Pt 7


So after blowing up her mother's house, Luca hotfooted it to Rakshek. She was angry. Angry at her mother. Angry at the world. Angry at the occasional stray Pom that innocently wandered across her path. Poms were left squished or critically maimed in her wake as she stomped onward, leaving behind a trail of Pom-goo footprints.

Finally arriving at town, she boldly strode towards Mrs. Lahr's office, having reached a hasty decision prompted entirely by her being pissed off. What better way to cope with anger than to throw one's self wholeheartedly into a career?

"Mrs. Lahr!" Luca boomed, throwing the door open to her boss' office. "I'm dedicating my whole life to Dive Therapy! Full time! Let me be everybody's bitch!"

"Oh...that's nice, Luca dear," Mrs. Lahr said blandly, not even looking up from her desk.

"...Wha?" said Luca. She hadn't expected a huge reaction, but certainly more than this. "Didn'tja hear what I just said? I'm gonna be a full-on Dive Therapist! No more farting around! No more ditching clients by telling them my cosmosphere's been rickrolled by some hacker! No more pretending to be sick so I can run home and fap to a sexy fantasy some client just confided to me!"

Mrs. Lahr glanced up, looking utterly unbothered. "Really, Luca. Do you think I ever cared what you fap to?"

Luca couldn't help blushing. "Tkht! That's not the point! Aren't you even just a little..."

That's when Luca finally noticed the huge piles of money in front of Mrs. Lahr on her desk.

"Wh-wh-where'dja get all the Leafy?"

"Oh...this?" Mrs. Lahr said with a sly smirk. "New girl. Long dark hair with red accents. Never wears clothes. Didn't tell me her name, but who cares? She's got Reyvateil power like you wouldn't believe, and she rakes in ten times the customers you ever did...Luca dear."

Luca's jaw dropped. "No..."

At that very same moment, inside of an isolated corner of her soulspace, naked Jacqli was seated comfortably in a posh black chair in what appeared to be a small, cozy room. Across from her stood a new client. He was nervous. He had no idea how he was supposed to look at his new Therapist without sprouting a nosebleed. Valiantly he struggled to keep himself from standing in another way.

"Sooo...what do you desire, most of all?" Jacqli purred sexily.

"Uhh-h-h..." the client said, plugging his nose.

"I can create any kind of world you like..." she cooed. And with a lazy wave of her hand, the small, cozy room was swept away. A lush forest setting flourished around them in its place.

"A world of nature..."

Another lazy wave. The forest was swept away as a beautifully strange land of pixies, mana, cool-looking armor, lots of sharp weapons, and epic quests for Doohickies of Awesome appeared. With mechs.

"A world of fantasy..."

Lazy wave. The land became a high, barren, dark plateau stretched out beneath a layer of oppressive black clouds. A heavy wind swirled about them. Jacqli's form was scarcely visible in the dim luminance.

"A world of darkness..."

A final lazy wave. They were now in a bedroom. It felt safe, secluded, and very intimate. Jacqli herself was lying on the bed, invitingly. The lights were turned low.

"Or...is what you desire most of all...simply...me?" she breathed.

Toing. "Gulp..." was all her client could say as he anxiously took a step toward the bed.

Meanwhile, Luca was feeling very much pushed aside as Mrs. Lahr kept prattling on about the new girl. "I tellya, she's somethin' else...why sometimes she don't even take a break for a day or two! She'll just keep goin' and goin', day and night...I dunno how she does it. Or come to think of it, she did say somethin' about feeding off their H-waves by creating a false resonance, then shunting off their harmonics into herself or some such crazy shit. I've heard of Reyvs doin' stuff like that before."

"But that's horrible!" Luca gasped. "That'll make the Divers - -"

"- - Addicts?" Mrs. Lahr finished. Then she shrugged casually. "Eh."

"You can't let her turn clients into baggy-eyed Dive-heads!"

"You're just jealous," Mrs. Lahr grinned greasily. "You just wish you could do shit like that."

Luca's face flushed. "...Maybe!"

Mrs. Lahr busted a gut. "Blahaaahahahahah! You ain't got the balls, kid!"

"How do you know? Ever try me?"

"Okay then: say a client jumps into yer soulspace. He's lookin' kinda down, kinda beat...kinda like as if he just wants a friendly ear to listen to his troubles over a cup of tea. But he also seems a bit shy. What are you thinking that you should do for him first?"

"Well, if I'm trying to suck his H-waves...um, uhh...m-maybe I need to create a false sense of security in him first. Do the standard Dive Therapy thing where I try to make him feel comfortable, look for ways to reassure him that he's in a safe place where he can talk about things without any judging, yada yada yada..."

Mrs. Lahr facepalmed. Hard. "YOU FFFFFFAIL!" she blared.

Luca's cheeks went all puffy. "Well what would she do for him first then, huh?"

"Nothin'! She'd just H-rape his ass because he's easy pickin's! Hahahahahahahah!"

Luca could feel herself deflating.

"Yeap, yeap, at this rate, ol' Mrs. Lahr's gonna be all set for retirement in no time!" she went on, greedily looking over her piles of cash. "Hell, I hardly even need any of my other girls anymore! But I'll keep some o' them, anyway. Especially Nana. Lotta folks'd be pissed if she were gone. And she's got that new schizo boy sideshow that wears girl's underwear...all I can say is, 'Damn, wish I'd thought of that.'"

"Waitaminnit...you're dumping some of us?"

"Yep. You too, Luca." She raised a hand in farewell. "Hasta. And thanks for all the profits."

"Wha? Hey! I've got lotsa clients too that'd be pissed if I were gone!"

"Nuh-uh. Had lotsa clients. They've all switched to the new girl now."

"EHHHHHHHH? But WHYYY?"

"Uh, 'cause maybe she gets naked and you don't?"

"But she's always naked!"

"Well that makes it more convenient then, eh?"

"But I'm pure and sweet and noble!"

Mrs. Lahr snorted long and loud. "And what was that you just said about your clients' sexy fantasies and pretending to be sick? Besides, 'pure, sweet and noble' can never beat out boobs, butt and cameltoe." Then she shot Luca another smirk. "Or yuri, for that matter. I mean, just 'cause you don't care for it doesn't mean your clients..." Mrs. Lahr trailed off.

Luca was speechless.

"And y'know, the new girl likes girls, too, so that's pretty handy. So all in all, you're toast. Now shoo."

Luca was about in tears. But she mustered herself up to make one last pure, sweet and noble remark before departing. "Fatass!" she spat at her former boss, then whirled about on a spiked heel and bolted off - -

- - and slammed nose-first into a wall, completely missing the doorway. Mrs. Lahr fell out of her chair from enjoying a hearty point-and-laugh moment.

"Bwahahahahahahaha!"

But having had enough of blowing shit up for one day, Luca was inspired to take a different approach to revenge. Grabbing the nearest pile of cash off the desk, she was out the door and on the street before Mrs. Lahr could bellow, "What the fuck?"