“Oh shit, look,” Pamnaxxa says, pointing.

Like a slow and flickering shooting star, a point of soft light descends into Hell’s darkness, far above them.

“Fuck,” Jurhazo says sourly, and starts untangling herself from a snoozing succubus pile. Valquazzit, apparently still fast asleep, latches a hand onto her ankle. Juhazo shakes her leg, trying to dislodge her. “Val. Val—”

Valquazzit makes an adorable grumpy sleepy noise, and Jurhazo takes a deep breath, pinches the bridge of her nose, and then yanks her leg out of the other succubus’ grip.

“Everybody wake up!” she bellows.

“What,” Valquazzit whines, eyes still closed, making little futile grabby motions.

“Diplomatic elevator’s coming down,” Jurhazo says shortly, efficiently yanking on pants. “And that’s not scheduled, so that’s, you know, Upstairs concerned about cosmopolitical stability, which means—”

“—Which means management’s really fucking scared of us!” Pamnaxxa says gleefully.

Sorry for the HTML crimes, hope The Vision still comes through.
Content Warning: mass death, loss of agency, of thought, of self

"And now, ladies and gentlemen..." The gaunt runner-up of last year's televised Who Could Predict You Had This Talent? competition has a slightly manic look in his eyes as he gazes out over the human sea, hundreds of hungry, expectant faces staring at him. No, at the stage he's currently occupying, an elaborate, patriotic centrepiece ensconsed in scaffolding erected by the Ministry of Plenty just for this occasion.

He chokes.
The giant speakers squeal.
Collective tinnitus, mercifully brief.

He's eternally grateful for this opportunity to be a needless — useless — warm-up act, for he knows he is nothing. Nobody.

Calliope, pilot of the starship Lysandra, turned to a console and pressed the voice activation button. "Computer, turn off monitoring in this room until we exit it."

The ship's computer beeped its compliance, and Iridia turned to face Calliope. "Okay, Calli, what's this all about?"

Calliope scratched her cheek, nervously. "Well... okay. So. I've been... kind of dating the ship's computer."

Iridia rolled her eyes. "Yeah, I know. I hear you screaming her name every time one of the ship's remotes enters your room. You're not exactly subtle."

Calliope blushed. "D-don't give me that! Remember the incident with the ambassador?"

"I thought we had agreed not to bring that up again." Iridia glared, averting her gaze and crossing her arms.

"Well, now we're even, I guess," mumbled Calliope. "Anyway! I need your help."

Iridia looked warily at her. "With what, exactly?"

"Brainstorming." Calliope clapped her hands together. "So. It turns out that Lysandra's kind of a sub-"

It's hot as balls outside, and hotter in the cockpit.

Jester sweeps the horizon, checks her radar, and then repeats both twice to be absolutely certain she isn't about to get shot; then pops the hatch and clambers down the side of her mech. They're posted in defensive positions, nothing's coming anywhere near them without advanced warning, she can leave the sweltering robot for a minute.

She positions herself in the shade of one of the legs and twists open a water bottle as she hears Medusa opening up her own cockpit above her. She expects the sounds of climbing to follow, and instead sees Medusa effortlessly land from a two-story jump.

Showoff.

"Hot today," the cyborg says, and Jester grunts in agreement as she drinks. She watches as Medusa strips out of the top half of her pilot suit.

"Or is it just you?" she says, waggling her eyebrows.

"It's not. External temperature is thirty-six degrees Celsius."

"Ugh, fuck this planet," Jester curses, popping open the top button of her own suit.

“Anastasia Yver!” Prince Edmond shouted, the string ensemble coming to a halt on cue. “Your cruel deeds have gone too far!”

At the calling of my name, I turned to face the prince—and Eleanor, there at his side—wearing my best contemptuous glare. For most girls in my position, this would be the moment the grand farce came to an end. My own farce was far from over, but the first act, at least, was almost done.

Ever since... the incident, Crusher had been avoiding her. Sure, it hadn't been the most professional of encounters, but that was not typically a word that went with the squad anyway. She'd need more hands to count the number of times one of them had caught Princess with her pants around her ankles and several inches of mech pilot inside her, and if Gutters had done even a fraction of the things she'd talked about, it was a miracle she could walk, talk, or think on any given day. And that wasn't even getting started on Ket—

Diamond scrunched her eyes for a moment to clear the images bombarding the inside of her skull.

The important thing was to sort this out and get back to, well, normal levels of interpersonal drama. She wasn't getting shot next mission just because her squadmate refused to look in her direction.

This work is explicit

Claire had been nervous on the bus, but now that she was walking up to Liv's door, her heart felt like it was going to beat right out of her chest.

She'd met Liv a couple of months ago, and since then they'd been on four dates, which had caused Claire to fall madly in love with her. Liv was big, strong, smart, funny, beautiful, and doting. Everything Claire had ever wanted in a girlfriend, and she was trying her best to be normal about it. "Trying" being the operative word.

Liv could also be a little forgetful at times, but whomst among us? Claire could put up with forgetful for all the rest.

The door sprung open moments after she knocked, and Liv greeted her with a big nervous smile. She looked even more on edge than Claire, which she'd just assumed was because a home date had some implications, and Liv always wanted everything to be perfect for Claire.