Sue Storm was sore as the giant Karr shook beneath her. Karr's leathery wings were flapping hard but shallow as the giant pterodactyl slowed in preparation to land atop the sky-scraping Baxter Tower. Sue was heavy with child and her joints already ached from the additional weight she was carrying. This extra jostling only added to her discomfort.
The expedition to gloomy Gotham might be the last Sue would venture on before the child was born.
Though Sue's back ached and her round belly felt tender, there were compensations. Her breasts had swollen in size and she was already lactating a little. Her breasts weren't just bigger, they were much more sensitive. And her libido, already greater than her chieftain husband's, had become all but insatiable. Chieftain Richards might well get more rest after the baby was born than before.
Sue glanced over the side of Karr's back and frowned.
Below her the uncountable dactyls that nested on the ledges of the Baxter Tower were taking flight, the sounds of their flapping leathery wings merging to make a roar like the sea.
* * *
Rogue paused in the middle of pulling on her green bikini bottoms. In the distance she could see the vast rocky spire that was the home of the Four Clan. The flat top of the Baxter Tower was guarded by sheer cliffs that would take days to climb, and flocks of dactyls that would attempt to eat or drive off anyone that attempted.
Beneath the summit the Four Clan had marked their territory. A horizontal and vertical line of molten rock, crossing at the centre of each other, was carved deep into the cliff face. It was like the X-Tribe's own symbol but rotated. A third line of melt joined the top of the vertical line to the leftmost part of the horizontal. Chieftain Richards had used his legendary intelligence to complete the rune of his tribe by changing the color of the gashes to blue and make the surrounding rock white.
A dark cloud was forming in front of the Four Clan's rune. Rogue's eyes were sharp, the eye's of a hunter, but even she could only just make out a few of the larger individual pterodactyl's that made up the dark cloud. Above the cloud something else was clearer, its enormous sizing making it visible even from this distance.
"The Four Clan return from the north. Ah see the fantastic Karr."
Psylocke paused in tightening the red leather belt above her hips to look at the Tower.
"What is--"
Even as Psylocke began her question, the appearance of the black flock of pterodactyls suddenly changed completely. The flock twisted and turned about itself and suddenly took the shape of the Four Clan's symbol. But even as they watched in wonder a trio of enormous spikes exploded out from the top of the rune, dactyls spiraling upwards. At the same time the Four Clan's symbol grew fainter as the number of dactyls forming it decreased and they plunged down towards the base of the Baxter Tower.
The Four Clan's rune dissolved before it, or rather the dactyls forming it, struck the ground. But the trio of spikes only rose and grew denser. Three black thorns in the sky, full of menace. The middle of the three thorns was aimed for Karr and as the X-tribeswomen watched the dactyls that formed it flocked around and over Karr. Then as suddenly as the Four Clan's rune had disappeared the three thorns were gone.
"Spirits protect us!" Rogue exclaimed.
"It is a bad omen. An omen of malice and danger. One clearly connected to the Four Clan."
Psylocke wrapped her arms round Rogue's bare belly with the familiarity of a lover and rested her chin on the taller woman's shoulder to study the Tower. Rogue realised that her lover was offering her comfort and at the same time seeking it. She relaxed a little in the embrace.
"Danger? Danger to the Four Clan?" Rogue paused a moment as she realised who exactly had witnessed the omen. "Or danger from the Four Clan?"
"I do not know. Perhaps both? We must consult the Wise Ones. Perhaps we must even warn Chieftain Richards and his tribe."
Psylocke fell silent, deep in thought. Though she heard thoughts she was not a Wise One yet. She did not voice her theory that the omen presaged the appearance of a new tribe, one that would conquer the Four, impossible as that seemed. Or that the three thorns was the mark of this unknown tribe. No, the interpretation of auguries was for the Wise Ones and she would bide her time until they spoke.
Rogue paused many breaths watching the Tower but the blue sky, green jungle and grey rock spire kept their counsel from her. With a sense of foreboding she dismissed what she could not affect. She turned her back on the Tower to kiss Psylocke and, reluctantly, broke their embrace to resume dressing.
They would cut their first harvest from the trex corpse quickly. Then they would travel swiftly to the Burnt Place where the X-Tribe made its home amongst the sky-metal remains of the Nightbird and report what they had seen.
* * *
Driven half-mad by the lust that burned between her thighs, Priestess Ivy prayed silently to the Green and sent forth her power. The saddle and harness that secured the Four and their prisoner to the pterodactyl Karr's back were made of thick tough leather immune to her will. But the foolish weak-willed males of the Four had tied her with bonds of strong vine.
Lost as she was to an uncontrollable need for the cruel dominatrix she knew slumbered within the ripe fertile curves of Sue Storm's body, Ivy had not lost all caution. If she could not control her own body in its wanton need for Malice then she would control others. The vines wrapped around her grew with unnatural vigour and speed, trailing behind Karr's body and wrapping lose around the pterodactyl's neck to dangle almost to the end of its long toothed beak.
"Ancestor Petunia! Strecho, is this one of your experiments goin' wrong?"
Grimm the Rockman was first to spot that something unusual was happening. But his question came too late. Flowers blosssomed all along the length of the vines and the air was suddenly full of sweet-smelling perfume and invisible pollen.
"Remarkable? Jon-neh take a look below..."
"Flame on..."
The Four's words and movement on Karr's back ceased. They smiled blank happy smiles and stared peacefully ahead. Soporific pollen filled their breaths, robbing them of the will to act and stealing their memories of these moments. They would neither remember what was to happen nor fight it.
Priestess Ivy rose unsteadily to her feet. Working with dead plants, like those that still wrapped around but no longer bound her, was exhausting. Worse it was not just the pathetic men and the tempting ripening blonde woman that she had to contend with.
Ivy had never tried to control a pterodactyl before, let alone one of the prodigous size of Karr. She could not risk the soporific pollen on the beast she rode. She risked plunging to her death and worse she risked the round belly of her future mistress. Instead she had chosen a different but well-practiced tactic.
A dense cloud of pollen mixing her own irresistible scent with that of a dactyl in heat surrounded Karr and rained softly down on the spire and ground below. It would not affect man or woman but its target would be consumed with desire. Ivy was confident the beast had enough intelligence not to risk her in its ardour but would to seek to land quickly. So far the plan was working.
On unsteady feet Priestess Ivy had almost reached the fertile blonde Queen of the Four Clan when smaller dactyls exploded from beneath Karr's wings and filled the air all around the mighty beast. Secure in their seats the Four were safe and little affected, but beating wings struck at Ivy. The huge pterodactyl Karr fought with maddened passion against the rush of its smaller cousins but there were simply too many.
With a cry of despair and frustrated desire Priestess Ivy fell from Karr's broad back. With her she carried the vines and their blossoms which with a painful jerk arrested her fall. The endless wave of dactyls ended as Ivy used all her remaining strength to attempt to climb back to safety. Flowers withered and their pollen ceased to scent the air as Ivy's will and power withdrew.
"Green grant your priestess strength. I pray you let me live so I may abase myself to Malice."
There was still the length of her arms left to climb when the vines slipped from Karr's body and she plunged without hope of rescue to the jungle left below.
"Malice," Ivy screamed.
And then she began to float upwards. Had the dark goddess granted her prayer? The rushing winds were silent and she sank to here needs and sobbed in relief. She reached the level of Karr's back and looked into Sue Storm's eyes. The strain in those blue eyes face was obvious. This was Sue's power, an invisible forcefield setting enveloping her and carrying her to safety. Something passed between them then, Ivy felt it in the terrifying flicker of the force field that held her and in the way Sue's lips parted.
Ivy had seen that look before, the secret heat of desire for her, and its denial. And deeper, so fleeting that Sue would not even realise she had felt it, a wild exuberance in Ivy's trembling fear and in the power Sue had over her captive in her bubble.
"Malice," whispered to herself and her lust rekindled with the force of a fire mountain. She trembled now not in shock or fear but with desire.
"Here ya go, lady. Safe and sound, all thanks to Suzie. I ought to set to clobberin' those dactyl saps."
Grimm sought to reassure her, mistaking her shaking for fear. But in the flood of love and need Ivy had found herself again and rededicated herself to her purpose.
The force bubble had cut most of the length of the vines from her and by the time Grimm set her back in her place the remaining vines held her just as the Four had bound her. The Four remembered little of what had happened and suspected less. Only that flocking dactyls had knocked Ivy from Karr's back and that her scream had prompted Sue to rescue her.
Heart pumping with adrenalin it took long moments for Ivy to realise they had landed.
* * *
From all directions women came rushing up to greet them, warned by lookouts or having been alerted to their arrival by the strange behavior of the flocking dactyls. These were the bond-slaves of the Four. Woman who had been gifted by their tribes, or in a few cases had gifted themselves, in gratitude for the Four Clan's cunning aid. They tended the gardens, hunted on pterodactyl back and guarded the Baxter Tower while the free Four were away.
The Four very seldom took raid-slaves - those women captured in battle who became the often truculent property of the warrior that won them until rescued or four seasons had changed. The X-Tribe and the Vengers constantly raided one another to mixed success. Now the gorgeous red-headed woman the Four had captured amongst the rock spires and dark jungles of Gotham would be the Four Clan's only raid-slave.
As soon as Karr settled, the bond-slaves Nova and Crystal helped Sue dismount the fantastic dactyl. She protested that their help was entirely unnecessary. They ignored her protests as if she were an unruly child and so she shifted her weight to their supporting shoulders. Pride demanded she try to order them to stop. They knew her well enough to ignore her commands for which she was profoundly grateful.
Chieftain Richards needed no help to dismount Karr, his legs stretching till he could simply walk off. A hand and an ear stretched out from his head to rub Sue's belly and listen to the child within. But his other long-stretched hand was fishing relics and sky-metal artifacts out of the baskets slung between Karr's legs. He would be occupied for days cataloguing and studying those strange items.
Grimm the Rockman was too heavy to help as he loudly complained. But there was a bond-slave waiting for him too.
"Quit fussin' Alicia. I ain't hurt!"
The blind woman ran her hands carefully over every part of his rocky orange body. Grimm kept complaining but his smile was as warm and tender as the one that lit her slightly concerned face with its unseeing eyes.
* * *
Priestess Ivy tormented herself with recriminations. The prophetic visions gifted to her as she inhaled her burning herbs were not inevitable. She did not pretend to fully understand the Green - the collective will and power of the jungle plants - that she willingly served as priestess. But the vision she had been granted was some unknowable mixture of prediction, goal of the Green, and granting of her desire.
Ivy had risked it all. And more than likely risked it for nothing. She had not known the Four Clan had so many more members. Even if she had succeded in controlling those who she had let capture and made them fight for her she did not know these women or their powers. She could have lost.
That her body was electric with lust like the lightning that set the plains aflame was no excuse. She would be patient. She would prepare. She would rouse cruel Malice from within Sue and when she did everyone here would be the dark mother's eager servant like Ivy.
Ivy felt eyes on her and turned a little to find Jon-neh, blond brother of Sue staring at her. She knew his type. She could manipulate him as easily as roots could find water.
* * *
When Susan Storm stood upon the familiar ground of her clan home again she embraced Nova and Crystal. Bond-slaves they might be in name, but in truth they were her friends and she had missed them.
"Who is the red-head? She is gorgeous! Why is she bound?" Nova asked.
"Her name is Ivy of the Bat Tribe," Sue unknowingly repeated the priestess's lie. "She took Jon-neh's eye and so we captured her and made her raid-slave."
There was no need to explain that Ivy was bound because if she escaped or was rescued before she reached the home of the Four Clan she would never become raid-slave.
Prompted by the mention of his name, Sue glanced towards her brother Jon-neh and smiled in amusement. The bond-slaves Lyja and Namorita were practically fighting to help Jon-neh dismount, or rather the two fiercesome warriors were almost fighting to get their hands on his body. Sue knew that Nova and Crystal wanted the same but were patient enough not to challenge the other two.
But that was not what had caused Sue's amusement. Jon-neh was practically ignoring his two assistants as they gently, insistently and competitively man-handled him from Karr. Instead her blond brother only had eyes for the ravishing red-head he had insisted they capture. The nature of his interest was just as clear: for more than the length of a hand from wrist to middle finger his loin cloth was held vertically away from his body.
The Four Clan's red-headed captive looked back with smouldering and submissive interest. When she licked her lips Jon-neh's loincloth jerked in sympathy. Something strange and secret stirred within Sue. She could not be jealous of her brother, could she?
"Is she bad luck? We saw the dactyls."
It was Crystal's turn to ask about Ivy and Sue was surprised by the lack of jealousy in the young Inhuman's voice. (And Sue welcomed the distraction from her own strange thoughts.)
"I do not know. We shall find out."
Lyja had discovered the reason for Jon-neh's lack of attention toward her. She regarded Ivy with a studying eye and then suddenly shifted to take her form. But there was something about Ivy, something about the way she held herself or her expression, something that made her more potent than just a body that cried out to be ravished or served. Lyja was identical to the leaf-clad woman and yet not worth a glance when the feast for the eyes that was Ivy was available.
Namorita had noticed Jon-neh's interest in the stranger a little later than Lyja. Lacking the Skrull's powers she took more direct action. Her hand slipped beneath Jon-neh's partially uplifted loincloth and seized hold of what was still barely hidden beneath. She started pumping slowly. Jon-neh's incoherent moan alerted Lyja and angrily seized the second prize by cupping and fondling the blond man's balls even as she resumed her normal green form.
"Sue, I need your advice." Crystal spoke low and urgent, taking advantage of the distraction centred on Jon-neh. "While hunting I met one named Quicksilver. I am the Four's dutiful slave, but maybe Ivy is good luck for me... She could take my place in Jon-neh's bed?"
"Very well, Crystal. We shall talk later. But for now I must show Ivy her place and teach her our customs."
Sue slipped a flint blade from the torn blue bands of unstable molecules cloth that held it to her lower leg and cut the vines that held Ivy prisoner. Ivy stretched and every man and woman of the Four Clan stopped to watch. The moment was broken by a cry from Jon-neh. Namorita's hands were covered in sticky white fluid.
"Ivy, you understand you are our raid-slave?"
"Yes, mistress. I am your slave."
The look Ivy gave Sue made her glad that her body could not reveal her thoughts like her brother's had. Sue's heart seemed to skip and the strange forbidden feelings felt close at hand, ready to smother her. But Ivy had unmistakeably told the truth, of that Sue was completely certain.
"Come. I will show you the places and ways of our Clan."
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