1: Send in the Clowns

"Persephone!" I screamed as we stumbled into the white entrance room. "Healing chamber. NOW!" A panel in the wall opened and I carried Lisa through to the open healing chamber. As I put her into the chamber, Persephone came running into the room, naked and dripping wet.

"What happened? Oh, no! Lisa!"

"She's been beaten," I explained. Persephone slammed the lid shut on the chamber and it silently went about its task.

It started with our fourth mission to Chaos. We went on missions in the morning while Cadence was in school and we'd been gone nearly a year on Chaos, even though only fifteen minutes had passed at home. We were supposed to decompress at Crossroads, but things hadn't worked out well. After carefully maintaining our disguises and chasing our quarry for a year, our damsel fell off her fucking horse and broke her neck. We had only enough time at Crossroads to be processed quickly through the healing chamber and then sent home.

It had been a brutal mission from the outset and Lisa had not fared well.

She vomited into the toilet again as I held her hair out of her face. I was sure there was nothing left there to come out, but she kept heaving, crying, heaving. When she'd pretty much passed out, I grabbed a wash cloth to clean her face and then carried her to the bed. I lay beside her and held her while she slept.

She wasn't drunk.

She wasn't pregnant.

She was sick with disgust.

"I killed him," Lisa whimpered in her sleep.

Well, that was an understatement. Lisa eviscerated the man who held our damsel captive. She didn't break any rules as far as any of us could tell. He'd attacked her. And she disassembled him. He was begging for mercy ... begging for her to kill him ... when she finally wrapped his intestines around his neck and hung him by them. I'd had all I could do to beat down the guards at the damsel's door. Lisa had heard a cry from the next room and opened the door. That's when he attacked her.

She stirred and woke, still whimpering.

"It's okay, Lisa. You did well. It's a different world and he deserved to die."

"You fucking better believe he deserved to die. I killed him. He should have suffered longer. I should have squeezed the contents of his bowels into his mouth. He should still be suffering. But I killed him and let him off easy," she screamed.

Well, that wasn't exactly what I expected. Lisa hadn't washed the blood and guts off her arms by the time we got to the bank after Damsel Beatrice decided to show us what a great horsewoman she was and jumped a fence—without the horse. All that we went through and still didn't rescue the damsel. I swear that some of these women have nothing in their heads at all.

"You killed him. That was the important part."

"Did you see what he did to those little girls?" Lisa screamed.

"He was an animal."

"To make them watch while he selected one and ... made them watch ... while he ... did that. And then we ran away with Miss Piss-for-brains. Those children won't even get counseling. They'll grow up thinking that's what they should do! And all I did was kill him! They're probably all dead or raped by now. More likely both. I hate that fucking place!"

"Lisa, we don't have to go back," I tried to soothe her.

"Not go back? And know there are people in need like that? We should go back and hell with the damsels. They chose to be there. We should just stay there and put things right."

"It's just you and me, Lisa. We can't reform a world. We can just make the little corners where we intersect it better if we can."

I held her for a while longer. Lisa and I had become comfortable with our nudity around each other, so we'd rinsed in the shower before she started throwing up.

"I'm better now. Thank you. Just hope no one crosses me today or there will be more bloodshed. Unfortunately, they frown on that in this world," she said. "I need to get groceries and you need to go to work. I'll be fine."

There wasn't much else I could do. Tonight I would rest in Cadence's arms and tell her about the mission. In just two weeks, she would be out of school, a high school graduate. And tomorrow, she would be eighteen.

Cadence knew something was up, of course. She started to ask a question, but I hushed her and asked her to wait until bed. We had a low key celebration for such an important birthday, in my opinion. The number one gift that Cadence wanted, we'd all agreed would come after graduation in two weeks.

Cadence wanted to go to Crossroads and Chaos.

Based on our most recent experience, Lisa was either going to forbid her to go, or turn her into an armed menace. The one thing that we had all done and done well was train. Just anticipating her chance to go to Chaos had turned Cadence into a very different young woman than she'd been a year ago.

And believe me, that wasn't a bad thing. She still maintained the sense of lightness and teasing from before I had any feeling in my legs. Occasionally, she would give me a massage and prop my foot against her bare breast, relishing the feeling of me squeezing her nipple with my toes. The first time she'd done that, I nearly cried from trying to get my toes to work. Now I was becoming pretty skilled at manipulating the little nubs on her breasts with my toes. And she liked it.

I don't think a night had gone by since my first visit to Crossroads that Cadence and I didn't make love. I still made sure we spent time together doing her schoolwork. We went out. We had dinner as a family with Lisa. But Cadence's extracurricular activities had changed. We went to the archery range on Tuesday and Thursday nights. She worked at the dojo on Wednesday afternoon when school was out early and we all practiced various combat techniques each morning. Where other young lovers played soft music and had romantic dinners, we had knife throwing competitions. She was good.

Cadence was always beautiful in my eyes. I think in the eyes of the rest of the world, too. But I'd seen her grow up and transform from cute pre-teen to hot teenager and now to absolute hard-body. Her breasts stood out against her lean frame and rippling muscles. It would be impossible to disguise her as a boy when we went to Chaos like we did with Lisa. Even with hair pulled back in a ponytail, she was all woman. Deadly woman.

"What happened?" Cadence asked when we slipped into bed at last.

"We had a bad adventure on Chaos," I said.

"You went again without me!" she pouted.

"You know we promised to take you after graduation. It's very important to Lisa. And I won't let her back down no matter what. I don't expect we'll go back after this last one until you go with us. She's pretty depressed."

"I know why you go back," Cadence giggled.

"The reward is fun, but getting anonymous women pregnant is not the motivator. I think that if you pointed a Cassandran woman at a fence post and told her it could get her pregnant, she'd hump it and have an orgasm, even if it was strung with barb wire," I said. Our most recent adventure had rather put me off Cassandran women. As soon as the guards were dead and Lisa had hung the tormentor, she had suddenly transformed from a damsel in distress to a spoiled brat who had just won a beauty contest. She pushed us out of the house before we'd even had a chance to collect any spoils or make sure the place was secure. She was mounted and egging us on, forcing us to try to catch up with her. I never hit a woman, but I was seriously considering stripping her naked and lacing her backside with the reins until she bled. It would all get healed at Crossroads anyway.

Yes, Chaos distorts your sense of reality. I actually was thinking that teaching her a couple lessons would be a heroic act.

Then she taught herself a final lesson.

"I know it's not just fucking new pussies that keeps you motivated. You have one that's still almost brand new right here," Cadence said. She pushed me back and mounted me, sighing as we joined. Then she slowed the pace so we could keep talking. "It's Mom."

"She has bought into the whole plight of Cassandra mythology. She seriously believes I am providing an important public service by rescuing damsels and knocking them up," I laughed. I liked the feeling of my cock bobbing in and out of Cadence when one of us laughed.

"Linc, are you blind? Neither one of you go there for the damsels. You go for Persephone."

"Don't be jealous, honey."

"I'm not jealous of Persephone. I'm a little jealous that you have her in your life and mother is head over heels in love with her, and I haven't met her to fall in love yet."

"Lisa's in love?"

"You didn't get to spend time with Persephone at Crossroads when you finished your mission, did you?" Cadence asked.

"No. You don't get time there if you don't bring back a damsel."

"That's what has Mom most upset. Linc, Mom loves you. If it wasn't for her stupid vow, she'd be in this bed, riding this cock, instead of me." I actually believed that. Lisa and I were close. Intimate. We just never crossed that line. "But with Persephone? I don't think Mom believes having an alien woman as a lover breaks her vow, and she is completely and absolutely in love. Failing to bring back a damsel means that Mom couldn't have time with Persephone. While you spend twelve hours a day trying to get your damsel pregnant, the two of them spend the time together. It's as if I came home from school one night, stripped and beckoned you to the bedroom, then turned around and left. You'd feel robbed."

"I don't only think of you sexually," I defended myself.

"Pull your hard cock out of my tight pussy and tell me that."

Certain things from our training and from preparing for Chaos seemed to slip into our everyday lives. Like Cadence's wardrobe. It was touch and go with Lisa, but Cadence was never going to pass as a man on Chaos. No way could you bind those tits tightly enough to hide them. At least and have her still able to breathe.

So Cadence fancied herself a warrior woman. She'd been taking swordsmanship classes each week, but couldn't wait for Persephone to give her instruction in swordsmanship for battle instead of swordsmanship for competition. She'd become a competent archer. She could handle herself in a knife fight, but was better at throwing them. She could conceal weapons in places that would get me killed before I discovered what was there. Cadence could pass a pencil test with her firm boobs, but the soft flesh could easily hold a hatpin. That looked lethal!

After her eighteenth birthday, she came to the breakfast table wearing tight leather trousers, knee-high boots, a linen shirt, and a leather vest. When we saw her, Lisa and I both checked her thoroughly for weapons. That was strictly verboten in high school. She put on a leather cap and picked up her schoolbag. I stopped her.

"Wait." She paused and looked at me. I walked around her and carefully examined her clothes. "No metal."

"Pretty cool, huh? I want to test the outfit out to make sure I give exactly the right impression. If anyone touches me, I'll know it's not right yet."

"Just be very careful. In addition to looking dangerous, you look very sexy," I said. Lisa wagged her head. Cadence went to school.

It would be a good night to go out and celebrate.

"I want to be a hero," Cadence said flatly. "I've read all the rules and I am in good health and of heroic character. I just need a sapphire ring. May I borrow yours, Linc?"

"A. No. B. No matter what kind of character and health you have, there is the simple matter of having to impregnate a damsel. You simply aren't equipped for the task," Lisa said. I was glad she took over that line. I was pretty sure that me telling Cadence that she couldn't be a hero would end up with me being the bad guy. Lisa was ... well, she was still Mom. In a way, she was always the bad guy.

"Maybe I can go to Chaos and just be a vigilante, then," Cadence suggested. "Linc can take me through and I'll just go off and fight for truth, justice, and the American way."

"You know Superman was supposed to be made of steel?"

"Yeah."

"Steel won't go through the portal."

"Besides," Lisa said, "you need to be there a few times and to study the books more. If you stay there, then there's no guarantee Linc can ever find you again. It's not like you can text him and tell him where to pick you up."

"Not to mention the fact that if you screw up, they could just decide to leave you there," I said. "It's happened before. I know we sound like old biddies, but it scares the bejeezus out of me. I don't want to lose either one of you. In a way, I hate the idea of taking you at all. Either of you."