"Contemplate this on the Tree of Woe."
- James Earl Jones
"BANANAS! BANANAS! BANANAS!"
- Hausu (1977)
Everyone ended up with sour grapes when they tried to cut through the Welccin Tree, the Sacred Arborgate of the Fourth Dimension. That treacherous blue-haired sword dweeb and the rest of his goons never stood chance when the tree retaliated against their attacks by closing its roots around them in a gnarled fence and cursing them to feast on its grapes of wrath. Fayt had grapes stuffing his mouth like he was a human-sized cornucopia. Cliff had grapes filling his nose and clogging his windpipe as he turned purple. Sophia had grapes rolling in and out of her ears as she screamed on the ground clawing at her temples. Albel had grapes pouring out his navel under his tacky midriff shirt. Nel had grapes… well, you get the picture. The effect spread through the doomed interplanetary explorers like fruity fungal spores, afflicting any living matter it touched with a swift demise that was very berry and not very merry.
The secret arcane seal was written as such: If AI_CHAR .exe = AGGRO within 10 meters of MYSTERY_SPRINGTIME_FUNZONE .map, then AI_CHAR .exe gets (W_GRAPE .obj x MAX_OVERFLOW_INTEGER) flying out their wazoo.
Thankfully, the wild vineyard quickly turned into a graveyard after the curse was triggered. Adray and Mirage were crushed under the tree's massive roots as they snapped and twisted in a rhythm eerily resembling laughter. Most of the party members were drowned and dissolved in a caustic mixture of tree sap and tartaric acid, rapidly turning a group of defeated nature adventurers into a purple-tinted compost pool with chemical properties similar to early fermenting wine. The berries stuffing their mouths muffled their last agonizing screams.
Only one member of the expedition made it through the Final Hot Springs Episode. Maybe she frantically casted a spell to raise her defenses just before her head erupted with grape clusters and the magic saved her from an ugly digestive fate. Maybe certain exploits in her Connection genes made her partially impervious to the Welccin Tree's power. Maybe she was just lucky and wound up in a blind spot in the roots where everything wasn't instantly melted in fruity rage. Maybe the goddess of the Welccin took sympathy on the girl while claiming the rest of the party as mortal offerings.
For whatever reason, Sophia stumbled out of the carnivorous foliage in a daze and scratching inside her ear with her pinkie nail. Her mind had been rendered into a Fourth Dimension-trademarked fruit gusher, but her physical body was left completely intact. Disheveled and caked in purple jelly, but intact.
She stopped and blinked. Glanced at the juicy death sweeping across the ground behind her. Shrugged carelessly. Her eyes briefly gleamed with a bright shade of violet unlike any species known in her universe before they changed back to their normal green.
Normally, the Welccin Tree's spiritual consciousness would sweep through the predators it cursed and monitor their physical state from within while the tree's defense mechanisms wreaked havoc on their immune systems. This time, one predator had survived and part of that consciousness remained.
The sorceress stared at her open palm and started flexing her fingers. The safest course of action would have been to melt every single blasphemer in this group for their sins of questioning the sanctity of their creators, but it probably wouldn't hurt to spare one little black cat.
Welch Vineyard murmured curiously to herself as the ground behind her feet bubbled with citrus-smelling death.
"Hmm? My own 3D body. I guess this could work." Sophia's eyes glanced down toward Sophia's corset. "Ah! It's a cute body, too."
Her left ankle brushed over her right ankle as she tested the nylon in her paw print stockings. Surprisingly rugged stuff. No wonder she could run around space stations and exotic off-worlds all day wearing those things. The only drawback was Welch always wore pantyhose to work and this body was wearing thigh highs. Her rear felt a little more exposed to the environment than she was used to, but the upgrade on the bra size definitely made up for it.
Sophia's flexing fingers quickly spread apart, summoning a small fireball over her palm.
"Ooh! I got one of the cool magic ones!" Welch gasped in amazement as the miniature flame reflected in her eyes. "You can't craft something like this in a workshop!"
Sophia's hand curled into a fist around the flame to extinguish it. She closed her eyes as her mouth stretched into a wide smirk. Her head bowed in scheming meditation as she spoke toward the empty space in front of her.
"Hey Miss L, slight change of plans… Yeah, yeah. I'm inside the Sphere now. Yeah, inside as in existing in full digital form. Not just monitoring. But hey, since I've got a compatible bod, I think I'll try blending in with the natives and working undercover for a while. Just a little snooping side mission while I'm logged on. I'm sure these geeks have a ship parked somewhere around here so I can get out of the boonies. You okay with that?"
Sophia's lips puckered in a tiny circle as Welch giggled in her voice.
"Sure, sure. I'll page you if I need backup. Now wish me luck! Kitten's got to break in her new mittens! Heheheheh!"
She found her crescent moon staff lying in the dirt and fastened it behind her appropriately grape-colored capelet. She figured out if she used her summoning powers in conjunction with the shawl's enchanted transdimensional pockets, it could conveniently store a few volumes of her yaoi manga along with her potions.
After adjusting her choker so it was a little looser, she glanced over the scene of misery and gruesome disaster behind her. Her head swayed in a playful tilt that could be interpreted as "Tut tut, tootie fruities."
Without wasting another second for mourning, Sophia walked away from the tree while rubbing her palms together greedily and practicing the incantation for Ice Needles.
Author's note: There's a guy (or possibly gal?) on Twitter named Kagiana. This dude (or dudette) drew some original costume designs for Sophia a couple years ago. One of the designs was what she'd look like as a character from the 4D "real world" part of Star Ocean (it's mostly Blair's black and gray office executive dress with Sophia's mage capelet and some extra cat-themed accessories). It could totally work as her outfit in the Evil Salarywoman Esteed timeline.