The Fractured World 4, page 1
The Fractured World 4
David Aries
Copyright © 2020 by David Aries
All rights reserved.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
This book contains a harem of alien beauties, strong language, heart-racing action, and scenes sure to leave your cheeks burning. You’ve been warned.
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Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Epilogue
Author Notes
More From Me
Chapter 1
Trez’s laughter cut through an otherwise silent forest as she brushed her hands over her metal abomination. “It’s done. It’s finally done. After seven months of grafting, this is it.”
A mighty, yet hideous engine dominated the small clearing located a stone’s throw from our camp. The handmade lump of gnarly metal and exposed wiring supported the weight of a monumental drill, which had once been the weapon of choice for a certain mining robot.
Now it was the tool we hoped would help us escape from this fractured planet.
“Are you sure?” I replied as I leaned against a nearby tree with my arms folded. “I mean, this isn’t the first time I’ve heard those words.”
The fact her crowd for this grand reveal was just me was testament to that.
Trez wagged a finger. “Thee of little faith. Don’t let those old false alarms fool you. This time, I’m certain it’ll work. Just you watch; I’m about to blow you away.” While looking me in the eye, and grinning like the crazed genius she was, Trez flicked the switch which powered her baby up.
Nothing happened.
She flicked it off, then on, then off, then on, then back and forth with increasing vigor as her face curled into a scowl. “You stupid piece of… why won’t you work?!” She smacked the top of the engine like some old, faulty TV.
It refused to turn on.
“Oh, boy…” I whispered under my breath as history repeated itself. “Trez, calm down.”
“I’ll calm down when this stops being a dick!” She stopped smacking and went back to wiggling the switch. Then it was right back to giving the motor a thumping.
I marched over and grabbed her from behind. “Seriously, chill. You’re going to hurt yourself.”
“Lemme go!” she said as she thrashed for freedom, but there was no breaking free of my arms. After a minute of ineffective squirming, my two-tailed blonde lover went still.
“Finished?”
“Yeah…”
As much as I adored having a half-dressed cutie wrapped in my arms, I let her go.
“This sucks!” Trez groaned as she trudged from side to side.
“I can always manhandle you again,” I replied.
“Not that! The damn engine. I thought this was finally the one. The solar charger should be working; there’s no reason it shouldn’t be working… so why the fuck is the battery dead?!”
I shrugged. “Don’t ask me. I was never one of those practical nerds. YouTube tutorials are the only reason I managed to build my own computer.” And, as anyone who has done it would know, building a PC is easier than you’d think. It’s just like Lego for adults.
It can’t be compared to building a working engine from scrap.
“I’m telling ya,” Trez said, “this drill is gonna be the death of me. If only there was another way through that door.”
There was still no guarantee the glowing object we’d discovered under the ji’s base was a hatch, but we’d chosen to move forward on the presumption it was… and that whatever was inside would help us get out of here.
“We could try some stronger explosives,” I said.
“And where are we supposed to get them? At this rate, we’ll need a damn nuke to bust that bad boy open. Nah, it’s drill or bust.” She ripped the dead battery from its socket and gave it a shake. “So it would be a big help if this bastard started playing along!” When it refused, she snarled and threw it into the air.
It didn’t come back down.
“Oh, shit!” Trez said as she scurried up the closest tree and out of sight.
I sighed and shook my head. “Do you need any help up there?”
“I’m good!” she replied from somewhere in her favorite habitat—as to be expected from the alien version of a monkey girl. “No… actually, send Sylvy. If the problem turns out to be the adapter, I’m gonna need her to smith me a new one. Then again, it could be a circuit issue. I’m not sure she’ll be of much help with that. There’s also a chance it might be a problem with the—”
“I get it, I get it,” I said before she could befuddle me with tech talk.
Seriously, I haven’t put enough points into intelligence to handle problems of this level.
Fetch Sylvetty? Now there’s a job I can handle.
I left Trez be and made the short journey back to camp. It took around half a minute to get to the forest’s edge and back to the realm we called home.
And what a home it was.
Seven months of hard work had seen our tiny settlement transform into a thriving colony spanning both banks of the river we’d conquered with a pair of log bridges. What had once been empty grassland was now flush with a variety of buildings made from the usual mixture of wood, bark, and pelts.
Every resident, now around a hundred in total, had a place to call home.
They were enclosed by a palisade that put our rushed first attempt to shame. Beyond the fact it covered a much wider area, the head of each had been hand chiseled to a fine point to deter anybody from trying to breach over the top. If you wanted in, you had to use one of the three gates we were confident would stop everything but the most fearsome of monsters in their tracks.
They’d already kept out a few idiotic raiders who’d messed with the wrong camp.
I couldn’t help grinning like an idiot whenever I laid eyes on our hamlet, although it was a little hard to see the walls from my location with so many blossoming crops in the way.
A fence-lined dirt path split the farmland in half, beckoning me through faux halls made of growing vegetables coming in every color of the rainbow. Their flavors spanned the same variety, ranging from stuff that tasted like your standard carrot, to freshly-cooked bacon, all the way to cotton candy.
There was so much good stuff around that everything was guaranteed to satisfy somebody’s taste buds… with the exception of the infamous fanaynay fruit, which we kept around in case of emergencies.
The woman who had overseen this transformation from grassland to a greengrocer’s paradise was none other than Zolly, our resident slug-bodied farming expert.
And, as always, I meant that in the most affectionate of ways.
Her wobbling body blocked my path as she tended to her crops.
“Hey, Zolly,” I said. “Preparing for our next harvest?”
“That’s right, sugar. And I reckon it’s gonna be a fine one.” Zolly plucked a fluffy white flower head and blew, sprinkling the area in a fall of alien flour. “Mighty fine.”
“I still can’t believe stuff like this grows in space,” I said as I wafted away the lingering sprinkle.
It even tasted like the real thing!
“And I can’t believe there’s still been no sign of winter. I’m starting to think it’ll never come… not that I’m raising any complaints. No siree!”
“Couldn’t agree more,” I replied with a laugh. “Need a hand?”
“Don’t worry, sugar, I’ve got this. You ought to run along now. A little birdie tells you’ve got a date planned with your sweet little zerrin.”
I grinned. Something told me a certain overexcited mate of mine had been telling everyone we’d made plans to go hunting.
If Casella wants to call it a date, I won’t argue.
It was definitely more interesting than going for a walk around a park.
Waving Zolly off, I continued down the path to where the crops faded away yet the farmland continued.
After all, there’s more to farming than just veg.
In a fenced-off area just outside our walls, creatures known as billinks lazily grazed. They were milk-producing animals with so little physical resemblance to cows it was frightening. They were more brightly-colored tentacle blobs than stereotypical cattle.
Keith stood next to one of the beasts. “You’ve gotta squeeze properly, babe.”
“I am doing it properly,” Millith mumbled as she squeezed a billink’s tentacles.
“Y
“What does that even mean?”
“You know. Like this.” Keith cozied up behind Millith and groped her chest through her dress.
She gasped. “K-Keith! Don’t! Somebody might—” Her three eyes locked onto mine. Molten heat brightened her cheeks before she squeaked, twisted away, and hid behind her ankle-long blonde hair.
Keith laughed when he noticed me. He removed his hands as if he hadn’t been caught in the act. “Morning, bro! How’s tricks?”
“Going good,” I said with a grin. “I’d ask you the same thing, but I think I’ve got a pretty good idea.”
His hair may have lost its blond dye, but Keith was still the same rascal he’d always been.
Millith pouted and nudged her lover. “I told you this would happen…”
Keith guffawed. “Sorry, babe. You know I can’t help myself when I’m around you.” As he proved by giving her a kiss.
Millith’s complaints melted away as she wrapped her arms around his shoulders and pulled him deeper.
I rolled my eyes and left them to it. Seven months and they were still all over each other.
A feeling I know all too well.
Just thinking about it got my mouth all parched.
The sooner I could change that, the better.
With the sun up high and our lookouts quiet, a spread gate welcomed me into the camp I’d founded all that time ago. Children of various shapes, sizes, colors, and genders played in the streets between structures we’d built ourselves.
All the old guard had been upgraded long ago. Where once a poxy kitchen stood was now a mighty canteen fit to feed and shelter all. Eret’s medical bay had also been improved and was the finest clinic you could expect on a planet like this. Then there was where I was heading, which had more than doubled in size.
To think this all started out as nothing more than two tents. Now it was like a fully-fledged fantasy village.
I waved to the various people I passed, be they workers heading to their next job or oldies sewing while resting in the shade, as I followed the sound of metal meeting metal and a running commentary familiar to everyone.
“That’s it! Just like that!” Sylvetty cooed as she lost herself in her work. “Ya beauty! You’re looking proper bonny! You’re gonna be the swankiest chunk of armor in this whole bleeding realm.”
I chuckled as I watched my monochrome-moth mate hammer away from behind. It was nice to see her time here hadn’t done anything to kill her love for blacksmithing.
If anything, it had amplified it.
Extra space was far from the only upgrade Sylvetty’s forge had received. The furnace had been remade into something which wouldn’t look out of place in a dwarven kingdom. Wooden racks lined the walls, holding a variety of smithing tools as well as plenty of recent creations, including swords and armor ripped straight from a medieval video game. Then there was her anvil, which had turned from a slab of flat stone into a lump of pristine black metal which wouldn’t handicap her genius. medieval
It was actually one of three, with another serving as the workstation for Sylvetty’s apprentice.
I waited for Sylvetty to notice my presence, but she was lost in her work. Unable to help myself, I snuck up behind her and blew where her fuzzy white muffler left her neck exposed.
Sylvetty flinched and turned with her hammer held high. Upon locking eyes with me, she sighed and lowered her striking arm. “Ya fecking eejit! I nearly smacked ya one.”
“Sorry. I couldn’t resist.”
“Couldn’t resist,” she repeated, grumbling, before throwing her arms around my shoulders. “I expect a better apology than that. Right here, right now.”
“Right away, your majesty,” I said before giving her a kiss.
Sylvetty devoured my lips with a greedy obsession that wasn’t meant for the eyes of children.
Not that I was complaining.
After we indulged ourselves, Sylvetty growled under her breath. “Did ya need something, lover? I wouldn’t mind taking a break if yer hammer is in need of some attention.”
“As lovely as that sounds,” I purred, fantasies running through my head, “Trez is asking for you.”
Syvetty sighed. “Again? I’m telling ya, there’s no breaks when it comes to that one. She’s lucky I wanna see this contraption working as much as she does.” Sylvetty glanced at her six-armed apprentice who was working on her own project. “Oi, Po! I’m heading out. Make sure ya keep the furnace warm for me.”
“Yes, boss!”
Sylvetty stepped outside and spread her immaculate silver wings which glistened as the sun’s rays slipped through them. “See ya later, lover.” In the next instant, she took off into the sky and fluttered toward the forest.
I grinned. It was still hard to wrap my head around the fact I was mated to a girl who could fly. We’d taken our sweet time scavenging an ointment capable of healing her wings, but the results spoke for themselves.
It felt like an age since their beauty had been sullied by rips and tears.
Still no sign of my gift giving me the power of flight…
Not that I was ever going to complain about the extraordinary boon that had turned me into a sci-fi caveman.
Now to find the woman responsible for this power.
It wasn’t exactly difficult. My subconscious tracker was working fine and could feel Casella close by.
She was where I expected her to be: our home.
It was a huge tent, made from the selective-soundproofing material I loved to fanboy over, located in the center of camp and protected by a palisade every bit as impressive as the one surrounding our settlement.
Part of me felt guilty about having such grandiose accommodation, but I’d never heard any complaints. If anything, I’d been encouraged. Some residents felt a certain amount of pride about their appointed leader—moi—living in a dwelling fitting of their position.
And I adored being able to give my mates the largest, safest home possible.
As always, no noise leaked out from within. Voices only flowed out when I opened the entrance flap.
“Casella,” I called as I entered. “Are you ready—”
“Thunder roared! Lightning struck!” Akko said, throwing her arms open as she faced away from me. “What noise; what carnage. Could this be the end? Was apocalypse nigh? Had the gods finally descended to strike Akky down for her sins?”
Casella watched, mouth agape. Her wide yellow eyes sparkled as she watched Akko perform.
“Akky’s eyes darted. She longed for shelter… nay, needed its protecting touch. The sky was collapsing, smiting all who refused to submit. Akky had to escape before it was too late, yet a flash of gold robbed her attention. Judgement’s burning hammer fell, landing upon her with a bang!”
Casella jumped. “Oh, no! Not Akky!”
“I’m afraid so,” Akko mumbled. “Escape was impossible. Her legs had been paralyzed and her mind frozen by a gorgon’s stare.”
“No,” Casella whimpered. “She can’t be dead. Akky can’t be dead!”
“But an ordinary woman couldn’t possibly have survived a strike delivered by a corrupt deity… so why was it that her heart still pulsed? Why did her fingers still feel? Akky didn’t move—she couldn’t have moved—so why did life still flow through her veins? Scorch marks plagued the ground, but not a singe scarred her flesh. All that punishment, all that brutality, had been swallowed by a shield of impeccable muscle so powerful no galaxy could bring it to its knees.”
Casella’s face lit up as she started clapping.
“Akky gasped, shuddered, and stared with such force that tears streaked down her quivering cheeks. How could this be? How was he here? How had he come to her aid?
“Did he explain himself? Her chiseled prince from across the stars need not. His smile did more than words ever could. Her savior, her Randell, leaned closer and delicately cupped her chin with hands so strong they could defy the universe itself.
“‘Did you miss me, my heaven-blossom princess?’ he asked, before giving her shaking, thirsty lips all the attention they—”
Akko’s story came to a premature end, courtesy of my mouth finding hers.
She squeaked and squirmed as I indulged her fantasies in the flesh. By the time she got free, her violet cheeks had turned furnace hot. “B-Brandon?! When did you… erm…”
