Xander let the House lead him to a sitting room where he could set Nabiki down on a couch. He did not feel she would appreciate awakening in an unknown bed, but fully clothed on a couch she would be less likely to awaken fearing what might have happened during her unconsciousness.
Mentally he checked in with the clone he had watching over Kushina, confirming that she was okay, before considering his next move. Obviously, he could not do anything more with Nabiki until she awakened, and though he probably could produce some odor or such to wake her up, even if it was pleasant, it will still be him forcing her back awake, and with him there. He rather thought after the embarrassement she had just experienced she would probably prefer to get up in her own time and alone, where she could recover her dignity.
Before he had been thrown out of Sunnydale, he would probably have been clueless about what happened to her. After Naamahalat, he knew exactly what had occurred, and his fluid senses confirmed it with no effort or confusion. Nabiki had experienced a spontaneous orgasm, presumably at the thought of the amount of money she was going to control, or make, or the power she would hold over others, or some such thing.
It did not bother him, any longer, and indeed, as beautiful as she was, he would be more than willing to indulge her if she did not mind improper relations between employer and employee. It was not as though he was subject to corporate regulations. He knew he could force her, could force pretty much any woman, either directly, or through chemical or magical means, but the idea held little appeal to him.
If he ever simply wanted sex for sex's sake, he was at no particular risk from prostitutes, and indeed, he could heal them of any ailments they might have, or he could return to Naamahalat. He rather thought that as time passed, his recent sexual drought would take care of itself. There would be no consequences for the women unless he intended it. Ejaculating magical blue goo into his first companion demonstrated that clearly enough.
Returning to his consideration of the ninja world, Xander had the House guide him to a suitable location, working with the Plane to form a body of water and a similar cave, then bound it with his Pirate's Cove. He transited to the Cove, then shifted between bodies into the child-clone that was currently outside the Hidden Village and used it to form a new body.
Moving into the new body, he asked the child clone how its task was progressing.
"We picked names. I am Ni, or Two, and my partner is Ichi, or One. It is not exactly going the way you hoped. We are seeing more things, and I can copy what I see, but figuring out how to tweak it?" Ni shrugged. "I think we really need those coils, so we can do it the way they do. Once we really understand it that way, you can probably just power it up, or magic it up or whatever. But we really need the basics."
Ni frowned at him. "You know, it is pretty miserable of you to make clones of yourself and assign them to studying. It is not like we have any pleasant memories of studying, you know. It is very hard not to pull pranks on all the jerks we see. If we got those basics, maybe you could, you know, actually make a clone that could enjoy torturing themselves . . . I mean, studying."
Xander grinned. "Not like you've got to read all the time. Come on, you're studying fighting, it should be fun!"
"Bull," Ni snorted. "We don't have the experience or training for the physical fighting they do, nor a sparring partner the way we are swapping. So it is just chakra, and half of what they do is just read about it."
Xander pondered that for a minute. He was still nervous about whether once he had coils, he'd end up with them in every form he made, making him stand out to the ninja's senses. Of course, even if he did that, he could just use the Power to produce a fluid that hid him, right? Xander rubbed his temples and huffed.
"Alright, let's try this," he said, and focusing his power on the small clone, he altered its body, reforming it with new inherent abilities.
Xander quickly modified Ni's form to have the capacity to produce clones of himself, then, taking advantage of his having confirmed that he could remove a Jusenkyou curse, modified his form, and those of the clones he produced, to be able to produce, remove, lock, and unlock, the cursed form of a ninja. In this way, the child-clones could actually experience having chakra coils without his body ever having them; only the Jusenkyou produced clones would have them. At least, that was the hope.
Xander was running on hope and guesswork at this point, but if Ni was right, then these clones were pretty much spinning their wheels without him doing something to improve matters. Certainly, he had not been struck recently by any revelatory memories that suddenly explained what the trick with chakra was.
"Ok, see if you can swap that body for a cursed ninja form," he instructed, and Ni nodded and squinted as if trying to picture it.
A moment later, he shifted quite suddenly. Whipping through a quick series of hand signs, he shouted a phrase, thrusting his hands forward. Nothing happened.
"Well, crud. Can you look into me, see if I've got those coils?"
Xander examined him through the Power.
"Yep, I can see them, looks pretty much like what I've seen in other ninja. Guess you've just got to learn to do it the ninja way, now."
The clone shrugged. "At least now I can hopefully make progress. What should I do when I switch with Ichi?"
"Just let me know, and I'll do him then."
Ni nodded, then looked down thoughtfully. "You know, I thought we might, if we got working coils, try to insert someone actually into the schools. Let the ninjas just train them up."
Xander considered that. "Let me think on it a bit. It sounds reasonable, but something . . . I just don't know. I'll give you an answer on that later."
Opening a portal, Xander moved back through into the House, opened another portal, retrieved his original form back from the Cove and slipped back into it.
A quick check with the House confirmed that Nabiki was still out and Kodachi was still confined. He briefly considered facing Kodachi again, but shook his head. He really wanted to be able to promise her that she would be able to continue at her school, and live in the same area, and for that he needed Nabiki.
So Xander returned to the comfortable thinking room he had used the last time he was considering what to do, settled into a chair, and reached out to the clone he had left exploring the Duke's fortress.
"This is a library," he hissed mentally. "Why the devil didn't you tell me you had found a library?" He stared around through the clone's eyes at the piles of scrolls.
"I've been working my way through one that deals with summoning," his clone retorted. "There's no way to fill this place with a thousand clones without attracting attention, and you'd probably collapse with a melted brain if we tried to absorb that much information at once, anyway. I'm still trying to figure out why you were able to be summoned from the Plane. Currently, I am thinking that even though you were in your own dimension, bits of you are in several other dimensions, giving the spells something to latch on to. So it looks to me like the only way to actually shield yourself from all summons is to pull all of yourself in to your demi-plane."
"I could do that," Xander mused dubiously, "but would that block me from being summoned by Kushina?"
"Not unless you repudiate the contract," the clone responded, pointing to a bit of the unrolled scroll that lay on a table before him. He was mostly transparent, and manifested just a fingernail to guide the eye and highlight the words he was indicating. Every now and then he was pushing their shared body to look towards one edge of the room.
"What's over there you keep trying to look at?" Xander queried.
"The demon in charge of the library," he answered. "I don't want to have to find this scroll again if he cleans it up, this is the most detailed and informative one I've found yet."
Xander nodded. "I could mark it with a bit of fluid that is part of us, we can tune in on that."
"Won't work," the clone explained, "there's some kind of preservation magic on these, otherwise they'd have been destroyed long ago. Can't even take notes on them, I've tried. It doesn't stick, and it notifies the keeper. I've lost several scrolls to that. The ones that I tried to mark he takes out of this place completely, and I haven't followed, as I didn't want to get sealed out if they put on more protections."
Xander gave up then, and read the passage the clone was indicating. "So the contract fulfillment summoning is a totally different magic from a normal summoning ritual, even if you use one to set up the other?"
"Yep, like the difference between calling a hotel exchange and asking to connect to so-and-so and waiting while they look, versus calling the room phone."
"So the question then is, is it worth it?"
"I'm pretty sure the answer is no," the clone responded. "This scroll doesn't cover it, but by being connected to multiple planes, you are keeping their timelines synchronized. Pull out completely, and the next time you portal there, five minutes may have passed, or a hundred years."
"Well, that would suck, but yeah, I'd pretty much figured that out from Naamahalat's stories. 'So-and-so was summoned, and summoned again a week later and the summoner was the great, great grandson of the first summoner. No wonder mortals think demons can hold vengeance grudges for millenia.'"
"Yeah, but as long as you have the dimensions bound together, by being in them simultaneously, they can't get pulled out of whack."
"What does that do to them if I work out a way to travel in time, then?"
"No idea. I'll let you know if I come across an answer to that. In the meantime, maybe you should avoid that."
Xander pulled back to the sitting room, and considered the experience. His clone had seemed oddly short with him, curt, irritable at the interruption - though granted, he was sharing the body, and it wasn't all that comfortable for him either, with them both making motions, and the body sort of averaging them. He wondered about it though. It seemed apparent that while he could concentrate and remember anything his clones experienced, it never actually felt like something he himself had done unless he concentrated on reliving it. So from their perspective, were his new memories the same? Was that why they were different?
People were the sum of their experiences, right? Did that not hold true for the memories of his clones? While it seemed a good thing that he would not have odd experiences pulling his personality and behavior this away and that, it also meant that his clones would diverge from him more and more over time. Was there a solution to that? Did it even need a solution?
Too many questions.
Xander was a do-er, not a thinker like his Wills. He and Jesse pretty much goofed off during their time at school, taking life as it came. The most they did for planning was setting up a prank, though Xander and Jesse had slowly built a stash of money, hoping that one day it would be enough to do something with, take a trip or something.
Money was no longer an issue, and Xander had pretty much thrown himself into everything that came along so far, and now with his clones, he was throwing himself into everything simultaneously. With Xander's home life, dwelling on his circumstances was likely to lead to depression or worse, and his current situation, for all his power, had definite similarities. Xander had a solution to that. Don't think about it, don't think about your own situation or how bad it is, think about your friends, focus on them, focus on their happiness and your own will follow.
He could not get to his friends, but when he did make it back, he was going to be ready to protect them from whatever these Powers wanted to do there that they needed him out of the way for, and Heaven help them if his friends were hurt. It looked like he was going to pick up new friends along the way, and he was okay with that. Hopefully Willow and Jesse would be okay with it too, when he made it back.
At any rate, as poorly behaved as that clone had been, it was doing the task he had set it, and where it had taken liberties, they were well reasoned and sensible, and still working towards his goals.
However, it did give him a hint on another task to accomplish, and he pulled out his notepad and made a note to look into the chemicals involved in color photograph processing, to see if he could reproduce the effect, and also to simply pick up some cameras.
If his clone could photograph the whole scroll, they could study it later, even if he had to take the camera back to another dimension for processing.
He wondered if he should just pick up the equipment for processing the film and set up his own film studio in House, as it were, then a new thought hit him. As much as Willow loved to read, she would probably want to read those scrolls, so he should probably start copying them, and collecting books. He should, anyway, but he could imagine the revolt he would get if he tried to make a clone of himself become a librarian. Reading about cross-dimensional summoning could at least be interesting, at times reading a lot like fantasy stories, full of adventure and magic. Being a librarian? He would probably find a way to murder himself.
"Hire a librarian," he murmured as he made another note. Of course, just a librarian would not do. It would need to be someone devoted to building and maintaining a collection, to the point that managing books and scrolls from multiple worlds would just make them happier, not make them revolt and demand higher wages. Not that he could not pay, of course, but the second type might conceivably quit, and then he would have to find someone new, over and over.
A moment later he looked up and then got up, as the House informed him that Nabiki had awakened. "She seems angry," it warned, "but I don't think it is at you . . . it sounds like she is worried that you'll change your mind, having seen her lose control, and find someone else to manage things for you."
"Well, we can't have her thinking that," Xander said, heading straight out. "I left her alone cause I thought she might be distraught or need time to pull herself together, not to make her think I'd changed my mind."
It seemed only an instant before he was at the door. He paused and breathed deeply, trying to get his mental focus back and make sure he did not make a crass comment when he saw her, then he opened the door and walked in.
She was muttering to herself when the door opened, but that stopped instantly, and her breathing noticeably deepened when she saw him. "Feeling better, I hope? I know that was a bit much to throw at you at once," Xander offered, deliberately ignoring the question of her sexual response in favor of pretending she had only fainted.
"I should probably return you to your family before they decide I've kidnapped you. I'll contact you to find out your answer. Tomorrow? Or would you prefer longer to consider my offer?"
Nabiki took a deep breath and nodded decisively. "Tomorrow is fine," she said, "after school?" She winced at that, feeling that she probably should not have reminded him that she was still in high school, but then remembering that he had spoken to her on the school grounds. "It's not like he doesn't know," she told herself sternly.
He walked her back to the foyer, and they returned to her world through another portal. "I do hope you'll take the job," he said, grinning at her, "I'll be back for your answer tomorrow." He nodded at her, and stepped back through the portal, which closed behind him.
Nabiki made her way quickly home, intent on getting to her room and taking some private time to think things over. Not to mention getting a change of clothes.
Xander turned his attention back to Kushina, checking in with the clone he had watching over her now. When he heard what she was doing, he had to shift his vision over to his clone's eyes to see for himself.
Sure enough, Kushina, little killer-in-training, was on her hands and knees, pulling weeds.
"Is this a punishment?" Xander asked his clone.
"No," the clone replied, shifting his head to look at another small form grubbing for weeds. "Teamwork building, apparently. She's been put on a team, which is apparently what she was pushing for all this time, but it seems they get assigned in-village chores to build up their teamwork before they ever head out of the village."
"She's been forbidden from summoning you, and they've all been forbidden from using clones and such. Have to actually do the work themselves. All up to their instructor, apparently, what they are allowed to do and not do. She seems pretty happy about it all, I gather she had actually passed out of their normal school over a year ago, and should have been put on a team at the time, but was blocked for political reasons."
"So she worked on the summoning to prove they could not afford to coddle her," Xander commented and felt his clone's silent agreement.
Deciding that this side was well handled for now, he returned his focus to the modern world he could now access. His thoughts about setting up a library were very apropos, and while he needed a legitimate company to pay for Kodachi's schooling, there should not be any problem in using less legal means for simply purchasing supplies, particularly if he did it in a different country.
Returning to Kodachi's world, swapping into the body of one of the clones he had left there, he found a secluded alley in which to form a portal. As long as he was heading to a different nation, he might as well check for a Sunnydale, and cross this task off his list.
Forming a portal directly to Sunnydale worked, and Xander felt his nervousness peak as he stepped through the portal. Unfortunately, on the other side, he immediately realized he had not been restrictive enough in his thoughts.
He was by the side of a two-lane asphalt road, with fields of dry brown grass around him, and a few hundred feet away in most directions, the clear outlines of pines or similar evergreen conifers against the sky. There was not a single broad-leaf oak to be seen, much less a palm tree.
He was pretty clearly not in Sunnydale, California, though he expected he probably was in fact in a Sunnydale, as otherwise his power would, at least it had been his experience so far, have failed to form a portal at all.
Moving quickly off the road and out of sight, Xander went airy, berating himself for not having thought of it to begin with. Attempting it again, Xander tried to form a portal to Sunnydale, California. This failed, and Xander paused a moment to marvel at this, that apparently his power could somehow access direct knowledge of what cities did or did not exist. How did that fall under having power over fluids?
He jotted the thought down to ask Willow when he found her, then shoved it out of his mind. Expecting magic to make logical sense when he himself had such a poor grasp of logic was just going to make his brain hurt, and not get him anywhere.
So he portaled to an unoccupied alley in Los Angeles, California, an attempt which succeeded. Abusing his food summoning powers a bit, Xander managed to form a small black jewelry bag, and a solid handful of diamonds to put in it.
He knew that he would have to find someone willing to pay him under the table for them, as he had no provenance for them, but changing his face, form, and even his fingerprints to ensure that nothing tied back to him was child's play for him by this point, and he was under basically no risk, since even if someone successfully stole them from him, he could just make more. Eventually, he would find someone whose greed would convince them to make him a deal, and he would have a substantial amount of cash to play with. Sure, he would theoretically take a massive loss on them, as no-one would pay full price for diamonds they suspected to be stolen, but since they were essentially free to him, it would be pure profit.
Finding them was a challenge, until Xander was reminded that somehow his power had effectively been able to answer the question 'Is there a Sunndale, California on this world' . . . or maybe that was 'in this dimension'. He was not sure which, but clearly, there was somehow a connection between his power and answers to questions he asked, if he could figure out the right formulation.
Presumably then, he might be able to open a portal directly to such a place, but that would be a bit obvious, and lead to complications. How else could he do it?
A moment later he figured it out, and successfully opened a portal into 'the closed and unoccupied closet of a diamond-buyer with enough cash on hand to pay for my diamonds and few enough scruples to buy them.'
Xander slipped easily and invisibly out through the minor gap at the base of the door, and then drifted through the halls until he located a receptionist, passed out beyond him and found a secluded area to solidify. He spent a minute first adjusting his appearance, then solidified and headed for the front desk.
The receptionist was a thin-faced young man with dark hair and a serious look on his face, though he smiled when he looked up at Xander's approach.
"Do you have an appointment?" he asked. Though he was smiling, his speech was carefully enunciated, clear, and sober. The implication that he would not be allowed past without an appointment was clear, but Xander felt sure that his power had not led him astray.
So he took the simple approach, and slipping his hand into his bag, drew out two stones and cast them onto the desk between them. "My reservation," he said, his voice deeper and rougher than usual due to the adjustment of his shape. He had not practiced adjusting his vocal cords to change his speech, but his various alter egos all had voices largely commensurate with their appearances, particularly Tarou's deep basso rumble, so he showed no surprise at the difference in his voice. It did cause him to make a mental note to practice altering his internal structure for effect. Mimicking voices could be useful, as could having an unexpectedly deep voice or high voice in opposition to his physical conformation, when he wanted to be memorable.
The diamonds quickly vanished off the desk as the young man plucked a card off the edge of the desk. "Ah, here is your reservation." Toggling a button on the desk phone, he said, "Mr. Miller, I have a Mr. Clouseau here to see you."
Xander might be a novice at the underworld trade, but he was big on popular culture, especially cultural jokes. The Pink Panther was before his time, but he had seen it, and he knew of Peter Sellers, the British actor/comedian who played the Inspector Clouseau, so he got the inside joke and tip-off.
Miller as a name was not indicative, but when the young man opened the office door and let him in, and he saw a yarmulke perched atop the elderly man's head, Xander groaned inwardly at the sheer cliche of having a Jewish diamond buyer, though he brightened a moment later. As much as he was here to get funds, it would be a boon for the diamond seller, and maybe the fact that he had helped out a Jewish diamond seller would be a point in his favor with Willow. Not particularly likely, true, but maybe it would turn out to be a good story.
Anthony Miller, named after an uncle, Anton Levy, whom he had never met, was a cautious man in a risky business. Any given seller could be a potential thief, hoping to make a quick buck by knocking him off and taking his supplies, so meeting unknown buyers was not a normal thing for him.
The code his clerk had used, 'Clouseau,' was more than a reference to a diamond 'Seller,' though that was meant to be the obvious meaning. More than a reference to the actor, it was a tip-off about the likely nature of the mark, in this case a reference to a probable agent.
Xander did not realize it, but a real diamond seller might have bribed the receptionist, but never on the scale he had. To do so was an obvious red flag, an indication that the diamonds were not worth as much to Xander as they ought to be, thus making them likely to be either fakes, or he a border agent peddling government contraband, conflict diamonds seized in a sting, used to then entrap another seller for the same crime.
The other obvious possibility, of course, is that the diamonds were legitimate diamonds, but not worthy of concern because the putative seller intended murder, and would collect them again, along with everything else of value, on the way out.
So when Xander entered the diamond buyer's office, he was covered by three guns. One was in Miller's hand, hidden beneath the desk. No small pistol that would have to be pulled out and aimed, this was a double-barreled shotgun, loaded, fixed to the bottom of the desk, the opening camouflaged by a hanging bit of paper from a stack that jutted over the front of the desk.
The paper concealed the opening in the wood where the gun's double barrels rested, but would offer no barrier to the exiting shotgun pellets. At this range, fired low, it would take out an attacker's legs and groin.
The other two guns had been quietly picked up in the offices to either side, and aimed through slats in the paneled windows. The young men holding them were Miller's son and nephew, the receptionist being another nephew, and both had been signalled by the light on the phone, as the receptionist had pressed the intercom button, instead of the direct line to Miller's office.
Xander meanwhile, had no knowledge of the danger he was in, but would not have been particularly worried about it if he had known. The healing factor he now had would keep him alive long enough to go liquid and back, which should make repairing any damage trivial.
His opening greeting of "Shalom," was unexpected by Miller, and hard-won by Xander, who had wracked his brain to remember the common Jewish greeting. His mind kept coming up with "Mazel tov," which he was sure was wrong, and he could not keep from grinning when "Shalom," the term he had been looking for popped into his head.
Miller nodded in response. "Shalom. You have some rocks for me to eye?"
Xander set the black bag on the desk, then settled into a chair. Miller eyed him for a moment, before drawing out a loupe, a small magnifying eye-piece and setting it by the bag, then picking up the bag. He opened a drawer and drew out a brilliant white mat with raised edges and set it on the desk, then carefully emptied the bag on the mat.
His eyebrows went up when he realized all the diamonds were at least a full carat in size. Normally, a seller would be selling a complete batch, mixing large and small to get a better overall price, and buying just the top diamonds would push the price up substantially. Yet another indication that something was foul here, but surreptitiously looking over his 'Clouseau,' he saw nothing that would indicate a weapon, and no apparent nervousness. "Must be in the small of his back, or a shoulder holster," Miller thought to himself, wondering if the agent was wired.
Xander had no idea he had botched his introduction so badly, and was calmly waiting for the diamond buyer to look over the diamonds, knowing that he would surely buy, since Xander knew he had the cash, when he suddenly felt the chains of a summoning wrapping around him.
Panicked at the thought of vanishing from the middle of a meeting with a guy who probably had security cameras, Xander, for the first time, resisted, and strained to remain in place. For a moment, he managed it, but the draw did not lessen, so he took quick action, forming an invisible fluid body, switching into it, and pumping his visible body with a chakra clone before allowing the summoning to snatch him away.
The clone of Xander had no idea why, after a few short minutes of examining the stones, Miller asked him for documentation of their provenance, and on failing to receive it, quietly showed him the door, even returning the two he had given to the receptionist.
With no idea what he had done wrong, nor how to fix it, the clone tried and failed with several more diamond dealers, each time tripping their red flags. Since he did not change his appearance between each, his image and information was soon being shopped around and fairly shortly he was not even getting past the front desk.
---
The smooth black stone of the chamber Xander appeared in was not reassuring. The fact that the summoning circle was no mere chalk or salt outline, but a precisely and not freshly carved pattern in the stone floor spoke ill for his chances of manipulating or breaking the summoning.
He spun about slowly, taking in the strangeness that was a highly intricate summoning circle in what appeared to be an exceedingly richly appointed sleeping chamber, decorated with a very dark theme. The cloth draping the bed looked to be black and deep purple, the dresser against one wall, topped with an ornately carved wood frame surrounding a mirror that just screamed magic to him was of a black wood, but not painted black, for all the whorls and grain of the wood were still clearly visible.
The one window in the room was open, and yet not. There was no glass to close it off, or wood or cheesecloth to block the wind. Instead, it appeared to have been sealed with roses grown so tightly they blocked off all light. Here and there a dark purple rose bloom testified to continued life in the window covering.
Finally he focused on his summoner, a tall, slender woman with pale green skin, ruby red lips and penetrating eyes. She wore a floor length black robe with a purple inlay, and in her hand she held a golden staff tipped with a glowing green sphere.
She seemed to sense that his vision was on her, though he was invisible due to his efforts to leave the diamond buyer's without simply vanishing, and spoke in a commanding voice.
"Modesty is impertinent in such as you. Think not that I am fooled. Show yourself to me." The sphere on her staff glowed in response, casting odd green highlights on the various objects in the room. The light glinted off something glassy on a shelf partly hidden by the large bed with its hanging black drapes, but Xander had no time to look for it further.
Allowing his body to assume its usual shape, he solidified, and a momentary upward bend quirked one of his summoner's lips before it was suppressed.
"A pleasing form," she stated, sweeping forward, her robe drawn backward as it trailed behind her. Xander kept an eye on her, at the same time as he examined the summoning circle, trying to parse what his new senses were telling him about it.
It was inherent, as far as he could see, in the circle itself that he could not harm her permanently, or in any way at all against her wishes. As the circle was a permanent fixture, there was no way for her to break the circle to allow him out without his being bound by an agreement.
That was potentially a bad thing, because Xander had seen enough Disney movie marathons with Willow to recognize her as a dead ringer for a real live version of one of the Disney villainesses. He could not remember, however, if she was the merely evil queen, or the really truly evil fairy witch who could transform into a huge fire-breathing dragon. The mirror suggested one, while the roses and ability to summon him suggested the other. Either was bad news.
He got an inkling of just what degree of bad news when she shrugged her shoulders, and her black gown slipped off to pool at her feet. She reached up and removed a sort of black horned headdress, allowing long black hair to cascade to the floor, providing a glistening backdrop to her enchanting nude form. She was slender and willowy, with small breasts capped with dark green nipples. Though slender, she did not appear skinny or underfed, her arms were nicely proportioned, her hands long, slender, and smooth, her nails a lighter green. Her stomach was just a little rounded, well-muscled with a touch of fat softening the lines leading to a trim little spot of black hair, and long, luscious legs. Her feet were concealed within her pooled robes.
"Two fairies, two unspoiled humans, two winged horses . . ." she trailed off, looking at him for a moment, then sniffed delicately. "Very well, and a young dragon. Agreed?"
"Where's the other half?" Xander wondered, and focused again on the summoning circle, searching frantically for what he was missing. When he found it, he realized he should have guessed. The task the demon was summoned for was apparently defined by several runed stones that got placed in precise spots in the summoning circle, both specifying the purpose, and specifying the demon summoned to fulfill them at one and the same time. An efficient mechanism, and as implied by her actions before speaking, the terms were for a full night of sexual congress.
Well, she was by no means unattractive, but Disney, for all it was Disney, had been pretty clear in their early movies about the evil motives of their characters, and if they were perhaps dumbed down in newer releases, those early movies he saw as a child were clear. From commanding a huntsman to bring him her heart, to cursing a mere baby to die sixteen years later, Disney's early villainesses made no bones about their evil, and if he did not accept, those mentioned fairies and humans could expect little more than torture and death unless they were in fact a princess.
If this were actually a Grimm tale or one of the other precursors to Disney tales, then even the princesses would be at risk. Giving in to his own lust for sex, having been denied it since leaving Naamahalat, and his desire to protect others, even sight unseen, Xander said, "Agreed."
The summoning circle flared, and Xander felt the invisible chains settle into his limbs, and knew they would hold him if he made any move to harm her. To have any chance of saving the people she had mentioned, he would have to satisfy her.
He was not particularly worried about that.
While he would have liked to have figured out by now how to produce music on demand or the like, it was in fact no particular effort to request one of his clones still in Kodachi's world to locate some place where soft mood music was being played, and then set up a sympathetic vibration.
He had gotten his shirt off by the time the music kicked in, and he started swaying to it. Modern dance was something he knew basically nothing about, but sensual, erotic dancing to inflame the passions of women? Yeah, he was actually fairly practiced at that by this point.
Modern mood music gave it a different touch, however. In Naamahalat's chambers, when he danced for her pleasure, and that of her guests, it was either in silence, or one of them would play a small stringed instrument, something like a lap harp or lute. The music his clone piped in was fuller and richer, having several instruments, including a soft saxophone and a moderate beat.
The green queen, as Xander found himself thinking of her, had stepped away from her gown to sit on the edge of her bed, watching him perform for her. She had released her staff and it stood perfectly straight by her bed, still bathing them in soft green light. With green skin lit by green light, lounging on a bed, her only adornment a golden ring with a black stone, Xander suddenly had a mental image of Captain Kirk from the original Star Trek, encountering the Orion slave girls for the first time, and his arousal surged unexpectedly.
Xander focused on her eyes, staring deeply into her as he lowered his pants and exposed himself to her. He felt another jolt of arousal when she licked her remarkably red lips with a black tongue.
It was his senses that saved him from the failure of his expectations. As he moved over and stroked her smooth skin, he focused his senses on her and found to his surprise that she was not even close to moist enough for intercourse. All of his experience to this point had been with demonesses, and their fluids flowed copiously and easily, almost at will, their arousal ready and instant, lengthy foreplay and dancing was more a matter of denial with them, of heightening tension by not instantly indulging, than of needing it to actually be ready.
His green-skinned partner, on the other hand, while excited enough to be breathing somewhat more deeply, and for her nipples to have hardened and risen from her small breasts, was not yet ready for direct intimate contact.
Given that he suspected her to be capable of the insidious curses of fairy tales, curses that could wait years before striking, that could seemingly rewrite someone's destiny, far worse than any fireball or magic arrow whose impact his healing factor could soon resolve, he was more than glad that his extra senses gave him that bit of warning to moderate his approach and not anger her with a too-quick attempt at intercourse.
Climbing onto the bed, he drew her onto it as well, his enhanced strength making her feel as light as a falling leaf, reminding him to keep it in check. Breaking her arms would probably trigger the punitive aspects of the summoning, something he did not really want to experience.
Though he had no personal experience with human women, not that he was certain she was human, he had listened to stories of demons, male and female, seducing humans. Naamahalat had no such tales, as her innate pheremones and her lustful aura made seducing mortals and priming them for sex both easy and nearly instantaneous, but many of her visitors had not had her direct advantages.
So Xander had at least some idea of how to go about increasing her excitement, and he had his fluid senses to act as a sort of progress meter, allowing him to monitor her production of the oils and fluids that would make her slippery enough for more direct activities.
He kissed her neck, then nipped at it lightly, plucking her skin with only his lips, while he stroked softly down strong silky shoulders. He nipped his way up her neck and nuzzled her just behind and beneath her ears, then drew her earlobe into his mouth and laved it with his tongue.
Disappointed a little at her subdued reaction, he produced a small amount of a massage oil that would increase blood flow, to have a warming effect, and rubbed it in to her back, as he swirled his tongue around her ear, discovering that it was in fact pointed. He drew the pointed tip of her ear into his mouth and suckled on it, but again, it drew little reaction.
"Hurt me," she said throatily. "Bite me!"
Well, if that is what she wanted. He supposed a bit of masochism ought not be surprising in an evil fairy or an evil queen, and suspected that he would likewise feel her capacity for sadism later. This too was familiar territory, as his demoness lovers had often made extensive use of his healing factor.
He shifted momentarily to a fluid form, which allowed him to then extend his canines into sharper points, then altered his salivary glands to produce a contact-based healing potion. Lining his new fangs up, he pierced her earlobe, and sensed her oil production jump as she moaned.
That gave him another idea, and melted wax dripped from the air onto her sculpted back, produce a satisfying hiss of pain from her, and another spike in her arousal. Xander's fingers sharpened into talons, and he brought his left hand around to slice a thin line, tracing the path of one of her ribs, a bit below her breasts, then dribbled salt water over and into the wound.
Remembering Naamahalat's reactions, and considering that Disney and Grimm's fairy tales were both European in origin, Xander sat up and poured thin chocolate sauce over his chest, and drew her face down to press her lips in it.
She looked at him curiously before her black tongue flicked out, then she eagerly licked it off him, stopping to bite his nipple. As he had anticipated, pain was a turnon for her both in the receiving, and the giving, and she pierced it with her teeth, sending sparks of sensation rushing through him.
He groaned, and she grinned, and traced a line through the chocolate sauce to his other nipple and pierced it as well, tugging hard at it. Xander added melted vanilla ice cream and strawberry sauce, and she tasted the new flavors, murmuring in pleasure, and giving him a series of bloody bites down his chest.
He alternated dripping hot wax and ice-cold water on her back as she moved down his torso. She slid one slender hand around his penis, holding it straight and looking at it. Xander waited, unsure how equal she treated her demonic lovers. He jerked when she wrapped her black tongue around his swollen head and popped it into her mouth, then pulled out again.
Her intentions clear, Xander drizzled chocolate and caramel sauce over himself, and she greedily sucked him into her mouth. He winced at the not unexpected sting of her teeth piercing his tender skin, but shrugged it off. She had shifted to the side so that she could turn her head to the side to lick him instead of having to bend her neck forward, and Xander realized, as she slid her head up and down his erection, this put her rounded bottom in reach.
He slapped her left cheek lightly, and she moaned approval around him. He dipped his hand lower, between her cheeks, and felt first hand the evidence his senses had been telling him, that feeling pain, and biting him had increased her flow considerably. He spanked her again, then went to the other cheek and hit her harder still.
He paused a moment when he realized that he could see his handprint, but far from being red, it was actually a darker green. Was her coloration a result of green blood? He reached out and held her cheeks open and dropped several drops of hot wax directly onto the crinkled ring of her anus, causing her to twitch and suck hard.
She pulled her head off just as he landed another hard spank on her derriere, and she growled and pulled herself up. She held his cock steady, lined herself up, and then dropped hard. Xander was a little surprised when he felt her hot, tight butthole slide down his dick, but this too was no stranger to him, though he hoped that she was clean. She pulled her legs under her and began posting up and down on him.
Xander's hand joined hers at her pussy, and as she rubbed her fingers back and forth over her hooded clit, he slipped a finger and started pumping into her.
Recognizing that given her lack of significant arousal until she experienced pain, she would probably need pain to reach orgasm as well, Xander dripped hot wax onto her nipples, hitting them in spite of their vigorous motion.
Her face was flushed a dark green, and her hair was glistening with sweat as she bounced vigorously up and down. She frowned and moued with disappointment when Xander produced oil on his cock to provide lubrication, but while she might have been appreciating the considerable friction, it was beginning to chafe.
Considering what he could do to increase her pain in compensation, Xander hit on an idea, and promptly went with it. He plugged her urethra with hot wax then stole the heat, solidifying the wax, then slowly filled her bladder with a sterile saline solution. Her eyes widened at the unexpected sensation and she lost composure. "Oh, Evil, damn me, oh, oh Darkness, ah, hurt me!"
Xander was amused at the powers she chose to invoke, but was determined this would be a session she would not soon forget. He produced a stamina potion directly into her stomach, ensuring that she would not collapse on him, then, as more hot wax in bright primary colors dripped onto her heaving breasts, he decided that another over-full sensation would probably go well with her straining bladder.
Finding the right spots with his power was trickier here, as breasts are a complex network of ducts, not a mere bag of fluid like a bladder, but when he stopped trying to find the spot, and simply produced a potion that caused her breasts to respond to his mental commands and then ordered them to fill with milk, he succeeded, and watched in delight as she gained cup sizes before his eyes, her skin stretching taut, becoming shiny as the tiny folds were pressed smooth.
Now the hot wax brought more of a reaction, and her eyes were wild as red, yellow, and blue splotches drew sharp hisses of indrawn breath, and short cries of pain.
Remembering that erectile tissues become erect through blood pressure, blood he could feel and control, Xander pushed her closer to the edge, by slowly increasing the amount of blood in her nipples, clitoris, and labia.
That was when she brought her own powers into play, and he stared in startled wonder as rose vines grew up from below the bed somewhere, and wrapped themselves tightly around the base of her small breasts, the thorns digging into already tight flesh, then constricting, tightening and lifting them until with an orgasmic cry of release, she achieved let-down, and her nipples released numerous fine, strong sprays of milk.
Xander promptly leaned forward and captured one of her sore, swollen, overheated, spraying nipples in his mouth, and suckled hard, even as he produced hot wax directly above her swollen clitoris and let it drop. She screeched and shuddered, tightening about him, and clutching desperately at him with her arms, her feet still straining to lift and drop her on his hardness.