Big Eyes, Small Mouth (BESM): Nexus Earth - [NC] Ridiculous [Complete]

[z-Skye the Fallen]

Author's Note: This fic was born out of me making bad jokes about 'good' and 'bad' Kazuo, al la Star Trek's Mirror Universe, in chat. What started as idle fun turned into a full-fledged story in my head and demanded to be set free. As having a story pounding to get out is painful, I had to type it up. It is ridiculous, but you have been warned so I don't want to hear about it later. I also haven't really proof-read this, as I refuse to spend anymore time on this bit of silly fun.

But I do hope you enjoy.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Traveling the realms was child’s play for a Skeleton Key. It took an extension of one’s will and a desire to go and there you went. Companions held your hands and followed like a string of children behind mama and there you all went. Walk from the raging fires of Bazaroth to the heavens of Aradia with a smile and a single step.

Crossing realities was another issue. It required another, more delicate touch; an understanding of where you wanted to go and the knowledge of how to shift the tumblers of reality. Comparing what a trans-realitist did to what a skeleton key did was like comparing what a world-class gymnast did to a babe taking its first step.

Kai stood utterly still, his arms outstretched and curved up, as if he held an invisible globe on his back. Occasionally, something almost seen snapped like trapped lightning between his arms. He’d been like that for six hours now – not moving, not fidgeting, barely breathing. Sweat dripped from his elbows and ran down his face to collect in his goatee*.

Two forms lounged on a bench against one wall. The man would have been handsome save for the scarring that marred his face. Elegant wire-rimmed frames gave him an air of intelligence* while the ever-present cigarette sent tendrils of smoke curling up before his eyes. His legs were covered with crisply ironed black pants; his upper body with a white tailor-made dress shirt. It had to be custom-made; no clothing rack on Earth offered shirts for winged men. The woman was petite and blonde, with seven layers of kimono between her and the world. He sat straight, watching Kai; she sat primly, her knees tight together and hands folded in her lap. “So,” Skye said quietly to Kazuo, “why are we getting sent on this mission again? Wouldn’t Her Blueness be a better choice?”

“Her Ladyship is Princess Lily’s proper title,” Kazuo observed around his cigarette, the smoke curling back to loop around his wire-rimmed glasses. “It would improve your standing within Satoshi if you indulge in basic etiquette.”

“Whoopty-do,” Skye said in an underwhelmed drawl. “So where is Her Ladyship?”

“She’s correcting an errant crewmember.”

“Riiiiiight,” Skye sighed, looking down at her blood red nails*. “Kaz, babe, you’re so elegant I feel like I should stick my pinky out when I drink tea. So what’s his name this time?”

Kazuo shrugged one shoulder and the corresponding wing. “I am unfamiliar with his name, right now. If I heard the rumor right, it was a sensor technician that erred on a reading.”

Skye sighed again. “So while she gets to torture someone, I have to drag myself to another reality to do her job.”

With a philosophical scratch on his own jet-black goatee, Kazuo said, “Now, now. We might enjoy ourselves. Endeavor to keep your spirits high, Skye.”

“You start playing word-games with my name again and I’ll chop off your nuts,” the blue-tinged priestess growled, leaning over and plucking his cigarette from his lips. She took a puff from it before putting it back in, smiling at her reflection in his glasses. “Which would be a shame, hmm?”

“You always promise but never deliver, my divine priestess,” Kazuo noted, smirking a little. “The term for that is ‘cocktease’.”

Skye’s grin twisted to the mischievous. “Oh, you’re feeling frisky. You said a bad word.”

“Only because the term required the wording,” Kazuo noted smugly. “I can think of nothing better that applies to you, my dear.”

A flash of light from the center of the room broke their banter. The almost-seen between Kai’s arms became the seen. Lightning flared into a disc the width of his arms and solidified into a light-filled portal. With a grunt, the slim trans-realitist twisted his body around, bringing the edge of the portal into contact with the ground. With another manifestation of his will, the portal settled into place and became free-standing. With a virulent curse, Kai shook out his arms and snarled, “The fucking shit hurts so much all the fucking time I’m doin’ it. Fuck the god that thought this was the way to handle things!”

Skye grimaced but ignored his blasphemy as she rose, shaking out her layers of clothing. From chin to toe she was covered in robes of brilliant blue; only her divine face was visible. “I’m ready.”

“So am I,” Kazuo said. He was quicker to his feet and offered a hand up to Skye. She didn’t notice or ignored it and Kazuo let it fall.

“Get your fucking asses moving,” Kai ordered, his voice harsh. “You’ve only got an hour, get in fuckin’ gear! If you don’t complete your mission in that hour, you’ll have to wait six more – or six more plus however long it takes me to decide I’m ready to do something like this again.”

“Understood,” Kazuo replied, checking his watch. He straightened his glasses and looked at Kai. “We will be back with the material within that time frame, as I have no desire to be caught over there.”

“Then… maybe you’d want to fuckin’ go.” Kai waved at the portal. “You know… anytime.”

Click to reveal..

goatee – the most common male mark of Eeeeevil.

air of intelligence – if someone wears glasses in an anime, you can be sure they’re smart and have Adamantium injected directly into their spine; there’s also a good chance that they’re Eeeevil.

Blood red nails* – a female mark of Eeeeevil.

[z-Skye the Fallen]

Stepping through the portal was anticlimactic. There was no sense that they’d done more than step across the room but they were in another reality now. A quick glance confirmed this; Kai wasn’t in the room anymore, and the portal was a faded glimmer of what it appeared to be in their world.

Kazuo got to work on the computer. Five minutes later, they had the Macross’ access codes – mostly because they were exactly the opposite of their Macross’ codes. “Show me an image of Kazuo Kanai,” Skye ordered the computer. Together, they studied the image.

“No glasses,” Kazuo noted and removed his.

“We can’t match his clothing,” Skye sighed. “I knew you should have worn your armor.”

Kazuo shuddered. “It was dirty! I couldn’t wear something dirty.”

“Take off your shirt. It will have to do,” Skye advised. Kazuo grumbled about the change but did as she asked. “And you’re going to have to lose the goatee.”

Kazuo set his jaw then gruffly nodded. They located an empty crewroom nearby and slipped over there. Kazuo shaved while Skye ordered the computer to display audio of Kazuo Kanai. After a few moments of listening, she started to laugh. “Oh, Kazuo, he’s so…”

“Coarse!” Kazuo snarled. He was irritated, unusual for the normally placid Arsai. “I don’t know how I’ll ever manage!”

“And you need to mangle your grammar more!” Skye giggled.

Kazuo gave her a dark look. “Computer, display images and audio of Skye Fell.”

Skye’s grin slipped as they watched. “She’s…” Kazuo began to laugh, foam dripping from his face. “She’s a whore! Look at her!”

“Oh, I am,” Kazuo assured her with a laugh. Skye backhanded him. “You’ll have to lose the fingernail polish. And… ahem… some layers of silk.”

Skye snarled angrily. As Kazuo finished grooming, Skye stripped her nails of their lacquer, scowling. Kazuo leaned against the door to the bathroom, wiping the water off his face and waiting. “Turn around,” Skye ordered, crossing her arms and tapping her foot.

“Why?” Kazuo asked, his smirk telling her that he knew why.

“Because I’m not a whore,” Skye snapped, in a snit. She stomped around the room for a moment, muttering in angry German before rounding on him again. “So turn. Around.”

Chuckling, Kazuo gave her his back. He’d seen her naked before; she slept in the nude and taking a peek at her didn’t trouble his conscious. So he didn’t mind giving her privacy; he could picture exactly what was happening anyway. The layers of silk falling away. The divine curves being revealed. The slim shoulders finally coming into the light, sloping down the generous swell of her breasts. The silk brushing her hips and revealing the cleft of her sex.

He didn’t bother to imagine the single outer kimono that she put back on. That didn’t interest him in the least. When she said she was ready, he turned around. Kazuo let his eyes widen as he looked her up and down and whistled. “You look extraordinary,” he told her.

“Save it for someone who cares,” Skye said haughtily. “And we have a job to do,” she added haughtily.

“We do,” Kazuo agreed. “We only have forty minutes left.”

“Then we should go,” she said sharply. “There are three armories to check and we don’t have much time to check them in. Do you remember what we’re looking for?”

“Better than you,” Kazuo told her. It was true. Time and again he had proven that his memory was superior to hers.

“Then move,” she ordered, clearly upset and in full bitch mode. Kazuo was more than happy to leave her behind for a while.

[z-Skye the Fallen]

Skye headed for the first armory. Kazuo would head to the second and they would meet at the third, provided there were no issues. She was almost there when she heard a voice call her name. Turning, she saw Valerie running toward her. The blonde stopped and stared in shock. It wasn’t that she wasn’t expecting to see Val; it was that hard-as-nails Val was crying. “Val?” she asked softly.

“He rejected me again!” Val wept, streams of water arching from her eyes. She slammed into Skye and wrapped both arms around her, holding her tight.

“He… Kai?” Skye felt like she was behind the curve. In her reality, Kai, Val and Lily had been an on-again-off-again threesome. Val had always been the one to call it off, usually to gain some advantage over Kai.

“Yes!” Val shrieked, her tears soaking Skye’s single robe. “He loves her!”

The thought of Kai loving anyone other than himself was hard to swallow, but Skye did her best. “Maybe he only thinks he does,” she suggested tentatively.

Val paused in mid-sob. “Is it… possible?” she asked, hope shining in her eyes like a light.

“Anything’s possible,” Skye hedged carefully. “He’s young, somewhat impetuous. Boys at that age don’t know what they want. You should show him.”

“How?” Val asked, hiccupping a little.

“Try to make him jealous,” Skye said. “Sleep with another man.” It was Val’s tried and true method in the past.

“Sex?” Val squeaked.

Skye fumbled for a good answer. “Haha,” she giggled weakly. “Just kidding.” She went for something backwards to her way of thinking, or even Val’s way of being. If the Kai from her reality were heartless and flighty, then perhaps his mirror here was the opposite. She clasped the former cyborg’s hands in her own. “Do you love him enough to live without him?”

Val’s breath rushed out of her. The waterworks started again; mutely, the might wielder of the powerful Witchblade sobbed and shook her head.

“Find another to give your heart to,” Skye said gently. This child was bringing odd reactions out of her. “If Kai loves Lily, he won’t turn from her. He can be a stubborn idiot at times. If you aren’t willing to do what is needed, if you aren’t willing to deny him the chance to have you in the hopes that he’ll realize it, then you’ll never be happy.”

Val was staring at her as if she were insane. So Skye improvised. “I’ve never told you this before because I didn’t want to hurt you. But Val… you need the truth. Lily is a princess. She’s got power and beauty, things that men go for. If she has his heart, too, then you can’t do much. Let him go, find another.” She gave Val a hug; it felt awkward and wrong. “Maybe you should go and think about this. OK? Just give yourself some time to think.”

Thankfully, Val took off after that, leaving Skye her own privacy to head for the armory. Her codes granted her access and she went through the room quickly. “Crap,” she hissed as she slammed the last module closed. “Nothing!”

Scowling, she hurried to the third armory. Again, the codes provided her access. She expected to see Kazuo waiting for her, but he wasn’t there. “Where are you, feather-brains?!”

[z-Skye the Fallen]

Kazuo had waited until Skye was gone before he asked the computer where Skye Fell was located. He got back two locations. One was headed for the armory; the other was located in assigned quarters. Kazuo balanced his own personal desires with the likelihood that Kai would punish him for failure. Lily wouldn’t; the last time she’d tried, he’d shown her that he was the powerhouse, not her. Kai wasn’t stronger than him, either, but Kai could banish him somewhere exceedingly unpleasant for a while. Kazuo considered that, measured it against the odds of Kai getting distracted before working up a full head of wrath and made his decision.

The door to Skye’s room would have yielded to his access codes, but Kazuo knocked. He needed to play this a certain way and forced entry wasn’t that way. He smiled to himself as he corrected, forced entry wasn’t the style to use on the door.

The door opened and Kazuo had little room for such thoughts. Skye stood there – not his tense, repressed Skye, but a sensual, carnal creature that promised delights with the curve of a lip. “Hey, Kazuo,” she said, crossing her arms. That gesture didn’t push him back and make her stand-offish; it pressed her breasts up invitingly. “What’s up?”

“Have time to talk?” he asked, tilting his head in his usual habit. He immediately second-guessed himself; did the Kazuo here do that? “Can I come in?”

“Always,” she told him with a smile. Her turn and walk into the room had him eager, more than he’d ever expected. He followed and let the door hiss shut behind them. As an added measure, he locked the door behind them.

“So what’s up?” Skye asked as she sat down on the bed. “And how did you find pants? More importantly, where can I find the pants?”

He followed and sat next to her, close enough that he could feel the warmth from her skin. He reminded himself that he needed to speak rudely. “Won ‘em. Card game. Skye, I’ve been thinking,” he stated, only to stop as she giggled.

“You really shouldn’t do that,” she teased. “It’s ficken dangerous, ya know?”

“Then enough thinking,” he agreed. He wasn’t sure he could fool her if he kept talking anyway, so kissing her seemed like the next best idea. He cupped her cheek as he leaned in, preventing her from turning away. He found her very pliable under his lips, though, very willing to kiss him back.

“Kazuo,” she whispered softly. “What… what are you doing?”

“You need to ask that?” he murmured and kissed her again.

“Ok, why are you doing that?” she asked when they stopped kissing.

He studied her and saw only a rising eagerness and warmth in her eyes. There was no repression, no hesitation. Kazuo smiled and murmured, “Because I can’t remember a time when I didn’t want to do this.” Her smile faltered and he knew he’d done or said something wrong. “And you want it too, bijin. Who couldn’ want me?”

Some of the hot desire came back into her face; erased some of the doubt. “Could be fun,” she whispered.

“It will be,” he promised and erased the last of the doubts by slipping his fingers up over the pointed tips of her inhumanly sensitive ears.

[z-Skye the Fallen]

Skye finished searching the third armory and backtracked to the second. On the way there, she saw Kazuo walking toward her. He was wearing black dress slacks and she hoped it was her Kazuo. “Find it?” she asked.

“Nope,” he said. Skye wasn’t sure what was wrong, but there was something off. “We should move on to the third armory,” he added.

So now she was sure that this was her Kazuo, but she wasn’t sure why she had alarm bells going off in her head. “We can’t go back empty-handed.”

Kazuo smirked, as if she’d said something funny. “We need to go back or we’ll be trapped here. We don’t want to be trapped here,” he said patiently.

Skye set her teeth on edge. Kazuo saw the desire to curse in her eyes. She kept herself from launching some obscenities, however and simply said, “Alright. Fine.”

“We’re out of time,” Kazuo remarked; with an angry nod, Skye moved to follow him. Kai wasn’t going to be happy about them returning without the material but there was no good way around that. Neither one of them was willing to be trapped here just to avoid punishment.

Frustrated, Skye slammed her fist against a door. As Kazuo started to chide her for it, the door opened, revealing a cafeteria. Both started to turn away, but suddenly twisted back as they saw it: their goal. They exchanged a startled look and entered the room. Mindful to move quickly but not too quickly, they sidled up to the counter and each took a bowl of the material. “Is this it?” Skye whispered, eying the cooks.

Kazuo examined it closely for a moment. “Yes,” he whispered back to her. “This is indeed it.”

“They serve it… like food?” Skye hissed.

“These people are insane,” Kazuo replied. “We’ve got enough, let’s go.”

Together, they walked quickly to the extraction point and took the portal back. Kai greeted them with a grunted, “About fuckin’ time. Gimme.”

The duo passed over their samples. Kai looked at them closely and nodded. “Mm. This is primo shit. And enough to fuckin’ power the Ultimate Gaigor Super Destroyer Mech for a year, easy. Excellent work, you two. Knew I could fuckin’ count on ya’all to complete the mission.” He paused and glanced at Kazuo. “I see you even found time to get laid.”

Skye’s jaw dropped and she whirled to glare at Kazuo. “What?” she snapped.

Kazuo had kept his calm. “Why do you say that?” he asked Kai, ignoring Skye.

“I just know these things,” Kai smirked. “You’ve got the ‘I got to drill warm pussy and it was fine’ look. That and you stink like a brothel. Hope she made up for those years of being led on by Ms. Chastity here.”

“More than,” Kazuo answered with a smirk of his own.

Kai offered him a high five, which Kazuo accepted both high and low with his usual gravitas. “Awesome,” Kai remarked. “Oh, and hey – grow back your goatee fast. You look like an ugly Thai chick-boy and that’s just fuckin’ uncomfortable, dude.”

[z-Skye the Fallen]

It took several days to work out the damage that had been done. Valerie was mopey and odd, and Skye tried to have several conversations with Kazuo which led to him being bewildered and her pissed because he’d forgotten their “special moment”. The mop-up involved Kai sitting down with Val and working out her feelings again. It left Val lonely and upset again, but she honestly felt this was her place in the universe. Skye, on the other hand, felt pissed and violated, while Kazuo was pissed both on her behalf and because once again, some other guy had gotten the good reward. The scientists and Tsunami provided the final answers, though there was still on question left unsolved:

Why had the other reality gone through all that trouble to steal a couple of bowls of blue Jello?

[Justin OOC]

ROFL

10 points

[z-Skye the Fallen]

Just a quick note - I added the NC tag to the fiction because 1) that's what I meant it to be and 2) I didn't vet it with any of the other players whose PCs are involved. So it's not 'real', just a bit of fun.

If that loses me the 10 CP, Justin, that's ok.

[Justin OOC]

it does not. I had a very very shitty morning, and this made it better. I honestly had a shitty night (worked from 1pm to 2 am) and thinking of this made me smile still so you still get the points.