“Hey babe, what’s up? Long time no speaky!”
Nyssi twirled around the house, letting her breasts flap about freely, only a pair of bright pink knickers covering her modesty. She’d gotten a phone call and had picked it up instantly. Normally her old buddy Kinigos was allergic to phone calls, so this had to be important.
“Hey, Nyssi. I’m alright. Weird shit going on though.”
“Oh?” Nyssi paused. Tenuk was staring at her, silently telling her to put a bra on, since she was distracting Tenuk from his bowl of sugar loops. Nyssi decided to ignore Tenuk and continue with her phone call. “Is something wrong?”
“Yeah. We caught something here, down in old Kato Vriskera, ain’t got a fucking clue what it is. It’s terrifying though. Killed a whole pack of Thraggers, ate them all a little too fast. Caught the monster and brought it back to the Islet but we can’t work out what it is.”
“Can you, like, describe it or something? Like, can’t Haplo identify it?” Realizing that her bestie was being pretty serious, Nyssi sat down on the nearby sofa like a normal person, then grabbed a nearby tablet so she could write stuff down. Sure, the tablet was probably Retvik’s, but, again, Nyssi didn’t really care.
“Haplo doesn’t have a clue. Neither do the Big Chiefs. You went to an abandon-world recently, maybe you saw something new, maybe you could give us a hand? Whatever it is, it’s huge, black and keeps on spitting out clouds of black smoke.”
“Oh…” Nyssi trailed off. “How many wings does it have?”
“Four… wait, how do you know that it has wings?”
“Like you said, I went to an abandon-world recently! Saw a couple of scary black monsters on Kolasi.”
“Yeah, uh, Nyssi, you also told me that you saw a giant, pink Thraki.”
“I did! Thassalin was lovely!”
Kinigos hissed down the other end of the phone. He was clearly frustrated and Nyssi didn’t seem to be helping matters.
“Whatever. Whatever this creature is, we can’t seem to kill it.”
“You tried shooting it in the head with a shotgun or high-powered rifle?” Nyssi suggested. “Because that’s how we killed the ones we saw!”
“That was the first thing Haplo did.”
“Oh. Can you send me some pics?”
“Sure. One sec.”
The line went on hold, as Kinigos was clearly doing as requested. In the mean time, Nyssi turned to the rest of the room, where she spotted Retvik coming down the stairs. Weirdly, he wasn’t wearing any of his normal attire, or seemingly anything at all, and looked somewhat embarrassed.
“I apologise for my nudity but I really should have done a wash or something. I seem to have no clean wraps or cloths…” Retvik muttered.
“To be fair, you don’t look naked even when you are naked!” Nyssi smiled. “Kayel wanders around semi-nude when the sun sets and it’s dark!”
“Yes but Kayel is not big-buttoned like I am…” Retvik made his way over to a linen cupboard, tutted several times, then gave up and wrapped a thin sheet around himself, tied beneath the armpit. He then headed to the kitchen proper to make himself some breakfast.
“What the fuck does that mean?” Tenuk asked. “Also Nyssi is literally tits out right now but you and Kayel don’t have a problem with that! Where IS Kayel by the way?”
“He needed some alone time and went back to his own apartment for the night.”
“Why though?” Tenuk went back to his cereal. “Kayel’s place is nearly as much of a shithole as Arkay’s place is. Also, you didn’t answer my other question.”
Retvik continued to not answer the question and instead grabbed five eggs from the fridge, broke all of them into a frying pan and proceeded to scramble them up. Once they were cooked, Retvik got out four slices of bread, buttered them and laid the scrambled eggs on top. He grabbed some cutlery and joined Nyssi and Tenuk in the living area.
“Retvik!”
“What?”
“You didn’t answer my question!”
Retvik grunted and forked some food into his maw. “I do not want to.”
Nyssi leaned over and considered stealing some of Retvik’s food, but chose not to, mostly because Retvik was already grumpy. So she decided to answer in Retvik’s place.
“That’s just a polite, Rethan way to say that Retty here has a big dick.”
“Nyssi…” Retvik frowned.
“Well, I say that, it’s more that, unlike Skyavok, Rethavok can’t fully retract their clitori-penis into their body so the top kinda sticks out a little and for some reason you Rethans decided to call that a button.”
“Nyssi!” Retvik frowned some more. “Tenuk does not need to know about my stupid anatomy!”
“Well he does if he wants to get better at shapeshifting! If that is how it works of course. I dunno if you can change your genitalia. Can you, Tenuk?”
Tenuk hesitated, then nodded. “Yeah, some Spasts can do that. Not tried it myself.”
“Neat!” Nyssi didn’t seem at all concerned. However, her level of concern abruptly rose as she saw a collection of images appear on her phone. “Uh, boys, do we have work today?”
“No, we do not. The Raptor wanted us to fight a terror-beast but that is not due for a week or so, and no one wishes to fight us still…” Retvik tutted as he swiftly finished his meal and put his plate to one side. “Why do you ask?”
Nyssi scooted closer to Retvik and showed him the pictures on her phone. “That looks like the monsters we killed on Kolasi, right?”
“Uh, yes.”
“Thought so…” Nyssi climbed off the sofa and started speaking into her phone again. “Hey, Kinigos, that’s exactly what we killed on Kolasi. Just confirmed it with my big bulky armour-boy here. But those ones, we shot them both in the head and they died no problem. Our girl Kayel nailed one through the head with his rifle and it died pretty much instantly.”
A sudden gunshot was heard down the other end of the line. Kinigos swiftly returned. “Yeah, no, babe, didn’t work.”
“Huh. Do you want me to bring my gear and come down there and help out?”
“If you can, Nyssi, that would be awesome. Because we’re fucking stumped.”
Nyssi glanced up at Tenuk and Retvik. “Do you guys fancy a day trip to the Torn Islet?”
Tenuk shrugged, Retvik nodded.
“It sounds like they need our assistance. We should go.”
“Thanks…” Nyssi returned to her phone. “We’ll be a couple of hours. Retvik’s place is quite far, and we gotta pick up Kayel as well. Can you all hold out for a bit?”
“Yeah, should be fine. The beast’s caged, so we should be good. Thanks, babe.”
“No worries, angel! See you soon!”
Nyssi put her phone down, then got up and made her way upstairs to put some clothes on. Retvik grabbed his communicator and sent a text message to Kayel, informing him of their plans, then got up too.
“We should bring those weapons Arkay gave us!” Tenuk suggested as he too started to get ready. “Right?”
“Which ones?” Retvik asked. “The daggers we used against Kinisis or the custom weapons Arkay gave to us when we first got together and were supposed to stab some corruption?”
“Both, I guess… Either way, I got plenty of room in my truck, so bring whatever weapons you want. I think we’re gonna need them…”