Grapeshot Pantheon Read online

  “Ro-ce-nan-tee?” Quinn spoke the word slowly, chopping it into chunks as she struggled with the unfamiliar text.

  “The fuck kind of a name for a ship is that!?” Kailee asked.

  “Are you in?” Chaser asked.

  The two goblins looked at one another. They shared the kind of link that only long, abiding friendship could forge. It was a link that was strengthened by love, and in turn, made that love nearly unbreakable. But even Chaser could read the expressions that they shot back and forth. Both girls looked as if they wanted, desperately, to say yes. It was only a matter of which one of them would stop worrying about the lives they had in Faiyum Falls first.

  “We’re in,” they said, at the exact same time.

  Chaser breathed a sigh of relief.

  He wouldn’t have set foot on that death-trap, even if Thor himself had demanded it of him.

  Chapter Two

  Liam frowned as he looked at the stargate.

  They had tried a lot of different names for the thing: The Gateway of the Heavens, the Portal, The Space Doughnut and the Chapa'ai. Though those last two had been jokes. And only Simone had laughed at the last one. Well. Snickered.

  “Okay,” Meg said, lifting up Liv's daughter and holding her out with both of her hands. “Marion, can you say stargate?”

  Marion burbled happily. Her elf side meant that her childhood would stretch out for decades. Her lizard side meant that she’d have a vastly shortened lifespan and sped up gestation. Tethis had studied her and determined that she’d age roughly half as fast as a human baby. Meanwhile, her adoptive brother Brax was running in excited circles, his arms spread wide as his tail dragged behind him.

  Liam wasn’t sure why a half-human half-lizard had way more scales than half-elf and half-lizard. And he wasn’t honestly going to ask questions. Instead, he grabbed Brax and lifted him up with a grunt.

  “Enough running, kiddo,” he said. “You can’t run around like crazy until we’re through security and back at Grandma’s house.” He gulped, his stomach roiling nervously as he thought of all the steps between those two steps. There would be the meeting with the security professionals, the President, the press. He shook his head and then looked back. Tethis had begged, wheedled and made puppy-dog eyes until she had gotten tapped for the mission. She was currently checking over all of her equipment and supplies which included a half a dozen glowing crystals that she had said would contain the energies she used for magic. She apparently wanted to test and see if the Ancients' magic worked outside of Purgatory.

  Next to her was Fizit. She was reading through papers, her tail lashing from side to side as she hissed quietly.

  “Uh, Fizit?” Liam asked. “This is an important diplomatic mission, but it’s also a chance to relax at least a little bit.”

  “Ares hasn’t been seen in public for more than five speeches over the past month,” she said.

  “...and?” Liam asked. “His temple was leveled by a hellfire missile while he was making a big show of how protected it was. I’m shocked he shows his face at all.” He glanced away from the stargate and at the embassy that the Monodeists had set up across from the central plaza in Babylon. The two paladins that stood to either side of the door maintained their impassive vigil. One of them was Chastity. He had been there when she had watched Ares, her perfect and infallible god, had made a very human mistake. He wondered how she managed to stay so perfectly still and stoic. It was hard to read expressions behind a steel visor but Liam would lay money on some contemplative looks.

  “That’s just it,” Fizit said. “Why isn’t he running around his whole territory doing miracles left and right? It doesn’t make sense...” She frowned. “Ares is planning something. But I’d rather get my hands on, say, fifty of those iPhones and get them to my agents than stay here for a month. And I’m sure if I get in the same room as your CIA, we can start setting up some new intelligence networks...”

  “Glad to hear that visiting your son’s grandmother is so high on your priorities,” Liam said, cheerfully.

  “Oh. That.” Fizit paused. “There aren’t any lizards on Earth.”

  “Well, there are, but...” Liam paused and rejected several things that lizards on Earth lacked. But his sight line made what he was thinking of clear. Fizit smirked and crossed her arms under her chest.

  “I know they aren’t stacked like me,” she said. “But the point stands. There aren’t any lizards on Earth. How can I be expected about meeting someone whose just as likely to scream and faint when she sees me?”

  Liam smiled. “My mom’s not the screaming and fainting type.”

  Fizit grunted, skeptically.

  “Dad! Dad! Dad! Dad!” Brax started to jump up and down. “Dad! It’s starting!”

  Liam felt the subliminal whine of the gate before he heard it. His skin prickled and memory of going through the gate warred with his memory of being yanked to Purgatory in the first place. Memories of being ripped apart and put back together and being aware of every single second of it. Memories of falling and smashing and crashing. The gate flared with a pale blue-white light, forming into a sphere that expanded outwards with a whip-crack sound. The sphere hung in the air, rippling like water. Liam, with instincts that had become honed despite his absentee status as a father for most of Brax’s childhood, reached forward and grabbed his son’s tail before he sprinted into the sphere.

  “Let's do this,” Liam said.

  He walked forward before he could get scared.

  ***

  It felt a bit like being turned inside out, toenails first.

  It felt a bit like having his nerves lit on fire.

  It felt like an eternity.

  It lasted less than five seconds – which, all things considered, was a good thing.

  Liam staggered as he stepped through the gate, gasping. This wasn’t even the first time he had been through the more recently constructed gate. But the feeling would never, ever, ever stop being fucking awful. He clutched at his chest and looked around himself, trying to get his bearings. The first thing he checked was his son, his wife, his daughter, and his friends had all come through all right. Tethis looked miserably cold. Meg was looking around herself with wide, saucer eyes.

  Brax was immediately starting to run in circles, laughing. “That was awesome! Can we go again?”

  “No!” Liam laughed, then scooped up his son, slinging him over one shoulder.

  The rest of the entry room had undergone some renovations. It had been the centerpiece of the first godly visit to Earth in literally two thousand years – which meant the gate had been moved to a far larger room than it had initially been operated in. That room remained its new standard, which meant there were a great deal more things set up to do important science stuff. Simply seeing the hard edges of machined parts, the comforting glow of screens, hearing the burr and hum of fluorescent lamps and AC, all of it hit Liam like a sledgehammer.

  “Liam Vanderbilt!”

  That voice sounded... faintly familiar.

  Liam’s brow furrowed and he looked around for the greeter. And he saw her and knew her. She had chocolate brown skin and had redone her hair from the old style to long, braided cornrows that made her look almost completely different. But he could recognize those warm, playful eyes, and that gorgeous body anywhere, even years later. “Chelsea freaking Brown!?” Liam stepped forward, his sandals clattering on the metal gangway leading to the gate. “What the- I expected- you’re looking-” he stopped.

  What was the right way to say extremely pregnant without sounding rude?

  Chelsea was dressed in a lab coat, but her belly swelled, straining slightly against her stretchy, maternity wear style under-shirt. She smiled slightly at his expression. She also let her eyes rove over him in a way that made Liam painfully aware of the last time that they had met. For a few panicked seconds, he started to wonder... then he kicked himself.

  Human babies did not take two years to gestate.

  Also, they
had used a condom.

  “Hello!” Meg said, cheerfully.

  “Hi!” Brax said, from his place on Liam’s shoulder. He waved using his tail.

  “Don’t wave with your tail, Brax,” Liam hissed.

  Chelsea shook her head. “I know it’s tradition to, after not seeing someone for a while, to have loads of babies, but I thought that usually took until people hit their thirties.” She shook her head slowly, looking at the whole gang in slow wonderment. Liam pondered what they had to be like. He had been tossed into Purgatory head first, forced to sink or swim. But seeing a lizardman in the streets of Babylon was one thing. Seeing it in the next best thing to Stargate Command was another. It didn’t help that Fizit was eyeing Chelsea the way she usually eyed new people.

  Like she was trying to figure out the best way to shank them.

  “So, uh, I’m Chelsea,” Chelsea said. “Doctor Chelsea Brown. Welcome to the United States, Mrs Vanderbilt, Miss Tethis, Miss Fizit, Miss Liviana.” Then, grinning, she added. “And Mr. Brax.”

  “That’s me!” Brax hissed excitedly, squirming.

  “I will put you down if you promise to not go running off,” Liam said.

  “I promise!” Brax said.

  “He’s lying,” Fizit said, casually.

  “Mom!” Brax squeaked.

  “I’m getting terrifying visions of my own future,” Chelsea said, her hand going to her belly. “Come on. Let's get you all to decon and you can get into some, uh, Earthling clothes.”

  “Oooh!” Meg eyes lit up and she clapped.

  She was the only native Purgatorian to do so.

  ***

  Liv stood in the decontamination chamber and hissed like a cat that had been dunked into ice cold water. She wriggled and squirmed, trying to keep some part of her body safe from the jets of water, slick with some kind of chemical. She spat and coughed as some got into her mouth. Once the spray was done, she started to shiver almost immediately. The first thing that Liam had forgotten to mention was that Earthers kept everything as fucking cold as they possibly fucking could.

  A towel was dropped into the room and a voice – sounding bored and clipped – spoke: “Dry yourself off, then drop the towel in the incinerator. Also, uh, the doctors are telling me that they’re a bit concerned about the hair, Miss Liviana.”

  “What’s wrong with my hair?” Liv snarled.

  “The various scanners we have say that most of the water’s not even getting in,” the voice sounded a bit impressed. “We know this is a lot to ask, but we need to be sure that no Purgatorian parasites get to the Terran ecosystem. We’ll be sending you a razor-”

  “You want me to cut my hair!?” Liv spluttered. “And give you five feet of material components for sympathetic magic?”

  “...beg pardon?”

  Liv snorted and rolled her shoulders. She closed her eyes and focused on the tiny ping of power that continually roiled within her mind. She had trained it for almost a year without knowing it, giving her greater and more ferocious levels of strength and dexterity. But realizing that she had a choice in what power she could display had made her want to experiment. And so, she experimented. Her fists clenched and she sternly told her hair to do as she wished. She felt it starting to coil upwards, twisting and winding and binding. When she opened her eyes again, she could see herself reflected in the mirror-fine walls of the decontamination rooms, she saw her hair had become as short as when she had first met Liam.

  She pursed her lips, then focused.

  Her hair shimmered and turned blue.

  “There we go,” she said.

  “Holy shit.” The voice over the PA didn’t seem to realize they were transmitting.

  ***

  Fizit pressed her palms against the wall and hissed in pure delight as the warm water splashed along her back. She wasn’t sure if they had warmed it up for her, or if everyone else was getting this treatment. Whatever it was, it felt great. Once the water had sluiced off, she grinned and walked over to the towel that the Earthers had dropped into the room. She started to rub it along her rump. After a few quick twists – holding both ends of the towel in her hands and wriggling a bit to ensure she got her entire scaled rear covered – she let the towel drop and admired her own behind.

  “Mmm,” she murmured. “What was the term Liam used? MILF?” She grinned. “Very MILFy.”

  Five stories away, in a contained control booth, Lt. Daniels, the woman in charge of the female decontamination security, sat and sweated. She looked at the screens piping the live, high definition footage from Fizit’s room. She watched as the curvaceous lizardwoman started to wipe off her breasts, leaving them as glittering and shiny as a pair of emerald mountains. She kept watching as Fizit leaned forward to start wiping at her shins. She kept watching as Fizit’s long, whip-lean tail lifted into the air and showed the soft folds of her green pussy. She watched as Fizit carefully started to tease water off the feathered frill that ran from her scalp to the tip of that tail, which forced Fizit to jiggle slightly from side to side as she tried to get every drop out.

  Lt. Daniels slowly sighed.

  “Annnnnnnnd,” she said. “I’m a furry now. Fuck.”

  ***

  “Oohh gods yes,” Meg groaned, her head hanging forward as she arched her spine like a pleased cat. Liam rolled his eyes.

  “Can you not?” he asked. “We’re under camera, uh, and I don’t want to...you know...” He glanced at the walls. The cameras were hidden. He wasn’t sure if that made things better or worse. But then Meg accidentally bumped her rump against his groin. This caught his cock between her ass-cheeks and she quickly stood on her tippy toes to trap his slick, water-soaked cock by her perfect, peach-round rump. Her wings spread and she grinned wickedly over her shoulders.

  “Keep on scrubbing,” she purred.

  Liam flushed, hard. “We’re on camera. That means people are... fuck that’s just tempting you more, isn’t it?”

  Meg’s eyes gleamed with pure villainy. She shifted her hips and actually hopped slightly off the floor. It was a move that was born of superhuman agility and strength and simple practice. It ended with Liam’s cocktip grinding against her ass, her taint, and then between her thighs, where she trapped it as she landed, so that he couldn’t do anything but bump against her pussy. She stood and crooned.

  “Dr. Brown was the one who said that I‘d need someone to scrub my wings.” She whispered. “Every. Single. Feather.” She twitched her wing.

  Liam shuddered and closed his eyes. His hands went to her hips, squeezing as he started to slide them along her belly. He could feel the tautness of her muscles. He knew where this would end. It would end with his palms cupping and squeezing what remained, to him, the most perfect breasts in all of Purgatory. Hell, in all of the solar system now. He knew that there were better, from an academic standpoint. Hell, Fizit was heftier. Tethis seemed larger due to her small size. Liv was fetchingly small and perky in her own way.

  But Meg had his perfect breasts.

  Because they were attached to his perfect woman.

  Meg crooned as Liam’s fingers started to gently tweak her nipples. He ground and rocked against her, nuzzling her neck. The only thing souring the experience was the tangy, chemical taste that came from the water sprays. Fortunately, that had tapered off. Meg lifted one leg with a quiet hiss, her teeth sinking into her lower lip as she stood on one foot with effortless ease. Liam squeezed her to him tighter. It had been a while since he fucked her like this.

  “Vanderbilt!”

  The booming voice that rang in his ears caused Liam to jerk back so fast that he nearly fell back against the wall. Meg yelped and grabbed onto the wall, denting the metal with a squeal.

  “What!?” Liam yelped, staggering to his feet.

  “This is your decontamination officer, Lt. Brooks!” The voice was filled with enough pissed off rage to cut through a bulkhead. “And we’ve been telling you, for the past two minutes, to towel off! Everyone else is through a
lready!”

  Meg frowned.

  “Spoilsport.”

  ***

  “Well, by all the gods,” Dr. Khatri said, rubbing his bushy beard with one hand. “You really are completely decontaminated.”

  Tethis chuckled. “I don’t mind having that tested,” she said, rubbing her shoulders. Dr. Khatri had offered to come and check on her, even though he knew that it would require him going through decontamination if her spell hadn’t worked. That was enough to make Tethis like him. The fact he was clearly fascinated by magic was another point in his favor. All of that weighed far more than the fact that he was, by far, the strangest person that she had ever met. It wasn’t that his skin color was that unusual – by Purgatorian standards, he wasn’t even that dark. But thick beards were uncommon and she had never seen a headdress like that.

  “Still, if we can replicate it, then we could speed up customs through the gate a great deal,” he said, nodding.

  “Dr. Khatri!”

  The voice drew both his and Tethis’ attention away from the tests that they had been examining. Another doctor – this one as pale as any woman that Tethis had ever seen – stood in the doorway.

  “This is Dr. Summer, she’s the pediatrician that we called in for this visit,” Dr. Khatri said.

  “What is she doing here?” Dr. Summer asked.

  “Oh, Tethis here, or should I say Doctor Tethis,” Dr. Khatri said, cheerfully. “She was showing me her spell which can do an entire decontamination cycle in a few seconds. I had to test it to make sure that it was safe, but I cannot find a single flaw in it thus far.”

  “Maybe you can explain this then,” Dr. Summer said, walking forward to show Tethis the tablet she had. “This is the bloodwork we did on Marion Vanderbilt and Brax Vanderbilt.”

  Tethis took it, frowning.

  “I have no idea what any of this is,” she said.

  “R-Right!” Dr. Summer said, blushing. “But, uh, basically, they both show signs of being vaccinated. I was told Purgatory doesn’t even have disease as we understand it.”