Chapter 11

“What do you mean ‘you can’t’?” Jake Hedron demanded. “Why can’t you? You are the only Femme who can handle mass teleportation!”

“Not anymore,” Lisa said, almost whispering. “I have to rely on my own energy now. I’m no more able to do repetitive teleportation than any of the others. My body will starve just like their’s does!”

“Why?” Jake cried. “What happened? And why now? We need you more than ever to get the Phoenix loaded. You were fine a week ago when you created the San Luis Trench.”

“It’s gone! Okay?” Lisa yelled, tired of being interrogated. “I ran out of power! I used it all up!”

Jake sat down and slumped into his chair. “Alright, I see,” he sighed. “Sit down, Lisa. I’m sorry I yelled at you.” Lisa perched on the edge of the leather-bound chair in front of Jake’s desk. Jake thought she looked like a frightened bird ready to take flight.

“Have you tried to get it back?” Jake asked. “Your power, I mean. Will it regenerate?”

“I don’t want it back,” Lisa said, her voice quiet, but firm. “It’s always been there, threatening to escape. Until it was gone, I didn’t realize how it affected me.”

“Alright,” Jake replied. “When did it happen?”

“About a month ago,” Lisa said, deciding not to lie to him.

“A month?” Jake asked, raising his eyebrows. “How did you create those trenches, then? And what did you use to power up the Phoenix?”

“All you have to do to create a nuclear energy source is teleport one solid object inside another. That’s how I ... that’s how... ‘Beth’ ... destroyed Albuquerque. That’s how I made those trenches. I just took pieces of sandstone and teleported them underground. Big boom. That magical sphere of everlasting energy that powers my Mind Ship is just two rocks – one inside the other. Simple, huh?”

“Your ‘Mind Ship’?” Jake asked, picking out the other oddity in the turn of her words.

“Well, yeah,” Lisa said. “We created it using the nuclear power in my mind and just teleported the image from my mind into orbit. What would you call it?”

“That ship is made out of mental energy?” Jake asked, half-rising from his chair and reaching for the panic button. “It’s not real?”

“No, of course not! I mean – it’s real! It’s solid!” Lisa exclaimed, trying to keep up with his questions. “We used rocks and sand and stuff that we teleported off the desert floor. Then I just melted everything and we formed the molten mess into shape. Then we teleported it all back out as a single object. It took weeks. You must have noticed! I near starved to death, even with my nuclear power source!”

“I did notice. I was really awed,” the chairman replied, then changed the subject. “Why did you hide the fact that you were limited in the amount of energy available for other duties besides blowing things up?”

“I ... um, I thought you might, uh, think less of me now, you know?” Lisa muttered, not looking at him. “My phoenix power is gone. I’m just a normal Femme now.”

“The Femme Fatales are a lot of things,” Jake replied, smiling at her, “but they are not normal.”

Lisa sighed, another lame argument turned to dust in her mouth.

“How do you propose to back up the others, now?” Jake asked.

“Isn’t Tabatha still the regular backup?” she asked. “I did the heavy moving...”

Jake looked at her, letting Lisa answer in her own time.

“I can still time-walk,” she said, finally. “Instead of protecting Tanya with my shield, I can always go back and teleport her out of danger when she gets killed.”

“That’s another thing,” Jake said. “You do good work in bringing everyone back alive, but why do you always let Tanya get butchered before you rescue her? Don’t you like her?”

“Yeah! I love her!” Lisa exclaimed. “That’s why I always let her die. She likes being killed! Then, afterwards, I, um ... Should I be telling you this?”

“Yes, most definitely!” Jake informed her.

“Well, I give her the images of her being killed, along with her thoughts and the emotions she radiated at that time. Then she goes home and, um ... Well, she uses it for, uh, erotic stimulation.”

“God!” Jake laughed. “I knew it!”

“Tabatha does it, too,” Lisa suggested, not sure how her boss would take her accusing his wife of weird sexual practices.

“I know,” he replied. “She’s told me. All you Femmes seem to have a morbid death wish. I’m surprised we haven’t lost the lot of you.”

“You won’t lose anyone if I can help it,” Lisa assured him. “Am I still on duty?”

“Yes, of course you are,” Jake assured her. “Who else is there?”

Lisa left the Chairman’s office and sought out her mother. Béla didn’t seemed surprised when Lisa popped in beside her.

“Hi, sweetie, ready to go?” Béla asked her. They were going to pull a raid on the three Confederate armies that were closing in around them – not to kill or disable anyone – but for their supplies. An army travels on its stomach. No food, no army.

“Not really,” Lisa said, and sat down, looking depressed. Image of Lisa releasing her pent-up nuclear energy into the sky, freeing her mind once and for all from the terrible power struggle she’d fought inside herself for as long as she’d been Lisa, which was about forty-five years.

‘Wow!’ Béla thought back at her. ‘Any unpleasant side effects, Darling?’

“No, Lisa replied, switching to verbal. “But I can’t flare to heal myself or anyone else now, and my fire shield doesn’t work anymore. I have to do everything the old-fashioned way.”

“Like me?” Béla laughed. “You know, if you needed to, you could always absorb another nuclear blast. It shouldn’t be a problem now that you know how to get rid of it.”

“Yeah, you’re right!” Lisa chirped, suddenly brightening up. “I could, couldn’t I...” She hugged her mom and quickly kissed her goodbye, “Back in a minute...” then vanished.

“Macario,” Lisa sang out as she reappeared at home. “Come to me, my love...” She grabbed him and teleported them both out into the desert where they’d left the laser cannon a month earlier. It was still lying on the ground, undiscovered by anyone since they’d been gone.

“What are we doing here?” Mac asked, suspicious of his wife’s motives. “You trying to kill yourself again?”

“No, silly,” Lisa said cheerfully. “I just want you to shoot me again.”

“That’ll kill you again,” Mac argued. “I thought you didn’t want killed anymore. Besides, you can’t shield, now. You’d actually die.”

“I promise I’ll come back,” she said, grinning at him. “I can always come back.”

Mac sighed and picked up the cannon. “It has some charge in it,” he said, somewhat surprised. It had been lying out in the weather for several weeks and was exposed to that nuclear fireball that Lisa had spewed out of her mind into the sky. It had also been absorbing sunlight for the last month or so, and the charging core had absorbed some of it.

“Okay, Baby,” Lisa cooed. “Do me!”

“Do me? Now you sound like Mama Bee,” Mac murmured, hoisting the weapon up on his shoulders and pointing it at his petite, naked wife. “You ready?”

She nodded.

He pressed the firing lever. Nothing happened. Frowning, he pressed it, again. This time, it fired. The blast struck Lisa’s fire shield and dissipated.

“Well, surprise!” Mac called out to her. “I suspected you’d pull something like that. What did you do?”

Image of Mac firing the laser cannon and Lisa sucking the energy into her mind. Mac firing the cannon again and Lisa using the accumulated energy from the first blast to protect her from the second one.

“Real cute, Lisa,” Mac replied. He pressed the firing lever several more times. It went off every other time he pressed the lever. Every time it released its deadly beam of energy, Lisa’s fire shield prevented the beam from reaching her.

“Clever girl,” he murmured and tossed the laser cannon aside. “It’s empty.”

Lisa grinned, then walked over and picked it up. Aiming at some brush, she pressed the firing lever. The sagebrush exploded into a shower of fiery embers.

“Now, it’s empty,” she proclaimed, and tossed it aside. Mac looked at her, astonished. Lisa broke into inane laughter. “Ha, ha! Faked you out! Big time!” she chortled.

“You blew up the bush yourself!” he accused her, laughing with her.

She admitted it. “I had some energy left over, so I just discharged it.”

“You’re incredible!” Mac announced, admiring her naked body.

“Ain’t I, though?” she agreed, quite pleased with herself.

“And you didn’t die!” Mac said, happily embracing her and holding her tightly.

“Nope!” she said cheerfully. “I’m the same ‘me’ that brought you here.”

“Good,” Mac replied, leaning down to kiss her face.

Lisa moaned her pleasure as Macario slid his tongue into her mouth. She let go freely and experienced that simple pleasure with her entire being. Without that nuclear energy in her head, she could experience new heights of pleasure and sensation without the need to clamp down on her emotional energy releases. She’d never felt so alive and free.

‘I love you, ‘ she sang into her lover’s head. ‘I love you, I love you, I love you!’ She radiated her pleasure through Macario’s body, arousing him even more. She laughed as his arousal sang back through her body.

They lay down on the rough ground and Lisa began opening Macario’s shirt. Every few seconds she would reach down and tease his cock, stroking that massive organ right through his trousers, then return to playing with his shirt buttons.

After a moment of this, Mac tore his shirt off and pulled Lisa against his bare chest. She sighed in pleasure and rubbed her hard nipples against his softer, smaller ones. They both tried to unfasten his trousers at the same time, then both pulled back. Smiling wickedly into his eyes, she then teleported them off him just like she had done the last time.

Mac’s cock sprang up, no longer trapped down his leg, and slapped against his belly. They both laughed at the sight of it although Macario seemed slightly embarrassed.

Sliding down, Lisa began to rub her lips along it, kissing and licking gently as her head traveled up and down along its length. When it was wet enough, she stood up and balanced over that massive club, carefully guiding it up between her damp thighs. Then her pussy lips met the top of his magnificent cock and she simply dropped down on it, instantly skewering herself.

Neither was unable to keep from crying out at the intense sensation. Lisa was stretched like she normally was, and Mac’s cock wasn’t all the way in yet. Leaning forward, she put her hands on his chest to help support her weight. Then she began moving her pelvis back and forth, wedging him in a little deeper with each shift of her hips.