Chapter 56
Ryker
Tetra, still stunned silent by the bombshell Ruby had delivered, stood there and watched as the old, feeble form of Silvar approached her, holding a gnarled-looking walking stick, and said, “Seeing as we are doing introductions, I am pleased to make your acquaintance. I go by many names, but you may call me Silvar.”
Silvar gave a courtly bow that looked out of place next to his unkempt appearance. Tetra, having practiced the formal greeting thousands of times, reflexively returned the bow and said, “It is nice to meet you, Silvar. Are you yet another surprise A.I. that I am unaware of?”
The brittle smile on Silvar's face betrayed the pain he felt at that question scratching its way to the surface. Silvar straightened his back and looked intently into Tetra’s eyes, saying, “I see you have awakened. Your power resonates strongly. You must have found a potent match.”
Tetra hesitated at Silvar’s words, then asked, “What do you mean by that? What resonance?”
Silvar’s smile transitioned to a mournful grimace as he said, “Frendril…”
A look of worry and confusion settled onto Tetra’s face as she said, “Frendril? Who is that?”
“Frendril was the name of the Vren you consumed to awaken your potential. She was a beautiful soul, and I will mourn her passing,” Silvar said.
I decided it was time to put Tetra out of her misery and throw my new ally a lifeline. I stepped between the two and, while holding her gaze, said, “Silvar is not an A.I.; he is my bonded companion that now lives within me. He is a Vren that made the decision to join me in my fight to conquer the Pyramid instead of giving his life to help others survive.”
Over the next hour, we all took turns retelling the circumstances that brought us all together in excruciating detail. Every once in a while, Tetra would ask a question to clarify something, but mostly stood motionless in deep concentration.
After concluding the tale, I gave her five minutes, but she continued to blankly stare. I decided she needed time to process the revelations and turned to leave. I made it three steps before hearing Tetra run in my direction. I turned and placed my arms in front of me in a defensive position but was caught off guard by the overpowering embrace that Tetra enveloped me in.
The usually stoic appearance that Tetra must have spent hundreds of years cultivating evaporated in a moment. She squeezed me tightly and wept openly and loudly into my neck. Still recovering from the shock of her emotional outburst, I extricated my trapped arms and did the only thing I knew to do. I held her closer and comfortingly stroked the back of the demon's head. She redoubled her wails of anguish, and I settled into my quiet duty, determined to weather the storm that raged within her until it reached its conclusion.
As the intensity of her sobs decreased, I continued to calmly stroke her head while holding her tight. While distractedly petting her, I felt my hand brush against one of her horns. The moment I felt the smooth, bony protrusion touch my skin, Tetra's entire body went rigid, and I followed suit with my hand still resting atop her horn. As the moment stretched, I felt Tetra's breathing quicken, and I heard Red quietly say, “Uh oh.”
Hearing my self-proclaimed daughter’s slip of the tongue sent my lizard brain scrambling for an answer to the question, fight or flight. My thoughts were punctuated by the feeling of Tetra interlacing her fingers behind my neck and pulling my torso down while leaping off one foot and driving her other knee into my gut.
Once she released her grip and took a step backward, I collapsed to the floor, struggling to draw in a breath. I heard Tetra begin to bounce on the balls of her feet before saying, “You may be my husband, but you are going to have to earn the right to be my mate. Now stand and prove your worthiness to sire my brood.”
Gazing up at Tetra with a look of betrayal on my face, I turned to Red and said, “What insanity is she spewing now?”
Red and Ruby both shared a sheepish look, and Red answered, “Well, we might have forgotten to mention that touching a Denary woman's horns is the human equivalent to groping her breasts. Unlike in your culture, Denary do not take offense to such actions but accept it as the highest form of flattery and a sign of sexual attraction.”
My eyes widened, and I panickedly looked from Tetra to Red then to Ruby and said, “What!?! You are both A.I. how could you forget something as important as that?!?!? Regardless, that doesn't explain why she is trying to kill me now!”
Ruby ran her hands down the length of one of her own horns, and Tetra shot her a scandalized look of disgust. Ruby smiled mischievously then said, “Well, the Denary are a prudish species and will only allow the strongest candidates to breed with them. So you can consider this idiocy a sick form of foreplay to her.”
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
Tetra's shocked look shifted to rage, and she shouted, “I have had enough of your insolent attitude! I have tried my best to ignore your unnatural behavior around my spouse, but it stops here and now.”
Ruby mirrored Tetra’s anger and shot back, “Unnatural?!? Honey, please, I'm all-natural, and you should watch your tone before I watch it for you.”
Tetra narrowed her eyes and spat the next words. “Oh, will you? I would love to see you try… You're one more comment away from me reaching inside Ryker’s neck and tearing you out.”
Ruby turned towards me and growled out the words. “It's about time we taught this hussy a lesson in manners.”
A second later, Ruby winked out of existence, and my entire vision went crimson. The suit adhered to me more closely and shifted subtly. I saw a row of text flash across my vision, and dread filled my heart.
----------------------------------------
*NOTIFICATION*
Artificial Intelligence Battle Assist Protocol Activated
----------------------------------------
After reading the notification, Ruby's voice rang out in my head. "I am sorry to spring this on you now. I had planned to wait until your body developed further, but that tramp needs to be brought down a peg or two. The suit will now be augmenting your strength instead of slowing it down, so I am actively speeding up your perception of time to allow you to better control the suit. Now, get out there and defend my honor!"
I felt a phantom hand slap me firmly on the butt, then my arms were forced upwards into a perfect guard, and I was walked towards Tetra. She gave me a heated look that was a mix of anger and what I could only imagine was an alien equivalent to arousal. She assumed her own fighting stance and said, "I am pleased to see you taking this seriously. For the sake of our children, I pray you are worthy."
I let out a long, tortured sigh and resigned myself to my fate. I decided if I had to get the shit kicked out of me by her again, at least this time I would try harder to put up a fight. I waited for her to make the first move and was rewarded when I noticed an outline appear around her thighs, drawing my attention to the imperceptible tightening of her legs. Then she leapt forward with lightning speed. I could tell she was moving fast, but I was able to follow the movement and barely managed to sidestep her opening kick to my chest.
Tetra's and my eyes widened in disbelief when my arm struck out like a viper against my will and latched onto her nearest horn. I heard a quiet, almost excited gasp escape Tetra's lips before Ruby pulled her off her feet, slamming her onto the ground. I tried to stop my leg, raised above Tetra's face from stomping down, but I was unable to overpower her suit's strength and watched in horror as it made its meteoric descent towards her skull.
In a desperate gambit to regain the momentum of the fight, Tetra struck out with one arm to redirect some of the force while simultaneously rotating her hips in a circular motion that windmilled her legs around her, sweeping mine out from under me. While I was falling, I was able to see Tetra finish her rotation and land back on her feet. My suit responded to the momentum of my body's sideways motion and pulled in on itself while reaching out with my arms and executing a cartwheel-like flip back to a standing position just in time to block Tetra's combination of blows.
A rain of punches, kicks, elbows, and knees came at me at breakneck speed, and I tried to block or dodge the blows but felt Ruby have to intervene time and time again to nudge me this way or that. After Tetra failed to land her twentieth attack, she retreated, and the look on her face had lost all of the anger that painted her features before, replaced by a look of pure lust. When she leered at me from across the distance and gave me a suggestive wink, a new notification appeared.
----------------------------------------
*NOTIFICATION*
Perception Overdrive Activated
----------------------------------------
I was able to feel Ruby’s bloodlust through our bond, and I heard her let out a feral roar in my head. "Die, Bitch!" Then the agony of a dozen bones and countless muscles breaking in two bombarded me as time slowed to a crawl, and my body was sent hurtling towards Tetra’s unmoving form. Just before my fist collided with her face, her eyes widened, and she attempted to evade, but was too slow. I felt several more bones collapse in my arm as Tetra was sent flying across the room, ragdolling violently before finally coming to a rest in a heap. Time reasserted its hold on me, and I felt a geyser of blood begin pouring out of my eyes, nose, and ears. I collapsed to the floor and tried to grab hold of my head, but my arms were nothing more than useless noodles to me now.
Through the pain and discomfort, I felt a palpable fear for the fate of my accidental betrothed and rolled over on my side to face her unmoving form. I ignored the grinding of bone on bone and called out, “Tetra, Tetra, are you ok?”
To my surprise, I saw her eyes slowly flutter open and look around confusedly before they refocused onto me. She tried to sit up but grimaced in pain and returned to her place on the ground. Despite her pain, she managed to eke out an eager smile and muttered, “Well met, husband. Once I have recovered, your reward will be waiting for you in our bed chambers. I will begin making preparations for our coupling as soon as possible.”
I felt my blood run cold at the implication of her words, and then the deafening sound of someone screaming in agony broke me out of my thoughts. Ruby’s avatar was standing over Tetra and pointing down at her with a glowing barrel of energy slowly building in intensity, while my body was being dragged across the floor by the suit.
Turns out the screams were mine, and I bellowed in pain as the gravel that once was bone rubbed against one another and my flesh was turned into hamburger meat by the suit's actions. Just before my body finished closing the distance to finish the job, an unlikely hero appeared and saved the day. Silvar’s avatar materialized behind Ruby’s with Red in tow, and they jumped on her, together subduing the vicious A.I. before hog-tying her arms and legs behind her and dragging her away. I finally was able to relax and felt a thrill run through my chest when I caught Tetra’s entrancing eyes. The contrasting blue and green were hard to not get lost in, but what really had me off balance was the depth of emotion I found in them. I flashed her a warm smile in return and could barely hear Ruby mentally screaming “Nooooo” when Tetra intertwined her fingers with mine.