“O Queen!”

Tendrils of reality pulled her out of her dreamless sleep, grappling with her unconsciousness. A breeze, shy but nevertheless cold, nipped at her shoulders and nose, chasing her further out from sleep. She tried to mumble out, reach for the alarm clock, but instead her arms unravel sinuously, almost completely on their own, and in the place of a quiet voice hoarse with tiredness, she gave out an irate growl, a purr that echoed in the-

Medusa opened her eyes.

Quiet dripped all around her, an ambience of water droplets tinkling into hidden pools in the shadows. She had curled up for a nap at the edge of the huge pool at the center of the cavern that served as her new home. A den, magnificently constructed for the Mother of all Gorgons. Medusa remembered.

There also had been something else, of course. When Medusa had been pulled into the waking world, for a second she had been someone else…

Oh, yes. This, she remembered as well.

Amy Aguilar. The shy twenty-four year old art history major that was currently buried deep under Medusa’s seductive curves and gagged behind the Ancient One’s unearthly feminine beauty. The girl who was along for the ride- or was she driving? It was Amy’s limbs, after all, that brought her up to her feet, although Medusa certainly lent her an unnerving grace. But even her own thoughts, this Medusa personality, it was merely a sheet draped over Amy’s mind-

“O Queen! You have arisen!”

A flash of irritation. Medusa struggled to catch the slipping thoughts, but they fled, wriggling into the pond like blind subterranean fish, too hard to catch. She looked up at the cavern wall, where a hidden video screen had slid out of a recess to reveal the voice that had interrupted Medusa’s musings. Faceless figures in silvery clothes.

One and their researchers.

“Greetings, Mirrored Ones,” Medusa said, her voice flowing like a river of poison and lust. “Why have you awoken me from my slumber?”

“We are truly sorry for that, errr, o Queen of Gorgons,” One said, voice scraping like metal on metal. “We just wanted- well, we were wondering if you would accept of us this one human sacrifice, before the great arena of the next three days, so we could witness the raw magical strength of your petrifying gaze, Ancient One!”

Man, those titles are really cringy, Medusa thought idly. Wait. She straightened, cocking her head to the side. Where had that thought come from? It had… a different voice…

“Yes, of course,” she said out loud, almost absentmindedly, trying to track down that voice of Amy Aguilar in her mind.

“Fantastic!” The feedback from the mic was a screech that resounded across the huge cavern, and Medusa winced. Damn! It was gone again. She hissed venomously.

“Uh, sorry,” One said. There was some quieter buzzing as someone whispered to them. “We’ll send the, ah, sacrifice in. Right away. I pray that you find this offering of youthful flesh to be worthy, Ancient One!”

Medusa curtly nodded, before realizing herself and loosening up to arch her neck in a regal manner. “Send in the prey,” she said, in what seemed to be a properly ominous tone.

There was a deep rattling. Medusa turned and peered into the dark, where her new eyes could faintly make out a small gate opening. A shriek of iron, and splashing footsteps as two suited figures pulled in between them a third, slighter, bound figure in between them.

Wet sounds, the rustle of fabric on wet rock. Then a thud, as the sacrifice- for so it was now obvious- was pushed to the ground. The guards departed, and the metal gate screeched back down.

Medusa approached.

The woman was naked, save for a strip of cloth tied around her breasts and another strip haphazardly bound over her waist. Her hands were tied, and a rag had been tightly knotted over her mouth, crudely gagging her. Her hair, which could have once been a beautiful bouquet of black satin curls, was sopping wet and tangled limply on her forehead, and as she looked up, Medusa could see like a shining moon the fear in her eyes.

Something predatory curled up from somewhere inside Medusa. Like a pulsing, dark instinct, emanating from the base of her neck… she knew exactly what to do.

A flick of her hand sent out a talon, wicked sharp and as long as a knife. The woman flinched as Medusa leaned forward and eased the talon under her gag, sliding it up and down until the tatted rag frayed and yielded. Medusa pulled the gag away and the woman took in a rattling breath. Spittle trailed from her quivering lips. “Please…”

Medusa gave her a smile, all fangs. Then she knelt, bent forward and kissed her.

The woman shuddered under Medusa’s lips, but she softened as Medusa ran a tender hand over her shoulder and down her side. They breathed quietly, lips locked, and Medusa ran another hand down to the rag binding the woman’s chest. It unraveled easily, and Medusa cupped one breast, then ran three fingers up to the nipple, massaging the sensitive areolas. The woman moaned into Medusa’s mouth, exhaling heavily. She didn’t protest as Medusa tip-toed her other hand down her side and leg to her calf, then back up again to wiggle off the cloth covering the woman’s crotch. The dirty rag fell to the floor. Medusa tickled the inside of the woman’s thigh, then let a finger dip ever so shallowly into the woman’s clit. She was wet, slick down there, and Medusa slipped two, three, four fingers in. A groan of ecstasy, a single musical note sung straight into the gorgon’s mouth- Medusa replied in kind, accompanying the woman’s muffled cries in harmony, the arousal trickling forth as she knew what was happening next-

Medusa pulled her left hand, the one at the woman’s breast, and grasped the sacrifice tightly by the hair. She gave out a smothered noise of surprise, of dismay, but Medusa redoubled her efforts with the other hand, edging the woman, pulling her further on into bliss. Eyelids fluttered, but Medusa yanked, and the sacrifice’s eyes shot wide open, confused, torn between pleasure and pain, locking gazes with reptilian eyes-

There was a deep pulling feeling from inside Medusa’s gut. The woman writhed under Medusa’s lips, realizing what was happening, her terror still clouded by arousal, and Medusa worked her all the harder at her clit, diving deep in and stroking shallowly, massaging her g-spot, rising all the while and pulling away from the kiss. The first unmuffled groans of pleasure echoed in the cavern, and Medusa hummed in orgasmic pleasure as the woman started to stiffen, her skin turning glossy at first but becoming grey, her movements and rising and falling chest slowing, mouth still working from the shadow of their kiss, and as Medusa finally pulled her hand away from the woman’s hardening slit she cupped the sacrifice’s head with both hands and brought the sacrifice’s face to her own crotch. The woman lapped, still confused, but her tongue slowed and stiffened, and as the sensation threatened to fade Medusa began to run her entire slit up and down the woman’s petrified mouth, the sacrifice still pleasuring her from beyond the frozen moment of ecstacy, and Medusa cupped her new statue’s face as she cried out in beautiful, beautiful climax, shaking in her stance above the stone body. Warmth, so much warmth, running across her scaly skin, so much warmth in such a cold place.

The realization set in as Medusa shakily stumbled back and fell to her haunches, breathing heavily, face to face with the petrified woman. She had done this. This work of art, this magnificent creation, it was hers, even that sublime expression of terror and joy, it had been sculpted by her, so beautiful, beautiful-

Oh god, what had she done.

Her mind broke and unbroke like a snap- painfully brittle, clear, sharp. Thoughts flooded her mind, spoken in a different voice entirely, and for a moment all understanding of Medusa retreated as Amy struggled for breath through the moulded gag filling her mouth, sweating through the false skin adhered tightly onto her own, a tender throbbing at her crotch where the insert invaded her deeply. Amy looked at the petrified woman, the juices still dripping from her now-frozen face. Her skin had taken on the ever-so rough texture of smoothened stone, and the rosy glow on her cheeks had been blanketed by a pallid and all-encompassing grey. Had she done this? Had she, Amy Aguilar, done this to another human being? What had she done?

“Excellent performance, O Queen!”

In a flash, Medusa pushed forward, firmly, to wrest back control. Something serpentine slithered around Amy’s mind, constricting, but not too tightly, more like an embrace. Even as Amy felt her body turn against her will or notice, even as shock pulsed through her numb mind, Medusa hissed in satisfaction to her audience.

“I find myself… sated.” A lush voice. Not hers. It didn’t register. After all, it wasn’t her speaking. Or maybe it was. Amy’s mouth moved, futilely, teeth and lips and tongue mashing against the pliable fixture, but somehow Medusa translated it into a cunning smile. “Many thanks for your sacrifice. Can I expect another?”

“Not until after the games, o Queen,” One responded. “Until then, we have other tasks to oversee, so I beg your leave. Please, rest, Ancient One, and store your strength up for the, ah, ordeals that lie ahead.”

Static.

Medusa, not Amy, sauntered over to the pool’s edge. Before she knew it, she had leapt in, unafraid, sinking ten, twenty feet, all the way to the murky bottom. None of the cavern’s artificial light peered in through the water, and even with her augmented vision, Amy was blind. But she didn’t think to see. She didn’t even think to breathe.

Instead, the frozen afterimage of the petrified woman, pupil-less grey eyes staring out into nothing, waved like a ghost in front of her. Shoulders straining as she tried to free herself from her bonds. Back arched in orgasmic pleasure. Tongue outstretched, mid-lap, stained with the wet, sexual excretion that Amy, bound and gagged and plugged, had rubbed all over the woman’s face as she- as she- no, had Amy…?

No. The sacrifice isn’t dead.

Amy would have jolted in shock, if she could. A new voice joined Amy’s own in the darkness of her mind, speaking in a sultry, slithering tone. Lustful. Proud.

“Medusa,” Amy whispered.

A flash of yellow, slitted eyes. A curvy figure, dripping of sex, rippled out of the void in a shimmer of scales. A sibilant choir sung out, and Amy’s eyes were drawn to the crown of snakes glimmering above her head, like a writhing, ungodly halo.

“Hello, pet,” Medusa said. Her eyes glimmered with amusement as she regarded Amy, but also with some measure of… could it be pity?

The Mother of Gorgons padded over and regarded Amy closely. Her long, dangerous talons retracted, and a lithe hand- a familiar hand- gently traced a line over Amy’s lips. “I know this mouth,” said Medusa quietly. “It fills my own. It speaks my words and gives life to my person.”

The hand went down, trailing past Amy’s neck. A finger gently tapped. “I know this heart,” Medusa said. “It beats deep in my chest, instead of my own. It belongs to the girl who is me.”

Their eyes locked. Amy resisted the urge to pull back, but in a moment, that instinct was washed away. Medusa approached, eyes wide, hypnotizing, ancient, powerful. Amy stared into their amber depths and felt sluggish, like a fly caught in sap struggling to break free. Those eyes stared into her and Amy could see things, unspeakable things, unknowable things, memories built up over millennia of living in a mesmerizing swirl.

And Medusa stared back.

“I know these eyes,” Medusa said, carefully. “They are hidden behind mine, both granting me sight and seeing all I see. Without them I would be blind… just as without the girl underneath me, Amy Aguilar, I would be a husk.”

They watched each other, reflections in the mirror.

“The woman?” Amy asked.

“A paid actress with a chip of her own,” Medusa said. “Wearing the suit of another visage entirely. It is this second skin that hardens and pretends to die, not the person underneath. I believe they find it very… pleasurable underneath. Song Min-Seo told me of this.”

“Three?”

“My creator.” Medusa let the smile dance on her lips, wry and somehow fragile. “I am aware of the conditions of my existence. Naught but you, or a part of you, fooled into thinking you’re someone else. Cunning, this deception, is it not? Cunning… but with evil potential.” She sobered. “Song Min-Seo has told you of your task. Of the justice that you must seek, and take part in sentencing upon the mirror-faced men. Of course I am created to aid you in this goal.

“But I know as much of you as yourself, Amy Aguilar. For I am you. And you are me, or rather… let us say, perhaps… believing yourself to be me. I know your history. Your qualms, your struggles, your pains. You have lived a life devoid of pleasure and boldness, Amy.”

Medusa reached out, earnestly. She grasped Amy’s hand. “But perhaps we, together, can change that.”

Then Medusa drew even closer, her breast moving up and down with silent but powerful breaths, and yet Amy did not feel the air on her face, on her bare shoulders. The gorgon’s breath was empty, she realized. Without her, Medusa did not live.

For Amy was Medusa.

A rush of bubbles and the vision faded, as Amy finally let go of the breath she had been holding this whole time. She would have panicked. She did not. Medusa knew what to do. Amy took in a deep breath, letting the oxygen filter back into her lungs through the magic of her suit. She raised a scaled hand- letting the water flow through her fingers as she waved it to and fro- and felt also her own, Amy’s own hand, underneath. Amy swiveled and fluidly swam around the deep circumference of the pool, once, twice, with the agile predatory skill that only Medusa knew. Amy could not swim. But Medusa could.