The Ranch Motel

Izzy sits down and begins to wait. But the apprentice doesn't want to wait; he can't wait. It's his job to protect Izzy; he will protect her. He will open the doors.

Izzy sees what's coming. "Don't do it; you heard the voice."

The apprentice flexes his muscles and yanks open the doors; they don't want to open. The lizard person feels them shut harder as he gets them open a crack. And then they let go, opening wide. The lizard person falls back into the elevator carriage.

A siren goes off, making Izzy clamp her hands to her ears. She looks past the two silver doors into an inky black pool filled with tentacles. Izzy swallows hard out of fear of the unknown.

The siren is still blaring; Izzy leans her head close to the doorway, checking to see if it's an illusion, but as she does, a tentacle larger than a tree whips over and suction cups to the door.

With a flick of its body, it slams the doors shut.

The siren stops. The silence is defending to Izzy's ears. Then with a lurch and a horrible screeching noise as the elevator is shoved up the shaft, every foot the elevator rises, a loud click noise Is heard.

Then as quickly as the nightmare started, it's over. The elevator drops a foot and stops the doors open, and it dings happily. "You have arrived at medical," the speaker says.

Izzy looks into the medical past the elevator doors, and everything looks normal. She grabs her belly and steps toward the doors, but she is filled with dread. 'Will it fall? It's going to fall, I know it," she thinks.

Nurse Happy looks up from her paperwork and sees Izzy standing in the elevator and how the elevator is tilted at 10 degrees. She spots that Izzy's belly is bloated and wrapped in bedsheets. The never-patient nurse sighs and adjusts her paper hat.

"I see you found a way to accommodate the minotaur... are you injured?" Nurse Happy asks.

Izzy shakes her head no, happy to see the nurse's happy face even if she is not exactly a friend.

Nurse Happy looks at Izzy. "Come out slowly; it could fall at any second," she says in a fake happy voice.

The nurse watches the elevator creep down a quarter of an inch and decides it's now or never. She reaches in and grabs Izzie's arm and pulls harshly. Izzy staggers but quickly crosses the sheer line and steps out of the elevator.

The apprentice needing no help steps out with her. Every experience is new and strange; he knows he doesn't like elevators. Why would anyone travel in them?

Nurse Happy looks at the shaken-up women, sighs, and points to exam room 3. "The doctor will see you, and as for you, Mr. You stay out until we figure out where you should be."

Inside, the doctor is staring at a computer monitor, cheering and shouting, then looking somber. This process repeats twice.

"What's so funny, doc?" Izzy asks, waddling to the exam table.

He looks up, and his eyes grow wide when he looks at Izzy. "Ahh, Izzy, you appear pregnant. Is it eggs again?" he says, ignoring her request. The truth is he was watching the footage of the fight between the mechromancer and the giant, but a human patient is always more interesting. He stands up and stiffens his shape, ready to interact with solids.

Izzy blushes. "Shouldn't I get the kid to the surface? Do we have time for an exam right now?"

The doctor looks at the apprentice standing in the doorway, watching every movement he makes. His arms are crossed across his chest, and the look in his eyes says, "Try it." "I don't think I could separate him from you without him murdering me; besides, this will only take a minute." He lifts the toga front and whistles.

The doctor hits a call button, and Nurse Happy walks in.

"Yes, doctor," Nurse Happy says, her fingers on her right hand twitching.

"I need the child out of the room so I can perform an exam," the doctor says, and as he does, the gravity in the room inexplicably gets higher as the apprentice decides he will not go.

Nurse Happy stands in front of the apprentice. "Let's go now; you can stand right outside with the door open a crack, or I can remove you by force," Nurse Happy casually asks.

The apprentice looks her over and smirks, a smirk of 'What are you going to do about it?'

Nurse Happy twitches slightly and leans close; she looks in his eyes. "Now," she says in a calm, even, level, normal tone of voice. That hits the lizard person like a whip.

from Izzys' perspective The apprentice must have been attacked with something that Izzy can't see, but the green color of his skin goes pale, and he quickly moves outside muttering half words as he goes.

The doctor whistles the theme song to X-Files as he helps Izzy remove her improvised clothes. "I see you have been busy." He wipes up the cum from her leg with his hand, absorbing it, and quietly fills vials with it as he goes. "Minotaur? You're lucky the last two patients I had who tried to take him on I had to spend an hour putting them back together."

"Uh, yeah," Izzy says and realizes how dumb she was being; she remembers the two people begging for help. It hits her just how close she had come to death...

The doctor reaches up inside Izzy, his body collecting the egregious amount of cum, and transfers it into more sample containers.

Izzy is too tired for it to feel good or bad. It just feels like a slow deflation of pressure.

"There should be tearing, but I don't see any; your tissue appears to be more pliable than it should be for a human. I assume this is the work of the blob?" The doctor accuses.

Izzy gets defensive. "Hey, look, you told me to go see him."

The doctor pulls his hand out of Izzy; he raises both of them in defense. "I am just confirming for our medical charts."

"Well, good," Izzy says. relaxing, realizing just how much discomfort she had been in.

The doctor goes over to his cabinet and pulls out a medical diaper. "Wear one of these for the rest of the day. I know you are familiar with them." He opens it and sets it between her legs. "Lift."

Izzy lifts her hips, feeling humiliated. Her body now feels sore, the soft material feeling comforting. At least she won't have to worry about ruining her clothing with any discharge. She feels a confusing fog starting to cloud her mind.

He pulls the diaper up between her legs and tapes it tight. "He pumped your uterus full, and it would be traumatic for me to try to empty it out. So my recommendation for a diaper is serious. You are going to need it."

"Thanks, Doctor, I guess," Izzy says and stands up naked. "Uh, do you have any spare clothing?"

The doctor digs around and finds an XXL gown and tosses it at her. He sits back down at his desk and watches the ongoing fight.

Izzy throws it on and ties it the best she can to make it look like normal clothing. She hears the sound of combat but no shouting. She pokes her head out of the room and sees the apprentice flying through the air. the still airborn apprentice and nurse Happy have big grins on their faces.

Izzy holds her belly, missing the full feeling as she mindlessly walks toward the elevator. She stops when she reads the sign that says "out of order."

A loud explosion from above them rocks Medical. Izzy snaps out of her funk. "Wait, I am supposed to be delivering the child."

Nurse Happy has a small, imperceptible grin on her face as she recognizes Izzy's post-extraction confusion. "It's out of order. Why don't you try the stairs? Are you sure you're ok?"

Izzy looks around. "Yeah, just tired. What stairs? There aren't stairs."

Nurse Happy moves aside a curtain that was blocking a set of stairs. She nods to the lizard person, who looks ready to try attacking the nurse again. But he hears the sound of the door latch being released and nods before following Izzy.

Izzy opens the door, and inside is a fairly normal commercial building staircase. In the center of the staircase is dead air; she leans over the railing, and far, far, far below is a bright white light shining upward. Izzy feels like she could stare at it forever. but the thing inside her mind, the little devil voice, The one that screams how fun it would be to get stuffed full of a minotaur or cane or any other large object screams in panic. She looks away.

Instead, she climbs the stairs. It feels like she has gone up far too many flights when she arrives at the first door. It's marked "First Floor Kitchen."

Izzy opens the door and spots an eldrich horror of hands connected to a pink mass. The hands stop, and somehow the creature appears to watch Izzy despite having no eyes.

Izzy apologizes and closes the door. She just can't deal with this today. It's too much. The lizard person behind her looks confused.

KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK

There is a knock on the door.

Izzy looks at the door and considers just not opening it: maybe she would just climb to the bottom of the steps and see what that light was. It can't be worse than whatever is on the other side of this door. Was it a mutant potato? What the hell was it?

KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK

Izzy grew up in a particular household where it was rude not to open the door when someone knocked. like not answering the telephone or leaving the mail unopened on your desk after you bring it in. Before the next round of knocking noises, she opens the door.

A hand is on the other side, ready to knock. She pulls back, almost falling over the railing, only for the hand to grab her firmly by the upper arm and pull her to safety.

The ball of hands doesn't seem to acknowledge her; instead, it pulls her gently into the room, pats her head, and points to the curtain-covered door that leads to the back of the bar. Meanwhile, several other pairs of hands are cooking eggs Benedict, and another is slowly turning a roast beef on a spit. It throws a fried egg in the trash; a slight imperfection in the yolk is enough for it to reject the egg all together.

Izzy moves carefully around the creature, trying to avoid its touch. The ball of hands doesn't seem to give her any more attention. As soon as Izzy gets close to the curtain, she is nose-to-nose with the cat. literally touching his nose with hers.

"Hello, Izzy, you're practically glowing; you must have succeeded," the cat says, then looks behind her to the apprentice eating the eggs out of the garbage while the chefs' many hands hit him with wooden spoons.

"AHH, you're all grown up," the cat says with the smile of an experienced parent, then with a frown. "You better hurry to the balcony; the big man is waiting."

"Why are you sad, cat?" Izzy asks. She puts a hand on the cat's shoulder.

"It's almost over, and I was having fun." The cat smooths down his hair. "I am afraid you will be spending time away from me, Izzy, and that means I won't get to see you as much."

"Cat, I just can't handle a conversation like this right now," a worn-out Izzy says. She internally thinks, 'I need a vacation.'

Izzy stands uncomfortably close to the cat. "How do I get out of here?"

"climb over like that night in Edinburgh when I cut a Scottish comedian and a trade union leader off and they protested. " The cat says with a smile.

"Cat, I'm tired," Izzy says. "No more riddles tonight."

Izzy sits her butt on the bar top and twirls herself around. The flimsy gown is doing its best to show off her assets. She slips off the bar and lands on a bar stool. She shifts her weight, and the seat swivels; she starts to fall.

The apprentice leaps off the bar and grabs her as she starts to fall; he holds her tight to his Vienna sausage-smelling self, a smug look on his face.

Izzy wiggles to get free. "Yeah, thanks, really kind, but we need to hurry."

As if to punctuate the urgency, there is an explosion from outside the ranch.

Izzy and the child walk out the poolside door of the bar and find the mechromancer suit and the astronaut caught in a terrible struggle; a chunk of the suit's armor flies and crashes into the hottub that Grup has always been so fond of. The side of it blows out and litters the bottom of the lazy river.

Inside the mech, Jacob is frantically pressing Fisher Price buttons while the astronaut is punching blindly, his face covered in cock cannon goo.

Izzy can't help but think it looks like a pornstar fluffing accident, but then she recognizes the giant and screams. She screams until she feels faint before grabbing the child's hand and rushing to the second-floor balcony.

Sitting together is Jack Harrington and the leader of the alien forces. Her giant lizard person body is sitting astride a double-wide chair. Between them is a pizza box with a half-eaten pizza inside. A picture of beer sits between them.

Izzy smells the smell of cocoa pebbles from the fat cigars they are both smoking.

"You know you shouldn't be here," Jack Harrington says to the alien.

"Yeah, but it's more fun to have a front-row seat," the alien says with a slight tint to her skin showing her sexual attraction. A chunk of robot passing by her, slamming into the ranch.

Izzy brings the child closer. "You're insane; this is insane. Here I got him. This is all too much. I can't. I need to go back to my office job. I need to go back to lunches with Sam and nights eating pizza and watching Jacob play video games. Fuck my life, this isn't worth it," she raves in one long breath.

Jack Harrington laughs and takes another bite of pizza; he looks at Izzy. "Great job, Izzy. I knew I could count on you." He then turns to the alien. "Well, we got the kid now; call off your kiju."

"So who won this? I have a black heart diamond on the line here, Jack," the lizard person woman says, blowing a double smoke ring above her head.

"Ahh hell, let's say you win this round. My guy is about to collapse. Call off your dog, would you?" Jack says.

The lizard person sighs and pulls out a brick-looking object from her pocket; she presses on it, and the surface glows. "We got the kid; terminate the champion."

A pink-green laser shoots out of the Avacado ship and pierces through the head of the giant. It keeps trying to tear apart the mechromancer suit, but it quickly topples over, crushing the west wing of the ranch motel.

Izzy watches in terror; her heart rate is spiking, her skin is clammy, and then she hears the scream "MY BAAAABBBYYYYYY." She turns, and a mascara-streaked face of Scarlet runs up on to the second-floor balcony and hugs her son, then lets go and hugs him from a different angle. "You, uh, have grown so big." Scarlet says as she tries to find a comfortable angle to hold her rock-solid alien son.

The son, who has only known her for an hour, looks at the women clinging to him with confusion.

"He stays on earth," Scarlet demands of the lizard-person leader.

The lizard woman scoffs, "Yeah, no, he comes with us."

"You know the original deal, Scarlet: he spends 6 months here, 6 months there." Jack Harrington says as the west wing of the ranch motel catches on fire. He picks up a new slice of pizza and takes a bite out of it. "Damn, it's gone cold." He sets it down. "It's free for the taking if anyone is hungry."

"Where is Jacob?" Izzy demands from Jack Harrington.

Jack looks up and points to the ruined suit lying next to the water polo pool.

Izzy rushes toward the suit. She spots Jacob half dangling from the cockpit. Carefully she climbs up the suit and unbuckles him, holding him tightly. "I'm here for you," she whispers into his ear as she carries him down to the ground carefully.

She examines Jacob, finding a probe stuck in his anus ripped out of the machine by a violent impact, but otherwise he seems to be unharmed. despite wearing a ridiculous outfit. The pink of the fabric now smuggled more brown and the tutu in tatters. But she doesn't look much better. Izzy holds him, feeling his pulse and his breathing steady and regular.

Together they sit and watch the ranch motel smolder as the firefighters put out the fires.

Jacob half wakes up just enough to open an eye and whisper, "Izzy, I might be pregnant."

THE END....