Part 29a (by Shannon)

Shannon knocked on Lorie's hotel room door. She knew she 
had to talk to Lorie before she did anything drastic. The 
door opened and Lorie looked back at her in surprise. 

"Shan? What are you doing here?" she asked. 

"We need to talk," she said. 

"About what?" asked Lorie, glancing back into her room. 

"It's very important. Can I come in?" she asked. 

"Um...I've got company," said Lorie and Shannon recognized 
the flush on her face. 

"Bruce?" asked Shannon. 

"Um...well," started Lorie. 

"This is very important," said Shannon and Lorie hedged. 

"I can't just leave him..." she said and suddenly felt 
something shift and then Shannon pushed her back into the 
room. She looked around and was surprised to find that 
Bruce wasn't there. "What happened? Where's Bruce," she 
said. 

"I will explain," said Shannon.  "Lorie, you CAN'T sleep 
with him...not yet anyway," she said. 

"Why not?" asked Lorie, angrily folding her arms across her 
chest. 

"Because he'll Claim you," she said. 

"What? What are you talking about and where did Bruce go?" 
she demanded. 

"Bruce is still in your room...I just took us back in time 
a little bit," said Shannon. 

"What??" asked Lorie. 

"It's a long story...but if you sleep with Bruce he'll 
Claim you...you'll be his slave," said Shannon sitting down 
on the bed. 

"I wouldn't mind being Bruce's slave," said Lorie with a 
wicked grin. 

"I thought the same thing about Gene, but trust me, it's 
not fun. You lose your free will. You stop worrying about 
what you want and worry yourself sick about what HE wants," 
she said. 

"How do you know?" asked Lorie and Shannon pulled the 
neckline of her shirt down to reveal the Mark over her 
heart. 

"Gene Claimed me... It's taken the last two years to get it 
so I could make a decision without waiting for him to tell 
me what to think," she said. 

"Wait...two years?" asked Lorie. 

"I have the power to time travel...all of Girl_talk have 
powers, but they haven't all wakened yet. Any idea what 
your powers are?" asked Shannon, wondering if Lorie's had 
surfaced yet. 

"Um...it seems that people have to tell the truth when 
they're around me," she said. "That's how I knew that Bruce 
wanted me," she said with a smile. 

"Well, Raven and I both have powers and we were both 
Claimed by accident. Trust me, you don't want to be 
Claimed. You really do become a slave," she said. 

"Then why aren't you with Gene?" she asked. 

"It took two years for me to learn that I could be 
independent from Gene. It was something Envoy had to teach 
me and Raven," she said. 

"Envoy?" asked Lorie. 

"Um...Raven, Gene, Peter and I spent two years in the past, 
working with teachers who could help us with our powers. 
How do you think my hair got so long?" she asked showing 
Lorie the long red curls. 

"I wondered...I thought something looked different," said 
Lorie. 

"No, we've been gone for two years. We had to train Raven 
since she's a probability manipulator...meaning she can 
change luck to either be good or bad. An untrained 
probability manipulator can be VERY dangerous.  And now 
that we've been Claimed, we're even more valuable to 
Buttercup. Through me and Raven, he can gain control of 
KISS," she said. 

"But how are you Gene's slave? I would think you'd like 
that," she said with a laugh. 

"Imagine being able to feel every emotion he's feeling. 
Imagine being able to know his thoughts, wants, 
desires...even if they don't pertain to you. Every time 
he's with a woman, I experience that and the same if I'm 
with another man. I can't turn it off and neither can he. 
Every time I get upset, scared, sad, happy, mad...anything, 
he feels it. I'd get upset at him, then he'd get upset that 
I was upset, then I'd get upset even more because he was 
upset that I was upset. It's a vicious circle that can't be 
broken even through death," said Shannon with sobering 
seriousness. "Through a Claim, Gene can even use my powers, 
but I can't use his.  He has complete control over me. If 
he tells me to drop dead, I have to. I can't disobey a 
direct order, though with training I have learned to 
"disagree" with him and to think for myself. The last two 
years have been hard," she said. 

"If you can travel through time, why can't you just go back 
to before you're Claimed and warn yourself?" asked Lorie. 

"Because I can't do anything that will change the time 
line. The ripples that would create would drastically alter 
time. I don't want to do that.  Besides, if Claims are 
separated by time or even too much distance…it will kill 
them," she said. 

"Then how did you take me back in time?  Shouldn't you be 
dead?" asked Lorie.

"I'm only an hour in the past…so the effects aren't so 
strong…but it still hurts," said Shannon.

"So you're stuck," said Lorie. 

"Yeah. And the tribute bands are what we would call 
Acolytes. They are connected to their respective KISS 
member and even have limited use of their powers. Gene can 
feel everything that happens with any tribute band Gene if 
he wants to," she said. 

"Which means he can be with all the women the tribute Genes 
are with through them," said Lorie with a giggle. 

"Don't let him know that!" said Shannon. "It's bad enough 
with the other women...I don't need to feel hundreds of 
emotions like that at once," she said. 

"What if you're with a tribute Gene? Does Gene feel it from 
both of you?" asked Lorie with a wicked grin.  A slow smile 
spread across Shannon's face. 

"I never thought about it...but he probably would," she 
said with a giggle. Lorie pouted. 

"I wanted to be with Bruce," said Lorie. 

"You can be with him, but we have to take precautions so 
you aren't Claimed. You can be Linked...which is like a 
Claim only you don't become a slave and you can turn the 
link on and off. A Link is like a faucet, a Claim is like a 
river," said Shannon. 

"What am I gonna tell Bruce?" she asked. 

"Tell him you have to go see Val before you do anything," 
said Shannon. "If you want, I'll explain it to him, but for 
now, we want to keep some things kinda quiet."

After making sure that Lorie understood how bad a Claim 
was, Shannon took them back to the present time and left 
her to explain it to Bruce.  

Lorie walked back into the room where Bruce was waiting 
patiently.  He smiled and she sat down next to him.

"Who was that?" he asked.

"That was Shannon," replied Lorie.

"What did she want?" he asked stroking her cheek softly.

"She had to tell me something very important," said Lorie.  
"I can't be with you right now," she said.

"What?  Why not?  I really care about you," he said.

"I know…but…" she started before her words were cut off by 
Bruce's lips on hers.  His tongue parted her lips and she 
moaned softly as he lay her down on the bed.  All other 
thoughts fled her mind as Bruce slowly undressed her and 
began to make love to her.  It wasn't until they were 
finished that she noticed the small "AudioDog" tattoo over 
her heart.  She groaned.  Bruce had Claimed her.

Later Shannon found out that Lorie had not only not heeded 
her advice and had been Claimed by Bruce but she had been 
captured by Buttercup.