Chapter Seven: The Astral Plane

Passing through the door felt strange, almost like jelly, much akin to the gate of the Celestial Council. But, those worries where soon washed away in a wave of a familiar feeling. In the few seconds since walking into the building, Emily forgot about most things. The one thing she did notice was that the inside wasn’t the usual inside, and there would have to have been massive amounts of interior decorating, and several delivery trucks to turn what she saw last time she was here into this. It looked like a casino mixed with a brothel, and everywhere Emily looked, scantily clad men and women tended to several different gambling tables. Others served drinks, or tended the bar, and yet more stood around, just eyeing the crowd.

It was two of these women that intercepted Emily’s father and led him away to somewhere unknown, but it looked like he would enjoy it all the same. However, Emily found she didn’t even care about his absence, only that she had never been this horny in her life. Why she had suddenly felt like this was beyond her, and so in desperation she turned to Cancer, who was also biting her bottom lip, as if fighting off the same wave Emily was overcome by.

The action looked, to Emily, so amazing, and so she tackled the cat-woman, subtly being a bird long since flown. “What’s going on?” Emily managed to ask as she moved in, not sure what she was intent on, but knowing it involved something about losing the clothes they currently wore.

“’Splanations can wait” Cancer stuttered, in a malformation of her usual tone. Usually Emily wouldn’t have liked it, but now it sounded hot. Everything sounded hot. So when Cancer dragged her off to a room, she didn’t resist. The room she was dragged into was clearly for couples to copulate, with the heart shaped bed and the erotic mood lighting, but Cancer wasn’t interested in them sort of things. She threw her left hand up, like swatting something away violently, and suddenly the feeling was gone. Something which Emily let out a loud sigh of relief.

“Wow, I could have gone at you like a rabbit. What the hell was that?” She demanded, shaking her head and straightening her hair with her hand.

“Tantric enchantment. Some buildings enchant emotions into their walls to help with their business, and they really had some good stuff. Thought it would be a good way to get rid of your dear old da’, but never expected it to be quite so strong. They have gotten new hardware in my absence” She explained, smiling softly, almost shyly. The emotions where gone, but the memory of the feelings and intentions was still there.

“Well, wow. Glad it’s over” Emily exclaimed, shaking her head, not wanting to remember what she was thinking in the slightest.

“Now we need to get out of here. Because unless you want to go back out there and try find the door, we need a new exit strategy.” Cancer replied, and then sunk into muttering to herself. Emily was curious as to what she was saying, so slunk closer.

“Could try Ley-Lines, but without a proper beacon we could end up anywhere. Void is Sean’s thing, teleport would bring to many eyes, considering where we are, Terra-Mask needs four people.” Emily heard, and then butted in.

“Is this still the same Sean?” She asked hesitantly, sure he had never had anything to do with ‘Void’ before.

“Yes. He found the Void and mastered the ability to travel through it, but has stubbornly refused to teach anyone else. So…guess we have to go to the Plane” She exclaimed, walking up to Emily and reaching out to bop her on the head.

“What Plane?” she asked, before Cancer’s hand came down on her head, and consciousness was instantly stolen from her, and she was out like a light before she hit the floor.

Emily woke up with a gasp, and decided she really needed to stop waking up like that, but she couldn’t do anything about it, whenever she went to sleep, she had such restless dreams that kept her from getting a good sleep. However, the next question was, where the hell she was.

“Morning sleepy!” Cancer exclaimed, walking over to Emily and grinning.

“Err, where are we?” Emily asked, rubbing the sleep from her eyes and standing up.

“The Astral Plane. Where minds mesh to make marvels. Of course, one person’s marvel could be quite bad, so don’t stray too far.” Cancer warned Emily, before looking around. “Ok, need an exit hole back to Earth..” she muttered, before gasping in surprise and turning back round to Emily.

“Look over there” Cancer said, pointing into the distance. Emily’s eyes were not as good as Cancer’s, but she saw the flowing pink hair that couldn’t have belonged to anyone else. Well, it could have, but Cancer would not have pointed it out if it hadn't been.

“Jane!” Emily shouted, and started to go to her, but Cancer held out a hand.

“From the looks of it, this is not a situation we should interrupt. It’s a private moment” Cancer told Emily, who reluctantly stopped moving, and watched. The other woman that was there wiped something from Jane’s face, and Emily could feel the overwhelming emotion coming from the two people. Whoever this person was, she clearly meant a lot to Jane.

A few seconds of jealousy washed over Emily as she thought of someone more important to Jane than she was, but Emily quashed it quickly, knowing there where others in Jane’s life that she could rely on. Then, Jane started to turn transparent, and slowly disappeared from the Plane. Emily looked to Cancer, who was already smiling, clearly with an explanation for her.

“She’s a ghost” Cancer said plainly, which irritated Emily.

“Don’t mock me! I may not know much about this whole Council-Plane-Void malarkey but I know Jane was right there, and she wasn’t a ghost” Emily exclaimed hotly, but this only served to amuse Cancer.

“Ok, ok. Since you disputed my claim so politely” Cancer teased, before suddenly hugging Emily. It was then she realized that Cancer was considerably taller than she was, or had made herself taller just to mess with Emily. “She was barely here in the first place, clinging by her fingertips and burning though her stability at a very quick rate. So when it ran out, she vanished. Probably woke up on the other side” Cancer explained, much better than she had the first time.

“Thank you. See? You can be nice, when you want to”. Emily felt safe in Cancer’s embrace, but there was something else there as well. Almost as if it wasn’t her emotion, but someone who was taking root inside her. She shook her head as Cancer released her and flicked a few fingers though her long, red hair.

“Well, fancy seeing you here” A third voice announced, with a touch of amusement.

“Well, I get around. How are you?” Cancer replied, in a tone of warm familiarity. Emily turned her eyes to this new person, but didn’t recognise her, so instead looked around the plane.

It was a strange one, with thing hopping around and psychedelic landscape usually only seen in acid trips. There were minor changes flickering in and out. Sometimes they’d be a tree, other times the same tree just with no leaves, and one time it had thrashing, phallic tentacles, like a nightmare from some sort of Hentai. She was glad it was a fair distance away for that one. Then, Either Emily had dozed off, or Cancer had cut the conversation short, because suddenly Cancer was addressing her.

“Better get going before our one good connection dries up. See you later Elana” Cancer then waved to the woman – Elana, she had called her – and dragged Emily off to the point where Jane and Elana had been stood.

“So, who was she?” Emily asked, as she followed Cancer for want of not being dragged.

“Just someone I knew a while ago. Jane seems to know her as well, but I didn’t go into their relationship. It was clearly personal” Cancer told Emily, before standing roughly where Jane was, and letting go of Emily’s hand. She then began muttering, and while Emily picked her going ‘hmm’ and ‘yes’ a lot, she couldn’t distinguish anything else, and so just stared at her until a rip appeared in the air, and opened up to the size of a doorway.

“There we go. You want to go first hun?” Cancer asked, but Emily shook her head, wary of rips in the plains of dreams. So, Cancer walked though, and Emily hurried in after her, not wanting to be left behind. Which was a good call since the rip shimmered shut behind her, as if it had never been.