Page 36 of All You Need is Alien Love (Tentacular Tales #4)

Fabian crosses his arms. “That’s right. We will each use the ceremonial Zha’tekh blade.”

I unzip my jacket and fling it to Nirblob, who stands at the ready a short distance away. “Let’s do this thing.” I gesture toward my mechanical tentacle arms. “I presume these are acceptable, given the circumstances?”

Fabian’s eyes go wide. “What the fuck are those?”

Nirblob covertly powers up my Doc Ock-style tentacle harness and the arms undulate in the air around me in all their mechanized majesty.

I seriously wish there was a mirror handy because I so want to see how awesome I look with these bad boys.

As I watch the tentacle arms move in the air around me, I come to a decision.

I’m totally going to convince Nirblob to let me keep them.

They’re so epic they must be mine. I’ll make sure he gives me the remote too.

I need to learn how to operate these babies on my own.

But for now, I concentrate on the beatdown I’m going to give Fuckface Fabio.

“They’re my tentacles,” I say nonchalantly. “It’s pretty standard to use them during most formal Iyaran events, isn’t it?”

Fabian sputters. “But those aren’t real tentacles!”

I shake my head sadly. “According to Iyaran law, they are perfectly acceptable. Am I right, Nirblob?”

Nirblob whips out his holoscreen tablet device.

“You’re quite correct, River. According to Iyaran Intergalactic Civic Code, subsection 2957B: In compliance with intergalactic accessibility regulations, all formal Iyaran rituals and ceremonies allow the use of prosthetic tentacles or other relevant physical aids for formal participation . ”

Fabian seethes.

Didn’t think I knew about the Iyaran Intergalactic Civic Code, didya ?

Coincidentally, Kai and I had to check it when we applied for permission to do our Sanctioning Ceremony. Talk about coming in handy right now. This is totally further proof that there are Time Lords in the universe and they’re secretly helping little old me out, I’m certain of it.

I put a hand on my hip and cock it. “Don’t tell me you’re scared of my lil’ mechanical appendages?” I narrow my eyes. “Or were you thinking you would be able to have a physical advantage over me, deliberately trying to skew things in your favor from the start?”

Fabian growls in obvious aggravation. “Fine. Have it your way.” He sneers. “Besides, your fake tentacles can never beat the real thing.”

On the heels of that declaration, four of his purple tentacles burst through the fabric of his shirt and wave angrily in the air around him. Unlike Kai’s cuddly, sensual appendages, Fabian’s are clearly just as hostile as he is.

Nirblob steps forward and with a serious bow hands me a sheathed weapon. “Commander Ellie asked me to share with you should it become necessary.”

“Thanks, man.”

Carefully, I wrap my right hand around the grooved handle of the weapon. Pulling the sheath off with my free hand, I reveal a single, straight-edged blade with a faint triangular point at the top.

My fingers brush against an indent in the hilt and two curved secondary blades protrude from the base of the primary blade.

I inhale sharply. “It’s a freaking d’k tahg .”

“A what?” Nirblob asks.

I turn it over in my hand, admiring it. “A Klingon warrior dagger. Not as deadly as a mek’leth or as big as a bat’leth . Those were bigger, sword-style weapons.” I can’t help but marvel as I look at it. “So freaking cool.”

Right now, I’m also hella glad I did all that weapons training with Zamir in the past month and a half. It’s made me much more comfortable using such tools, but I do fully recognize how lethal this knife is.

It’s clearly designed for close-combat slashing and stabbing, and from the deadly intent written all over Fabian’s face, I have no doubt he’s going to try his damnedest to kill me once this duel starts. Meanwhile, I’ll be aiming to simply incapacitate the idiot, per Alliance protocol.

I sigh and fight back a groan of self-pity. My task is obviously the harder one here.

“Such is the burden one must bear when one walks on the Light Side of The Force, young Jedi,” I remind myself. Then I give Nirblob a meaningful look. “Ready?”

“Absolutely.” He clears his throat and speaks loudly. “The duel will commence at my mark and will continue until one of the duelists can no longer fight—or admits defeat.”

“Or until you’re dead,” Fabian snarls, brandishing his own knife, a mirror to the one I hold.

Not gonna lie, my palms are sweating and the adrenaline is pumping.

I’m a bit freaked but also amped up. I also have a rather handy wild card in my favor, one I don’t think Fabian is aware of.

In fact, I only learned about it recently when I managed to escape the notorious intergalactic assassin, Shilgar the Deadly.

I possess the rare protective Klaturian Survival Gene particular to only a handful of the Quintharian royal family members.

Suck on that, evil grandparents!

While it sadly doesn’t make me a super badass, heroic fighter by any stretch of the imagination— there go my Mortal Combat fantasies —it does make me one uncannily lucky bastard who tends to thwart any deadly attack aimed my way.

I can only hope that the gene is still alive and well, and ready to keep my ass safe once again.

It should be fine.

Right?

Nirblob raises his tiny arm and then slashes it down. “Let the duel begin!”

Fabian wastes no time in coming right for me, charging like an angry bull.

There’s no subtlety to his attack, and it’s like I can anticipate his next move with ease.

Maybe my epic showdown with Shilgar honed my battle readiness or something?

All I know is that evading Fabian’s attacks is a piece of cake.

My body bobs and ducks out of the way with the greatest of ease as he swings wildly at me. I keep a cautious eye on the blade in Fabian’s hand, not taking it lightly, but his attacks are almost… clumsy.

Like Lord Vardox, I take my time to study my opponent before going on the offensive.

As I deftly block yet another wild slashing motion, I begrudgingly acknowledge that some of my skills are thanks to the Spartan training I received from Zamir. Dammit.

Once again, I’m going to have to thank him for all of the torture he put me through. He’ll probably smirk with satisfaction and make me work twice as hard going forward. The bastard.

Fabian continues to strike out at me with a whole lot of rage and a minimal amount of finesse, while I manage to dance out of his way with very little effort. I’m not even winded.

With a screech of frustration, Fabian finally brings his tentacles into play, lashing out with them in an effort to strike me down.

It’s not a bad strategy in theory. Iyaran tentacles are incredibly powerful and full of muscle. They often possess more strength than one’s other appendages. But I’m not going to take this combo attack lying down.

Nirblob’s contraption seriously saves my ass.

As Fabian’s tentacles come flying at me, my own lash out in response, blocking his attacks, to the point where I have to focus on tightening my core muscles and not letting the power of the impact of tentacles on tentacles take me down.

Those suckers are fucking strong! I’m more used to the gentle way Kai uses his on me, but now I can fully appreciate just how dangerous his extra appendages can be depending on how they’re used.

Meanwhile, Nirblob covertly assists me on the sidelines, operating the tentacles with a level of skill that Lord Vardox would be proud of.

Right now, my strategy, such as it is, involves tiring Fabian out until I can easily render him unconscious.

I can picture Zamir’s sour expression in response to my approach, but not all of us have the physique of The Hulk, thank you very much.

My tactical plan starts to pay off faster than I had imagined it would; before long, Fabian’s sweating and panting from his exertions.

Granted, I’m also getting a bit tired, but he looks like he’s ready to pass out.

Zamir has built up my stamina too, dammit.

I frown, a flicker of concern growing in me despite my better judgment. The more I look at Fabian, the more he resembles a strung-out drug addict. Could this be Layne Madison’s work?

“Are you on something?” I ask as I neatly deflect a tentacle and parry his blade.

“Shut up!” he screeches, eyes wild.

Now that I’m up close, I can see his pupils are blown.

Shit. He is on something.

“Fucking Layne Madison.” I stare down Fabian. “Is he drugging his own damn people now, or did you take this shit willingly?”

“You don’t know anything! He’s helping me.”

That’s when I do something I’ve wanted to do for a very long time.

I grab hold of one of my mechanical tentacles and bitch-slap him with it.

Not too hard, mind you. But enough to try and snap him out of whatever delusional state he’s in. Galactic gods, that felt good! “Wake the fuck up. He’s using you just like he’s used everyone else.”

Fabian holds a hand to his cheek, shocked.

“You totally deserved that, by the way. That was for me and Kai.”

Fabian sputters in indignation but then he blinks owlishly a few times and sways on his feet.

I need to put an end to this farce and fast. Fabian may have proposed the duel, but now that I know he’s under the influence of whatever narcotic his boss gave him, I don’t intend to drag this out.

Fabian’s probably not going to last much longer anyway, and I’m worried he might actually get himself killed.

I hate him, but not enough to end his life.

Seizing my opportunity, I finally decide to go on the offensive.

I manage to knock Fabian’s knife out of his hand while he’s standing there stoned and somewhat stupefied. When another of his tentacles comes at me, I lash out with my own knife and sever the tip, which falls to the ground.

Fabian shrieks in pain and pulls his injured tentacle to his chest. “Ahh! You’ve maimed me!”

I scoff, my memorization of the entire Monty Python and the Holy Grail movie finally coming in handy. “’Tis but a scratch,” I say in my best Black Knight impersonation. “Just a flesh wound.”

He clutches his injured tentacle like a pouting child. “Easy for you to say. I’ve been disfigured!”

I roll my eyes. “I know how this works, dude. Stop whining. It’s already stopped bleeding, and it’ll grow back.” At least his unhinged attack mode seems to have been deactivated.

Just when I think I’ve knocked some sense into him, Fabian narrows his eyes and gives an almighty roar, then charges at me again.

“Clothesline!” I call to Nirblob, who understands me perfectly. One of my sturdy mechanical tentacles immediately whips out and clothes-lines Fabian, sending him flying before he crashes to the ground.

He lies there dazed for a second, and I spy my opportunity. While my new tentacles restrain his, I kneel on his outstretched arms and hold my blade to his throat. He stills.

“You’ve been disarmed and defeated, Fabian. It’s over. Give it a rest.”

He closes his eyes and turns his head away. “Go ahead and kill me then.”

“Oh, for the love of—Come on, man! Can you get any more emo and pathetic? You’re too old to be in your My Chemical Romance era.”

He scrunches up his face in disgust. “Just put me out of my misery.”

I sigh. “Get a grip. I’m not gonna fucking kill you. I don’t hate you enough for that. Besides, you’re not thinking clearly right now with whatever shit you’ve taken. I’m not a big enough asshole to take someone out who’s high as a kite.”

He opens one eye and squints at me. “Didn’t I hear you defeated Shilgar the Deadly? I thought you’d be more… ruthless.”

“Yeah, about that… uh… never mind. Let’s just say my mom gets a little testy with anyone who tries to kill me. Me? I walk on the Light Side of The Force, not the Dark.”

Nirblob pipes up with perfect timing. “The duel has ended, and the victor is River Sullivan—aka KirklovesSpock4eva!”

The waiting mercenaries shift awkwardly on their feet, clearly unsure what to do now. But I don’t have time to deal with Fabian and his foolishness, let alone these tools.

I stare down at this pathetic man and find I feel rather sorry for him. “When you wake up, I hope you have a new outlook on life and choose to put the past behind you.” Once you detox from whatever fucking drug you’re on, I’m sure things will look a lot brighter than they do now.

“Screw you,” he grits out between clenched teeth.

“Nirblob,” I call out sweetly. “Set tentacles to stun.”

“Aye, Captain,” he chirps back merrily.

I can’t help but feel smugly satisfied, and appropriately avenged, when one of my tentacles zaps Fabian and he passes out at last. Poor guy was barely hanging on. I’m a nice young man. However, fuck with me or mine, and you’ll learn that I have a mile-wide petty streak, and I know how to use it!

Before the mercenaries can respond, Nirblob whips out his Slime-O-Matic Paralyticator, pending intergalactic trademark. It’s basically a modified version of a high-tech paint gun containing Groxil slime balls. In other words, super fucking cool!

Nirblob gleefully shoots the hapless mercenaries—Fabian definitely must have gone for the dirt-cheap variety when he hired these fools—and they stand frozen by the paralytic slime.

I get to my feet and Nirblob and I high-five.

“We are a most excellent duo,” he enthuses.

“We are… the two amigos!” I declare.

I really kind of want to teach him “My Little Buttercup” as our victory song, but have to remind myself— time and place, River .

“Let’s leave these schmucks here. We’ll come back to deal with them later.”

Nirblob grins evilly. “Indeed, the Groxil slime will keep them here for quite some time.”

It’s my turn to preen. “My idea was pretty brilliant, wasn’t it?”

“Quite ingenious,” he agrees.

“Well, you learn a thing or two after defeating a Groxil. Twice, might I add.” When I had pitched the idea to them, the Intergalactic Alliance was ready and willing to ship us an impressive quantity of synthetic Groxil slime.

We didn’t ask questions about why they had such copious amounts of the snot-like substance so readily available, but Nirblob encased the slime into gelatinous shells, similar to those used for paint balls.

It makes them easy to handle for those of us using the weapons.

There were a few folks early on who got a bit too excited and accidentally burst a slime ball or two during training.

They learned to be gentler when loading their pistols after they had to have portions of their upper bodies unfrozen.

Nirblob reaches into his bag and hands me my own Slime-O-Matic Paralyticator—that name will never get old for me—and I pocket the super cool Iyaran dueling knife.

“Let’s go help the others and save my boo,” I declare.

Hang in there, Kai, I’m coming.