Pariah #1: New Arrival: Perils of Azure City (7 page)

She caught a glimpse of something in his eye, something malicious and cruel. He loved her humiliation, it was the thing that seemed to have most stirred him, and the sadistic look on his face reminded her that Lenny was a vile, evil man. The observation served to remind her that this wasn't right.

It was really very far from right.

With it came another, unwanted, thought. What would Kamura think if he could see her right now?

The thought reminded her of her shame and humiliation. It hurt, and the emotional pain stirred her even more. The flicker of resistance ebbed back into her mind, coming through the fog of the aria as a small but nagging sensation.

As she struggled to hold on to the thought, to use it to climb back up out of the dark place she had sunk to, she felt Tyrone remind her how close she was to coming. His fingers drew out of her slit wetly and began firmly rubbing her engorged clit.

'Ooooo...ugh!' She moaned as she drew away from Lenny's member and started to fight her impending orgasm.

'That's it, Pariah. It’s your turn now,' Tyrone said hungrily into her ear as he began to up his tempo, 'Time for you to get a nice reward for being a good little slut.'

She clutched at Tyrone's arms, half trying to pull him away and half clinging to him as a lover. 'Fuuuuuck...,' she rasped as she contended with the growing feeling. Her spark of renewed will would be completely turned out if she let Tyrone climax her. She needed to fight it if she was ever going to come back from this.

Lenny saw the conflicted look across her face, and knelt down in front of her, letting his hands roam over her body freely. He couldn't believe she still had anything left. Any other girl would have been completely enslaved long before now and yet still Pariah seemed to have just a little bit more fight in her.

He was going to snuff it out.

'You're almost there, baby,' he said to her reassuringly, idly toying with the breast that Tyrone had left unattended and stroking the fingertips of his other hand along her mask. 'You are so close now - just let yourself go a little bit further. It’s too late to fight it,' He leant down and suckled her nipple, batting it with his tongue as his hand kneaded the flesh around it.

'Ugh! Ahhh...Ooooo!' Her moans came louder and louder as Tyrone rubbed her harder and faster.

What was the point in fighting it? What could she even do? It felt too good.

The heroine's body shivered with pre orgasmic spasms as she continued to try and hold it off. Lenny felt her continued resistance and went in for the kill.

He moved his face up to hers, pressing his nose to her own, and held her face so that she couldn't move away. 'Look at me, baby'

She obeyed, looking into the depths of his dark eyes.

'Tell me what a dirty whore you are, baby, tell me you love it,' he commanded, 'Say it.'

She wanted to obey Lenny, wanted to please him. It wasn't even untrue - she would be lying if she pretended she didn't love it.

And yet, it was still wrong.

'Nooo...oooo gawwd...nooo,' she mewled, teetering on the precipice of an even greater fall than before.

'Say it baby, don't be shy,' Lenny pressed, 'Tell me you love it.'

'Aww fuuuu.... I.....,' she felt herself starting to fall over the edge, '....I love it...'

Lenny grinned as he guided her through her final defeat, rewarding her by toying with her nipples just the way he knew she liked. 'Good girl, say it again. Say it louder.'

'Ugggghhh...I LOVE IT...,' she cried, feeling her body starting to cave in to the tempest of pleasure as Tyrone began furiously rubbing her towards climax.

'Yes! Good, baby, you love it,' Lenny pressed, squeezing her nipples even harder, 'And why do you love it?'

Because I'm a dirty slut
, she thought miserably. She knew it was exactly what he wanted her to say, knew they would be the last words she would ever choose to say. She took in a breath to speak the damning words, to submit to Lenny one final time. She felt the biggest climax of her life ready to explode through her body.

'Because I'm a...,' her voice faltered, abandoning the words as she tried to say them.

The tamed animal in her rose its head back up in defiance. Lenny had already humiliated her beyond anything she thought possible, and yet even now he was daring to humiliate her even further. How
dare
he.

I'm better than this
, she thought with renewed clarity.

She remembered once asking Kamura what the point was in fighting the impossible fight. Kamura had been confused at the question. He replied that if you are still alive, no fight is impossible.

Her belt lay out of reach. Her focus was hopelessly lost in the aria. Her strength was a fraction of what it once was.

And yet, she still had
some
strength. She could still move, couldn't she? Her arms were free. Thinking her helpless, the two men now only concerned themselves with raping her.

Some attacks needed barely any strength at all to be effective.

They had underestimated her.

She looked back at Lenny, the cloud of submissive lust in her eyes being parted by anger. Indignant anger.

Lenny spotted the move and began to try and enact another of his ploys to diffuse it - but this time she acted before he did.

She made a fist and punched an uppercut below the guard of Lenny's hands and made contact with his unguarded balls. She hit with a child's strength - but that was more than enough.

Lenny's eyes bulged at this turn of events and he doubled up, falling to his side.

Tyrone went to react, drawing his hands away from ravaging her body and trying to restrain her, but he was too late. The hand that hadn't struck Lenny was already moving, and she jabbed her thumb into Tyrone's left eye socket with all the force that she could muster.

'Argh! Damn it!' Tyrone roared as he backed up away from her, clutching his face.

She rolled to her side and collected her belt from where it had fallen, taking advantage of the two men's brief incapacity. She reached in and drew out two more flashdiscs, prepping them and dropping them at the men's feet in one deft move. She staggered to her feet and stumbled away from the imminent blitz of sensation.

White light and noise exploded out around the room, eclipsing the aria.

Tyrone fell to his knees, holding his head and trying to clear the disorientating effects of the discs. His ears rung and his sight was covered with spots. Time felt like it was passing slower as he stumbled back to his feet and shook off the effects.

He noticed just out the corner of his eye that Lenny was running - his pants still around his ankles - for the doorway leading to the main entrance, diving through the door as if trying to escape an exploding bomb.

Idiot
, Tyrone thought bitterly. The girl had just had a last go at defiance - what could she do now?

Then he noticed something else, and dread spread through his body.

The aria had stopped.

He turned to the control panel to see the heroine leaning against it, adjusting her outfit to cover herself again.

Like a scene out of a horror movie, she slowly turned her gaze upon him, bright blue light flickering to life in her eyes. She raised a hand, reaching it out toward him. He turned to run, to try and join Lenny in what now must be considered his best choice to date, but found he was running on air. He looked down to find he was floating above the ground and uselessly treading the air.

'Aww shit...,' he mumbled just before he felt himself flying through the air and slamming into the workbench by the control panel.

The impact was
hard
. He felt two ribs crack and he moaned in pain. He looked up at the woman by his side and saw nothing of the submissive slut that they had been conditioning.

He saw only rage.

The tools on the workbench floated into the air and danced about her as she looked down at him.

'I don't know much about women or sex, Tyrone,' she spoke down to him in a snarl, her breathing still fast from her near-orgasm. 'But there is something that I know
a lot
about. Do you want to know what it is?'

'Oh Christ... please, you don't need to do this,' Tyrone pleaded, 'It's just a job, you know? I'm sorry!'

'
Pain
.'

The tools in the air descended on Tyrone and the depot was filled with his agonised screams.

Part Six: Integrity

******Six years earlier…******

‘Why don’t you kill them?’

After years of biting her tongue and following his rules, learning his lessons, living his life and dancing around the topic – she finally asked him directly.

They had been staying in a low-key hotel on the outskirts of Madrid at the time, having just apprehended the Cult of Diablo. The case had been a drawn out affair and the crimes of the cult had been the most gruesome that she had ever seen – which was saying a lot from a survivor of Everwood Springs.

She had stayed in the shower for a full forty minutes trying to wash the experience off of her; trying to cleanse her body of the things she had seen. Since they had come back to the hotel she had been simmering with angry discontent.

The men of the Cult had done such things. Such
terrible
things.

And Kamura had spared them.

Instead of putting them down like the rabid animals they clearly were, they had been anonymously handed over to Interpol to be prosecuted. They would spend the rest of their lives in jail, stripped of all but the barest necessities with no hope of bail. They would rot alone in a cramped cell until the day they finally died, their death mourned by no one.

It wasn’t nearly enough.

After all that they had done with no hint of remorse, they were going to live out their lives being attended to in prison. They would continue to live – in relative peace - while their victims decomposed in the ground or were forever tormented by what had been done to them. There seemed to be no justice in it. Worse, it allowed for the possibility that they could inflict further pain in the future. It had been the final straw for Evelyn.

So when she padded out of the shower, she marched up to Kamura as he sat maintaining his equipment on his bed and put him to the question.

Why don’t you kill them.

He studied her for a moment before turning his attention back to disassembling one of his gauntlets.

‘You are asking me why we didn’t execute them?’

‘Yes.’

‘You would have killed those men?’

‘
Yes
.’

‘Why?’

She stared at him, incredulous. She prowled around him and sat down facing him on her bed, holding her towel around herself, ‘Because they
deserved
it.’

Her reply hung in the air for a few moments. Kamura did not immediately respond, instead working methodically on cleaning his gear, filling the silence with the quiet sounds of his work. Eventually he looked up from his ministrations.

‘Is that what you think we do, Eve?
Punish
people? Perhaps you think we are avengers bringing retribution to the guilty? Or perhaps we are crusaders, hmm? Bringing the righteous wrath of God down on the ignoble. Like God, we judge them and decide what their life is worth; we decide what must be done to balance the scales, to make the world right again, and we act. There is no greater moral authority than what we feel people deserve, right?'

‘You’re making fun of me,’ she pouted.

‘Yes,’ he agreed, ‘But I am simply reflecting back what you are saying to me. You are making fun of yourself.’

She growled, ‘I’m not saying we play at being Gods, you know that. But there are people that do deserve to be punished - surely you can see that?’

Kamura gave a pained look as she spoke, visibly disappointed. ‘You have a lot to learn, Eve. You still look at the world in terms of punishment - like it might somehow improve the world if the man who does wrong is suitably damaged. When in reality punishment does nothing to fix the crime. The dead do not come back to life; the damage is never undone. Punishment only serves catharsis: The active desire to cause another distress in the belief that it will make the aggrieved feel better.’

He gave a derisive snort, ‘It is foolery of the most dangerous kind. It is where wars are born, where feuds spiral, and where pain rules.’ He gave her a hard look, ‘You know what becomes of people when their lives are governed by pain.’

Evelyn averted his gaze, feeling somehow shamed by how their conversation was going.

‘I…,’ she took a moment to formulate what she was trying to say, ‘I know it doesn’t undo their crimes… I just… I want to make them sorry, you know? They should be made to regret what they have done. I know that line of thinking is a shady road to go down but I can’t help it... Besides, why are we even hunting down all these people if we aren’t interested in punishing them? What the hell
are
we doing with them?’

Kamura leaned forwards, seeing his chance to impart some meaningful values on to the troubled young woman. He had waited a long time for her to be open to a discussion like this – waiting for the day that she would want to examine it for herself.

‘We are
stopping
them, Eve. They do terrible things to their fellows and so we step in; we prevent them from doing any more harm.
That
is what we do.’

She thought about that a moment, pondering what it meant.

‘If preventing them from doing more harm is our main goal,’ she said carefully, ‘Why not simply kill them? I’ve yet to hear of a criminal who committed a crime after his own death.’

Kamura laughed out loud with genuine humour, ‘I actually know more than I’m comfortable admitting,’ he mused, ‘But you are making the equation too simple, Eve, as you often do. It would be wrong to kill them. Resorting to such measures is the act of a monster – it corrupts the soul to deal in death. You lessen yourself down to the levels of the people you seek to stop, and you set yourself on the road to playing God; judging who shall live and who shall die. We do this because we want to protect people, Eve - to make a better world. You will not make a better world if you build it using the methods of evil men. You build it using the methods of compassion.’

His gaze bore into her, ‘We live with dignity and integrity above all else. Without them we have nothing. You should never walk the path that leads you out of the world you wish to protect and makes you a stranger to it. A monster might kill all the guilty men and leave a world of only the virtuous… but there would be no place in the world for that monster – it would need to kill itself to finish the job.’

‘Sounds like a pretty heroic monster,’ she said softly.

‘Yes, but still a monster. That is not what I am, and nor is it what you are. We are knights; we keep the land safe and protect the people.’

She sighed. She saw sense in Kamura’s words and they served to put her mind somewhat at ease. Even if she sometimes struggled to understand the man’s ideals, she still liked to hear about them.

‘You know,’ she said mischievously, ‘Knights slay monsters.’

Kamura laughed again, ‘True enough. Though I think the monsters are metaphorical, no? I think the knight does not slay a person but rather he slays a danger, thus protecting the people… Or that is how I like to see it.’

She giggled and lay down on her bed, ‘Maybe I’m just not good like you are? Maybe I’m a bad person…,’ her voice trailed off and her tone became serious again, ‘I certainly wanted to kill those men today.’

Kamura reached out to her, gripping her hand and grabbing her attention. He looked at her with sincerity.

‘If you learn anything from me, Eve, please learn this. You know right from wrong - even if you like to play devil’s advocate - and there is nothing wrong with admitting you would take satisfaction from punishing the guilty – even killing those men today. I know you will still put what is right ahead of whatever your own personal feelings are. Acknowledging those things that would please you, and yet refraining from them in favour of what is right – that is integrity,’ he eased back from her and went back to seeing to his equipment. ‘Wanting to kill those men today; that is human, Eve – perhaps a small part of me felt the same way. However, making the choice to actually kill them; that is inexcusable. Do you understand? ’

Evelyn looked to the ceiling, seeming to stare off at something only she could see, ‘...I understand.’

******Now…******

The moments after I turned off the aria and freed myself from its pervasive influence passed in a blur of activity.

I was almost entirely running off of my anger, using it as a crutch to power me through my own vulnerability. With the aria no longer wrapped around my mind, the world returned back to the plain one that I was used to living in and I felt a little bit more like myself. It felt like coming back up for air, even if it brought an ache of withdrawal from the addictive sensations I had been so immersed in. I clung to my anger like a life raft, using it as the point to draw focus from.

And I turned it all on Tyrone.

Lenny had been running for his life from the moment I detonated the flashdiscs, seemingly prescient to my plan to disarm the aria, and his removal from the situation put me in a difficult position. If I were to try and chase him down it would mean leaving the depot behind – which would put the girls I was here to save at risk. Letting him run meant allowing him to escape tonight unpunished for all that he had just done to me.

It was a tough call.

However I had to stick with my priorities. Hunting down Lenny and taking my pound of flesh would have to wait for another time – I certainly wasn’t going to forget about him. As much as my pride demanded satisfaction, I knew that I couldn’t leave my business at the depot unfinished; I had to stick to my primary target.

I had another reason for not giving chase – a reason I was desperately trying to ignore. I was still in such a weak place after all that had just happened. I didn’t want to face the man who had so recently been completely dominating me and leading me to a depraved place that I had been sorely tempted never to leave. He had come into my mind like a sickness and subverted me to the point that I had wanted to serve him. I had willingly, wantonly followed him and a big part of me still wanted to.

So soon after the event, I didn’t trust myself. I wanted - needed - to have some space to process what had just happened and regain control of my urges.

So I was left with Tyrone, completely at my mercy.

He had been right on the verge of bringing me off barely moments earlier, touching me like I was his possession. He had abused me – along with many, many women before me – and he would have happily forced me down the road to sexual slavery or worse.

It was a strange feeling; caught between two unspeakable desires as I looked down on Tyrone. On the one hand I wanted to kill him, or else torture him as punishment for what he had just done. On the other hand I wanted to fuck him. To let him attend the fire that he had started in me and give my body back to him, to apologise and ask him to take me back under his spell.

I knew both were equally wrong just as I had known the acts Tyrone had been tempting me towards were wrong – and I kept myself in check, exercising the self-discipline that Lenny had nearly made me abandon. Through force of will I reined in my lust and outrage, opting to deal with Tyrone the appropriate way.

I broke him.

I pummelled his body with my telekinesis right up to point that he would need months to be anything like the man he was before. Nothing permanent - unless you count the memories of the pain - but enough to make it an awful long road back to recovery. My treatment of him had multiple purposes. He was the group leader at the depot and so his treatment sent the most pointed message. More importantly than that, he was the one who would have the most information to use against Underhaven, and so I interrogated him. Men like Tyrone are hardly loyal types; they are cowardly parasites who follow the path that most suits them. As such, breaking him and making him spill all that he knew had been pathetically quick work.

Every now and then I would be interrupted by the stirring of one of the men I had knocked out earlier and I would leave Tyrone’s shattered form to briefly guide each man back to unconsciousness. Each passing moment brought me back from the torrid place I had slipped to and I felt increasingly empowered by the venting of my frustrations.

By the time I was done with Tyrone I felt like I had mostly regained my composure and somewhat purged the last effects of my exposure to the aria.

I stared down at Tyrone’s bloody form as he wheezed and shook on the ground.

Perhaps I went too far. Would I have gone this far had he not violated me? Probably not… But I was still careful to avoid doing anything that would inflict lasting harm or put his life at risk, as I always am. Had I not been careful to avoid lasting damage to his henchmen, I knew I would have likely reached Tyrone before he managed to switch on the aria. I resented the need to hold back in both instances but I understood it would be crossing a line.

Tyrone had not known as much as I might have hoped. He had been the second in charge of this site and only knew what was needed for him to know. On top of that I wasn’t in a position to take my time and methodically draw out all of Tyrone’s knowledge like I would have liked to – instead having to settle for extracting key pieces of information.

It wasn’t much, but it would suffice.