupted into all-out war once again. She knew full well how horribly torturous the process of birth was, but all the same… she whispered a silent thanksgiving that she was able to feel this battle unfolding inside her. That before the agony of delivery she could enjoy this one moment of pure, undefiled bliss.
Her rigging melted away as she stepped onto the fortress' shores. Her vast iron boots bridge choppy surf to frigid concrete in a single step and a long, exhausted gasp slipped through her lips. She'd sailed for so long… she'd forgotten what stopping felt like.
Her sister, the Snow Queen, the liege of this fortress and master of its seas, sat opposite her in a massive throne of twisted metal and piled concrete. Her long legs were crossed, her greatcoat open while a demon nearly as large as she was suckled hungrily at her frigid teat.
"My…" The raider princess collapsed to her knees, almost more from exhaustion than reverence. "My queen."
"No," The snow queen leaped to her feet, shooing her hungry demon aside like so much chaff in the wind. She tore to to the princess's side. "No no… sister…"
"I…" the words were agony for the princess's lips to form. So long had she been at sea, focused only on getting to saftey, getting to a graving dock that could handle her mortal wounds, she'd forgotten how to speak. Her throat was dry and fouled with rust, her words coming haltingly to her lips. "I must… request… sanctuary. Until…"
"No," The snow queen dropped to her knees beside the princess, planting both hands on her sister's head and stroking her pallid cheeks with mighty talons. "Sister, you are welcome in my domain, at any time."
The princess stared wordlessly at her sister, her eyeless face a mask of… of exhaustion and resignation. "I… failed," she murmured.
"Perhaps," said the snow queen. "But…" She closed in, her nose just brushing the princess' as their lips met. She cradled her sister's exhausted body in her mighty talons, supporting her battle-savaged frame as they kissed. She felt the princess reach for her, wrapping her arms around her as strongly and swiftly as her injuries would allow.
A hot breath curled from the snow queen's nose as the two warships became one. One flesh joined in carnal union, six turbines and twenty-four boilers beating in perfect time to the same marching beat.
Slowly, the snow queen pulled away. A tiny bridge of sweet saliva still linked the two ships, and she tenderly brushed a lock of the princess' ash-white hair back over her cracked horn. "You're my sister, and I love you."
The princess smiled weakly, her cheeks flush from the kiss. It'd been so long… so long with only her demons as company. It feel good after all those days at sea.
"You must be starving," the snow queen drew her hand along her sister's body, tracing the curves of her naked breasts down to a heavy belly roiling with demonic legions.
"I… I am," The princess's voice was barely more than a horse whisper.
"Sturmbannführer!" The snow queen snapped at one of her attendants. "Assemble our prisoners. Now!"
The officer snapped his heels in a salute, then hurried off to put his queen's will into action.
"You will feast, sister," cooed the snow queen, gently guiding her sister's exhausted collapse into the soft swell of her own bosom. "Until then…" She shuddered as the princess' craggy teeth closed around her icy nipple. She smiled and stroked her talons through her sister's long hair a she nursed her back to health. "Drink your fill."
—|—|—
"Hood? Is that you?" Lieutenant Kenneth Green, RN, squinted at the figure doubled over in the gloomy halo of the street lamp. She was the right height for the vaunted British battlecruiser. She had the leggy, well-appointed build of a fast warship. But…But Hood was, whatever else she was, a lady. She was firm, polite, and above all collected. The girl doubled-over in the gloom of a cold Scottish evening, hauling down air in desperate gasps might look like Hood, but Green couldn't imagine the Hood he knew would ever act like that.
"Y-yes," The girl—Hood—said at last. Her voice was terribly ragged and came between staring gasps. Her skin glistened with sweat. Her hair was matted to her neck like it'd been glued in place. And as he grew closer Green could see her jumper was soaked through around her neck.
"Hood!" Green bolted to her side and tried to put her arm around her, rank be damned. It didn't help of course, Hood was forty-seven thousand tons. She'd crush him flat if she let him bear even a fraction of her weight. "What's happened to you!"
She shook her head. "Nothing, I…" She panted and shook her head. "I… I went for a run."
"A run?" Hood might outrank him, but… but she as clearly not well. Green was a gentleman as well as an officer, and right now that part of his mind that processed naval etiquette had been shooed away by the part that saw a lady in distress. "At this hour?"
"I couldn't sleep," confessed Hood a little sheepishly.
Green shrugged, but the noticed something he hadn't before. Hood's eyes, so beautiful and clear normally, were bloodshot and clouded. Her nose was ruddy from the cold, her gaze constantly flitted from one spec on the horizon to the next. "Hood…" he asked cautiously. "When was the last time you slept?"
Hood bit her lip. The lithe battlecruiser stiffened and pulled her sweat-stained jumper smooth like it was her polished uniform blouse. "This… this morning." She cracked a tiny smile, a mask as painfully transparent as it was forced. "During breakfast, in fact. Nodded of."
"Hood," Green put his hands on his hips. "I mean slept, not nodded off."
Hood held her mask together with every fiber of her soul, but even that wasn't enough to keep it from cracking a few moments later. "Days," she admitted. "Nine… maybe ten."
"My god, Hood!"
The battlecruiser shook her head. "Whenever I try to sleep… whenever I close my eyes, I see her." She shivered in the brutal Scottish cold. "Bismarck is back, Lieutenant. She's back and she's loose. And…" She gulped down a starving gasp of air. "And something bad is going to happen, I know it."
—|—|—
General Andrew Toth was truly in the dark. Possibly more so than any officer ever had been.He'd had his post for less than a month before all hell broke loose, barely enough time to get his bearing and familiarize himself with the pilots under his command and the missions they'd be carrying out. Then the bottom fell out, all hell broke loose—quite literally as he'd gathered. The Navy lost… he didn't even know how many. They were still getting scattered and conflicting reports when the invasion hit.
That was two… almost three years ago. Since then he and his men—what was left of them anyways, and that wasn't much—had been prisoners in their own base. Blinded and completely cutoff from the rest of the world. All he had to go on was his own two eyes.
And, judging by the fact that he was currently being guarded by what could most aptly be described as 'demon Nazis who'd crawled back from the pit of hell', he had to figure the war at large was… strange. Assuming, of course… there still was a war out there.
Which there was. There had to be. He couldn't… wouldn't accept that his country had lost. That… that everyone had lost. From what he'd seen of the enemy, they were no mortal threat, but omnicidal demons from the depths of the really fiery parts of the old testament. Either they lost, or life died.
A sharp whack against the twisted rebar wall of his cage brought the general crashing back to reality. This was not, as he'd hoped a thousand times, some twisted nightmare. He rolled off his battered cot—they had, at least, allowed him to scavenge that—and pulled his uniform smooth.
It was a ragged mess of course. The tiger-stripe pattern was faded to a uniform muddy gray, the fabric was torn and seams frayed. But simply the act of straitening out his appearance gave him strength. He was still an officer of the US Air Force, even these demons couldn't take that away from him.
"Yes," he glared at the soldier waiting by the door. He was a fallschirmjager—a paratrooper—, judging by the awkward, side-loading rifle slung over his shoulder, and he didn't have a face. None of them did, none of of the thousands of troops he'd see in his three years of captivity.
Some had… skulls. Masks of bone covered with scraps rotting flesh, like corpses hauled up after years under the waves. Others, like this paratrooper had only the featureless black rubber of a gas mask.
The paratrooper said nothing, they never did. But as he opened the gate to Toth's cage, an unearthly growl echoed through the trooper's gas mask. It was like granite boulders crashing against each other. Loud, stern, and utterly devoid of even the faintest shred of humanity. Still, Toth got the message. Assemble his men for… something. Inspection, maybe?
The general nodded, but he couldn't ignore the gnawing terror in the pit of his stomach. Even by the twisted standards he'd grown used to, something was very wrong.
