MMG

by Throwaway1971

Frozen MMG

3. Digging the Garden

Taking the little pouch you've been storing the coins you have scrounged up so far in and sorting out the bronze ones within, you count them out one by one, letting the light of your attic room shine and bounce off of them.

A total of fourteen coins are in your possession, and after carefully weighing them in your hands one by one, you can instinctively feel how many you need to push your magic another step further from where it is right now, a full ten pieces you keep as you slide the other four back inside.

So, how do you do this, exactly? The Puchuu just mentioned you can do this, not how to do this, and you don't want to just come running to it for literally everything. Maybe you just need to...

Ah, there it comes. It just took a bit. The coins in your hands are... dissolving, turning into bright swirls of energy that flow around you for a bit before being absorbed into your body, into your soul.

You can feel yourself growing... just a little bit stronger. It's a good feeling; a great one, even.

You almost smile.

Creating (and manipulating) ice is, as it were, the bread and butter of your magic, the one thing everything else revolves around. It does, as such, only make sense that you would want to improve upon this part of your toolset.

Also, practicing with creating random ice constructs is always fun.

That said, there's one thing you want to work on creating in particular, to the point of taking it from the realm of generalized ice creation to a particular 'spell' you can fire off at a moment's notice: Ice armor.

It should be kind of obvious that keeping your insides inside and in one piece is always a better choice compared to not doing so, and if it takes you a bunch of magical pseudo-energy (you do seemingly create it out of nothing, so it doesn't actually obey the laws of thermodynamics, not to even mention what you do with it), then so be it.

Hence, using ice as a sort of ablative armor surrounding yourself, blocking or at least weakening blows. Except, halfway through, it kind of... takes a life of its own, your dress flaring out as a layer of ice crystals and flowers grows along its inside, excpt none of them so much as irritate your skin, color and material changing as the whole costume morphs, a little crown growing atop your head in the form of another ice flower.

"Chuuh, you are investigating and dispatching monsters at a very fast pace so far, chuh," your Puchuu says as you walk towards the public park, riding on your head as it sometimes does.

"Thanks?"

"That is not a compliment, chuh. Being too competent can be a bad idea, too, puchuuh, the nail that sticks out is always hammered down first, after all. Chuh. If nothing else, they are requested to help in case of emergencies, chuuh, which usually means lots of casualties," the black cat elucidates. "So long as we can keep to the usual quotas for new areas, we should be fine as is, chuh."

"Any details on what those 'quotas' are?" You ask, the question quite justified in your humble opinion.

"Business secret, chuuh."

"Figures," you sigh. "Can I at least rely on you telling me if I need to step things up?"

"Of course, chuuh~."

That's something, at least?

Hearing a gasp, you look up, not really having paid attention to what was going on as you were walking for a bit. It's... it's that one weird officer again.

"It's you! I mean, hello there, little girl, I believe you really should come to the station with me."

You sigh. Then you kick him in the shin, with all your strength. Which is considerable for your size, really, leaving him kneeling on the ground as he holds his leg, his teeth bit to hold in what you suspect to be a lot of cursing as you keep on going.

"Where were we?" You ask.

"You should find a hobby. Maybe go to school like normal girls your age, chuh? Most magical girls enjoy the normality and still get to keep the schedules, puchuuh."

"Yeah, fat chance of that."

"Also, remember that your purpose is to pro... protect... nonmagi... chuchuchuchuchuh!"

Breaking down in apparent laughter, your Puchuu takes a minute or two to recover its wits.

"No, chuh seriously, I don't care if you kill random mundanes, just try to keep it on a low scale so it doesn't reflect chuuhly on me, chuh?"

Huh. You think this thing just really showed its true emotions to you for the second time since you let it operate on you. You're... unsure of the implications.

And also creeped out a little. Mostly creeped out, in fact.

Jacob did his best to ignore the throbbing pain inside his leg, getting up off the asphalt. That little girl sure had a kick on her!

Probably better for it, too. He'd only seen her a few times ever since he'd been transferred to this precinct following his move, but... what he did remember of those meetings didn't paint a pretty picture for sure.

Being a truancy officer had been what he wanted to be for a long time, ever since that one time in high school that one policeman had sat him down, shared a beer with him to just talk about his life. It'd...

It'd really helped him get out of a bad spot in his life, okay?

So yes, he'd always wanted to be like that. Silly, but he'd persisted, and well, here he was. Helping out the community and, more importantly, helping kids that were in a similar situation.

The job wasn't always pretty, and people weren't always grateful, or appreciative, or even not little brats, but really, he'd been just like that, too. He was still proud of what he was doing.

What really got to Jacob, though, were the sad stories. The kids whose parents ought to be taken out behind the barn, to put it like that. And that white-haired kid? All signs pointed towards that, anyways.

He had no idea if she'd told the truth that one time he'd gotten her to talk, but a kid that wandered the street at odd hours, including very late and very early in the day? Wearing the same clothes (that he couldn't quite recall at the moment, weirdly) and reacting by running away, physically assaulting and the like towards meeting an officer?

He just hoped nobody got... grabby... with the kid, even as the sinking feeling in the bottom of his stomach called experience told him otherwise.

Following the girl in a hobbling walk, he soon saw she was going to the park. Dozens of reasons as to why, really, but at least she wasn't running away from him, being so preoccupied with her dirty and obviously patched up plush toy.

Again, nothing unusual.

Inside the park itself, Jacob quickly thought about how to approach without getting kicked again, even if the girl's spunk was objectively amusing, looking on as she kneeled down next to a rocky outcropping, clearly observing something.

That could be his in. Approaching with silent steps, he kneeled down some way to her side, looking at what she was and hopefully giving her enough space she wasn't feeling pressured.

"Hey there again. Are you looking at the flowers?"

Once again, the girl didn't move a muscle in response to his words, her emotionless face being another one of those tells he was always looking out for.

"... Yes?"

"That's great. Would you mind if I did, too?"

Looking at the truancy officer vaguely reminding you of an eager dog wagging its tail, you just sigh and turn back to the weird tentacle plant you aren't quite sure is actually a plant. At least it's small enough only rats and the like are really at risk from it.

"Sure, come along." You're fairly sure he's just going to follow you regardless at this point, so you may as well be around to keep him alive.

Hey, it's one thing to ignore or hurt him because he's annoying, but that doesn't mean you actively want him dead if preventing his death only takes you some minimal effort, given you aren't looking to fight anything for today anyways.

"Alright. So what're we doing?" You imagine that if you were an actual kid, his smile would be encouraging and have you want to share your secrets with him... too bad for him you're fairly sure he'll forget at least half of what will happen for a bit, so fuck him.

"Okay, Puchuu, what can you tell me about this weird plant thingy? Also, will this guy be a problem?" You whisper.

"Chuuh, it is actually an animal, chuh! Using scented lures to catch prey, most likely, chuh. It is magical in nature, most likely a mutation brought about by the influence we are here to investigate. Also, the policeman will likely remember you mumbling to your stuffed toy at most, puchuuh."

"Good to know," you say at normal conversation volume. "What can we tell about this mutative influence?"

"Chuuh, 'mutative Influence, chuh. I like that and am stealing the term. Chuh."

You just silently roll your eyes.

"Puchuuh, it is obviously highly magical, chuh, to let the entire park be filled with mutated plants and animals, as well as increasing the growth rates of all of the same, chuh. Have you noticed? There are a lot of small animals around, birds, rodents, the like, chuuh, and when you look closely, you can see the grass growing higher at a visible rate."

You had actually noticed the former, though you don't usually watch grass grow. "An entirely new ecosystem built off of the already existing one, huh? With the smaller animals serving as prey animals to the new, mutated ones, naturally also requiring a higher population of them."

Taking pictures and notes of and on the rapidly mutating flora and fauna on your smartphone, you get up, prompting Mister Policeman to do the same.

"So... you're interested in biology? Plants and animals, how they interact, that kind of thing?"

"Sure, now shut up." Immediately ignoring him again, you take a look around, following the path that winds the deepest into the twisted park based on just how dark the vegetation surrounding it is. "Chances that path leads towards the source?"

"High enough, chuuh. My suggestion is searching for clues in the surroundings, however, puchuh, else you risk stumbling headfirst into something you are not prepared for."

True enough. Keeping away from what you suspect leads you deeper into some kind of twisted rape-jungle (because of course it will attempt to sexually assault you), you get to investigating the full park.

Which, honestly, might take a bit.

So, as you and the Puchuu noted earlier, there's a whole bunch of mutated plants and animals around, mostly just small stuff, but scattered all throughout the park, and there's a lot of small animals around, most of which are behaving a little weirdly, insofar as they're not running away as soon as they see you.

The officer actually happily remarks on the odd hare or two you get to see, playing his part up in an effort to get an actual reaction out of you, which... you don't give a fuck about. Maybe if you didn't have the Overcity to plunder for food you'd attempt to go hunting here, but as it is, it's just more dirty animals.

One thing of note, though, the trees, while mostly normal on first look, actually bear strange and vaguely worrying fruits up among the treetops, softly glowing in lots of colors when you aren't looking at them directly.

Similarly, there actually are worryingly large ants scurrying around, not exactly what you'd call giant ants or anything (the term of giant insect has a whole new meaning for you), but they and the strangely placid bees are definitely easily twice the size of the kind of insects you'd normally expect to see around.

The most telling thing, though, is what you can hear. Or rather, not hear. Normally, in the middle of a city, you always have lots of sounds going on; cars driving through streets, people moving around making noises, there's always a certain amount of background noise going on. As you walk around and feel your way through the park's magical changes, though, you notice those sounds rapidly becoming a lot quieter, being replaced with what you would normally associate with a forest; animal calls, the rushing of the wind through the leaves...

And yes, you haven't really been inside a forest for any length of time your whole life until you got nearly grilled by a magical girl and repeatedly stabbed by a filthy goblin. Doesn't change the facts, though.

Oh, and the giggling. Feminine giggling. That somehow echoes through the trees and can be heard in the wind when you're very, very quiet and strain your ears just so.

This is, uh, definitely telling you something, you just have no idea what. Luckily enough, you have a handy Puchuu on your head.

"Chuuh, from the looks of it, this might be an earth spirit, chuh, or a fertility spirit. They warp the land around themselves, puchuuh, and are often worshipped by even mundanes under the right circumstances for the bounty they bring, puuchuh, so long as a magical has conveyed their name in some way. So long as they are handled right, they are not dangerous, and as such you are not required to defeat them as long as they are nonhostile, chuh. Weird for one to be in the middle of the city, chough. They tend to slowly change their environment to better suit their nature, but can take months or years to become actively dangerous, chuuh. If something reshapes the environment rapidly enough to be a serious problem within days or less, chances are an Emergency is about to be declared, puchuuh."

"What, precisely, do you mean when you say 'handled right'?" Details, Puchuu, they are important.

"Chuh, could be anything from saying its name at a certain time one day a week, could be ritual worship, could be coming by and chatting every now and then, puchuuh. Hard to tell, but just asking them might be enough to find out, chuh. Might also not, but it's chuh easiest way."

"So I will probably have to go and try and talk to it," you nod. "Any... gifts or bribes I could bring whatever it is may like?"

"Chuh, if it's an earth spirit, rare stones and minerals are things they like to gather and keep, and for fertility spirits... fertilizer, maybe? Chuuh." You'll just take that as it having no idea, then.

"What about all these glowing fruits? Any idea what might happen if we feed this guy," you say, tilting your head towards the police officer, "one of them?"

"Puchuuh, they could be some kind of transformative, chuh! Or they could make him explode. Maybe both! You could try it out, chuuh. Probably best not to handle them yourself, chough, until you find out more through a guinea pig of some sort first, chuh."

Well, that's that. Honestly, having a Puchuu around to help explain stuff you don't know to you is incredibly nice.

The walk to the old and abandoned hospital takes a bit, which is mostly annoying because the police guy is still following after you, briefly making you wonder whether it's alright for him to just follow around random kids all day, though he seems to call it in at some point, so you'll just chalk it up to the police just not being what it used to be.

Still, as you're apparently stuck dealing with this guy... "Hey, what's your name?"

With a smile that threatens to hurt your cheeks, he seeks eye contact you immediately deny. "I'm Jacob. How about you?"

"Jacqueline, but just call me Jackie." There, that's formalities out of the way. Stretching up a hand, you begin petting your Puchuu as you continue. "Do you often find suspiciously normal little girls wandering the streets at odd hours around here, Mister Jacob?"

The guy gets an odd look on his face as he visibly mulls your question over. "Not that I can recall, at least none that remind me of you. Kids are around all the time, of course, and I talk to them as a matter of course, but none ever go around with the same sense of purpose. Not that you're weird because of that, of course!"

Mhm, so he doesn't seem to have seen any obvious magical girls, then. Or if he did, the veil scrambled his brain enough he can't remember, which amounts to the same for you.

Ah well. "Do you like this?" You ask your Puchuu as you continue petting it.

"I do receive a small amount of enjoyment from it, yes," it answers. "Comparable to stretching out a slightly tiring limb for you."

"I see."

"Hey, um, where are we going, exactly?" Jacob asks, obviously having noticed you're slowly nearing city limits by this point, the brisk pace you're going at melting through streets and sidewalks.

"There's an old hospital outside the city proper," you tell him. "We're going there to take a look around. It's suspicious."

Jacob just gulps, but goes along silently all the same... though he does keep a hand near his police radio.

Honestly, note to self, figure out transportation for targets this far away. Within the city itself, you can usually either walk or get a bus or subway pass if you absolutely have to, once you organize some normal money for yourself (which you only now realize you haven't even bothered with), but in cases like this, you basically spend half the time you have planned in just to get there and back.

Still, you're here, Jacob trailing behind you only slightly out of breath from all this walking, standing before the dilapidated hospital surrounded by wilderness on both sides, a smaller side street leading the way towards it. It's really pretty much a dead end, its only purpose having been to let people access this place at some point in the past.

"So, uhm, you aren't going to actually go inside, are you?" Jacob asks. "That's, illegal, trespassing, yes."

"Ignore him, chuuh. Time to get some eyes on whatever is releasing this magical aura, puuh."

The hospital, as was easily visible from the distance, is pretty completely scrapped by this point, windows either boarded up or missing entirely, the walls whipped by the wind and bleached by the sun, not to mention rain and storms... It's a solidly built building, make no mistake, but the sheer disrepair is rather obvious.

Somewhat more importantly, you also keep an eye out for anything unusual... and find it almost immediately. "Traces... can't tell whether they're footprints or something else, but someone or something has been around here a lot."

And indeed, the earth immediately around the concrete circling the actual hospital itself is completely loose, as though a great mass of people had walked over it repeatedly, or, for that matter, something much heavier than people just a few times.

"Huh, you're right," Jacob says, looking at his surroundings in a new light. "You still can't go inside though, alright?"

You ignore him.

Following the circumference of the hospital, it doesn't take you long to find the obvious; part of the wall is simply... collapsed, broken entirely and leaving a sizeable hole granting access to the inside to anyone that wants it.

Interestingly, though... "This was done from the inside," you say, pointing out the obvious and picking up a brick. "The rubble fell outwards, rather than into the building, and the trail we've seen around is concentrated around here."

"Mhm... You were right, the hospital is suspicious. I should probably call this in, have the precinct send a patrol to take a look-"

"Useless," you interrupt him.

"What? Why?"

Ignoring Jacob's confused questions, you turn towards the Puchuu still on your head. "Any thoughts so far? Should we head inside?"

"Chuuh, obviously one or several heavy monsters, chuh, with no discernible uniform footprint. Strong, too, to have done this, and coming from inside, chuh... Several possibilities, but few that produce this much easily sensed mana, chuuh. Yes, a closer look will be necechuhly."

"Well," you say as you begin to step onto crumbling stones, "you probably shouldn't come along. It'd be bad for a policeman to break the law."

And with that, you're inside, the light of the only now setting sun warming your back for a moment before darkness embraces you, Jacob still hot on your tail despite your warning. "Look, kid, there's obviously something fucky going on here, and if you thought I'd let you walk right into it all by yourself, you got another thing coming."

Well, his prerogative, you suppose. "Just keep your gun ready."

He gulps, but does as you say, one hand never straying from where he's got his weapon holstered. Good.

If whatever it is attacks you, he might actually annoy it enough to be a decent distraction, if nothing else. Then again, bullets are a pretty good equalizer, even with magic in play; that hobgoblin you fought, at least, would certainly have felt a good burst of gunfire.

Keeping to the ground floor for now, you keep an eye out for anything unusual, but... honestly, the hospital's insides are just about completely devastated, almost as though a huge creature without a single care for the furniture inside had repeatedly pulled itself through hallways too small to fit it.

Newsflash, it probably did.

Engaging your trusty flashlight app (and hell, you really should look into getting yourself an actual flashlight, or a lantern or something), you proceed to lead your little expedition through the dark, abandoned hallways, occasionally peeking into equally empty rooms. The whole place still vaguely stinks of disinfectants, that typical hospital smell stuck inside the walls and clinging to everything inside.

Occasionally, though, you can see something that may or may not point towards the monster you're dealing with here; body parts. More specifically, body parts that were torn off or left behind, scattered here and there in the generally depressing area, a few teeth or bushels of hair here, a discarded fingernail or chunk of rotting meat there.

Jacob, of course is freaked out extremely, repeatedly asking you to leave in hushed whispers.

When it happens, it happens fairly suddenly, from one moment to the next. First you're exploring the creepy hospital, next you realize that the hallway right behind you is filled with something huge, stinky and moving.

"Cho need to panic, but I have found the monster, chuuh," the Puchuu says, moving around atop your head until it faces the direction of your back. "Chuh, it should be safe to keep on walking, puuh."

"What's up, kid?" You kind of want to hit Jacob for speaking so loudly.

"Shut up and come along," you say at your normal volume as you do your best to figure out how to navigate back to the hole in the wall without backtracking directly.

Once more leading the way, it doesn't take long until you pass by increasingly distressing kinds of smells wafting in from nearby rooms, the need to gag only overshadowed by the need to get out of this place. Jacob, of course, is under no such limitations, freely keeping a hand over his mouth and nose and being harshly pulled along every time he tries to stay in one place.

You do notice, however, that the thing following you slows down when you slow down by the sounds it keeps making, even going so far as to stop when you stop, so you stop angrily tearing at his sleeves and just let him take his time.

"What... What's in there?"

"Judging by the smell," you say, relieved about your outwardly complete emotionlessness letting you fake being alright with this, "probably rotting bodies. Or body parts, really."

"What do you think happened in here?"

"Chuuh, simply chut, the creature following you can add or remove bodies to itself, so what you are smelling is probably its stock of parts left in its lair in case it needs any on the fly, puchuh."

"... An insane serial killer is kidnapping people in the area and bringing them here to kill them and probably defile their bodies?"

May as well determine the general thrust of the veiled memories Jacob is no doubt already developing yourself, after all.

"Really? How did you know?"

"I told you the hospital was suspicious. It is in the same general area as several recent disappearances and serves perfectly as a hideout for all sorts of unsavoury individuals," you 'explain', actually using true facts to make this make sense the way you want it to. "So I came to investigate. I do this all the time."

Luckily, you're spared the need to keep talking about this and probably fucking it up by the light of the sun, halfway set as it might be, starting to light up the hallway ahead. You fucking made it!

"Come on!" Grabbing Jacob's hand and physically dragging him outside, you run as fast as you can, breathing in deep lungfuls of air once you're finally outside the hospital. Looking back, finally, you see the creature that has simply been following after you at the exact same pace you've been taking this entire time, shifting and moving in the dark.

"A flesh horror, chuh. It starts out as many bodies that died of different causes left improperly buried in one place, chuuh, twisting and combining into one another. If chu thought what it does to dead bodies is bad, you haven't seen it with a living one, puchuh. They dislike the sun, howechuh."

Following your gaze, Jacob, too, turns around... staring slack-jawed at the creature barely visible in the light of the setting sun.

"What... what is that?"

"Insane serial killer, as I said!" Ignoring his protests, you push Jacob to the side, just barely dodging half a receptionist's counter as it flies from the inside of the hospital, thrown with significant force and throwing up a little fountain of dirt where it impacts.

The flesh horror chooses this moment to screech, its voice an accumulation of several death rattles and screams, making your teeth itch as you hastily gather up Jacob, dragging him to safety.

"Please- what- that was one fucking psycho!" And yes, it looks like the veil's kicked in, even as a bent hospital bed's frame is thrown out of the opening inside the wall.

"Yes, now come on, we have to get back into the city." And hopefully far enough from this place that thing can't track you down once night falls. Preferably with you securely tucked away inside the Overcity.

By the time you are finally within city limits and reasonably sure the flesh horror thing won't manage to track you down, the sun is almost completely down, not that you are about to waste time waiting for it to disappear behind the horizon entirely and thereby seal your way back 'home'.

The police officer, Jacob, is currently busy swinging between hysterical mentions of calling in the entire precinct and gunning down the insane serial killer he remembers facing (though he doesn't put it like that, apparently still looking out for your sensitive kid ears) and being confused as to what even happened today, the veil outright erasing large swathes of his memory.

The Puchuu told you it would be just fine, that this isn't anything particularly new by any measure. You'll just have to go ahead and trust it.

Then again... you could look into unveiling this guy, couldn't you? There has to be a way to trick that whole thing into allowing mundanes to stop being mindfucked all the time.

Eh, maybe another time. Jacob seems nice and all, but you are kind of at a point where you need to concentrate all your time and energy to avoid being killed and/or worse on the regular.

So for the time being, you just very slowly tell the policeman to go home and forget about his day as you wander off. What happens next is honestly up to him, you have stuff to do. Stuff like walking through what should be a solid wall and emerging from another one in the ever oppressively silent Overcity.

And taking a good, long shower after everywhere you've been to today. And dinner. You haven't eaten all that much, come to think of it; you were just pretty damn busy all day.

Once that's all done and you're changed back into your nonmagical girl form, using your mysterious powers of clothing creation to put on a fluffy pajama (shut up, you liked those since you were a guy), all you really have the energy for is slowly drinking a bunch of water while you read a few of the e-books you downloaded while you were in the real world.

Man, this is the life. Oh, you gotta remember to ask the Puchuu more about that whole flesh horror thing at some point, too... though maybe not today.

Way too much twisted, naked flesh melting into itself for one day already.

"Chuuh, what have you been doing so far today, chuh?" The Puchuu, in its usual abrupt manner, jumps onto the table you're eating lunch on.

"Mostly been working on my magic and taking it easy," you reply once you swallow a mouthful of food. "As I should avoid overhunting, apparently, I have some time to put into it."

"It's your life to live, puchuuh," it says with its best approximation of a shrug.

"Also, question. You mentioned the monster we saw yesterday was a flesh horror, right? Could you tell me more?"

"Chuuh, flesh horrors are a kind of undead rising from unburied corpses in close proximity, chuh, as I mentioned at the time. They have to die of different causes and be left undisturbed for a length of time dependent on various factors I will not go into, chuh. Once they start moving afchuh they fuse into one big body, they seek to gather more corpchuhs, adding to themselves."

"Why didn't it attack us, then? It was just... following us for a while there, until we left the hospital," you ask.

"They're quite insane, chuuh, even moreso than many other undead created through similar means. Hard to predict their behachuh, is all. Chuh they do prefer to go after dead meat for assimichuhton, living prey is usually swallowed to perform sexual acts with, puchuh."

"... Sex. How?"

"Chuuh, where did chuh think all the sexual organs from the bodies that make it up go, puuh? Its insides are made with that specific purpose, chuh, the only thing one can expect them to do is capturing people to stuff inside themselves until they expire, chuh."

Huh. Isn't that just lovely.

"Somehow, I have lost a bit of my appetite," you say, idly thinking you're mostly done eating anyways. The rest of your simple meal, rice with chicken and vegetables, can wait until you're back. "I'll just go explore the Overcity for a bit, maybe map out our surroundings."

"Pupuh, just don't expect any maps to be reliable, chuh. The Sprawl is notoriously hard to navigate, chuh, and the same way can lead you to different or only seemingly identical places depending on when, how or even through what other approaches chuh take it."

Mhm. Still could mean you'll find something new, though.

Well, if you've learned one thing, it is that your magical perception is coming in handy at every opportunity that has to do with the Overcity. You actually can see the ways different places, streets, builds, are connected, how and when to go where to arrive in new areas.

Most of them you have explored aren't really that different from the alternate versions of adjacent streets you've already seen, just with slightly different buildings and such. One particularly interesting find, though, is the little pink bike you found just standing near a fence, propped up by fittingly colored training wheels, to boot.

You carefully take a look around and even wait for a few minutes, but it does seem like it's just one of those things the Overcity created to fill itself up. Meaning... free salvage for you!

Though you'll have to take those training wheels off later. You can ride a bicycle perfectly well, thank you very much.

Honestly, you think the Puchuu kind of had a point when it essentially told you to go get a life, even if you refuse to acknowledge it. Not to put too fine a point on the whole thing, but you have been kind of holding up in the Overcity for two days and it's already starting to wear on you.

It isn't anything that bad, but this pervasive sense of silence except for anything you are doing is... not excrutiating, just exhausting. You've eaten an easy twenty bars of chocolate just today, and you aren't sure your reserves can take this level of abuse for much longer.

You've been scavenging more food in the evenings, but unpleasantly little of your spoils are of the chocolatey kind. At least you're making good progress on outfitting yourself with a better arsenal of spells and some nice runic defenses to be carried on your person? Though the ice golem idea is pretty hard to put into practice, honestly. Turns out conjuring ice and keeping on moving it isn't the easiest thing in the world.

Well, you've gotten the last few bits of preparation you really wanted to work on done, or are about to, anyways. You did find that bicycle, after all, and you feel you would be remiss not to add a few runes to it, at least; some small way to take ownership of it, for lack of a better word.

Well, that and actually imbue it with some kind of tangible improvement. That would be nice, too. By the time you're done, you will be... the coolest kid on the block?

You sigh. Honestly, you aren't a real kid, and you aren't sure you ever will be. Either way, time to see what you can do with this thing.

Well, it's really more of an idle project for now, using your ice to carve thin lines along the main body of the bicycle, but it's actually surprisingly fun, turning the mundane little thing into... a non-mundane little thing.

The runes you put on it don't actually do much of anything as they are, they just mark this bike as magical enough it should be falling under the veil, kind of like you running around in your magical girl dress. People (that aren't magical themselves, anyways) should just outright ignore it, by and large, or at least forget it frequently enough to have the same effect.

Now then, time to take this thing out for a ride. You still have to take a closer look at that park, after all.

The way to the park doesn't take all that long, and so you soon disembark from your new ride, making sure to leave it standing stably. You did, after all, remove those training wheels from it.

Leaving that whole situation aside, you take a moment to enjoy the sheer background noise of the city before you enter the lush space full of greenery, replacing the sounds with the vaguely jungle-like emanations of the mutated flora and fauna to be found within.

You don't really notice any concrete evidence it's getting worse compared to the last time you were here, not that you really expected to see any of that; the Puchuu did mention that kind of thing takes long periods of time to really change.

Still, this time around you're actually getting to the bottom of this. Time to get into the deepest part of the park and confront whatever spirit is behind this, see what their deal is and if you can make one.

Stepping foot onto one of the paths you avoided last time, you don't take long to get deeper into the mutated park, the sheer density of the overgrown plants and animals growing as you go on. At some point, the path stops being an actual path altogether, resembling more of a dirt path trampled into the earth by many people walking along it, the grass and whatever may skitter around inside it simply taking over the whole area.

The subtly glowing fruits along the treetops do not remain among the treetops only for long, branches laden heavily with round and sometimes vaguely suggestive fruits bending under their burdens. The smaller plants, too, do not remain innocuous as you go along; almost tentacle-like roots and vines wind around trees and seem to be reacting to your presence, twitching and seemingly stretching towards you as you go.

Creepy.

Still, you follow the vaguely feminine giggles and laughter you can hear on occasion as you intrude deeper into the heart of the affected space, eventually arriving at a clearing of some sorts, possibly having served as a resting area of some kind at some point before; you can still see the little benches and desks once freely available in this place, now overgrown with green.

In the center a true abomination of plant live pushes itself out of the ground, wet petals dripping with fluids opened to reveal a toothy maw, some... stamen or pistils or whatever these plant things are called waving from the middle of it, another pair of vines sporting smaller mouths hissing into the air below it.

You do have a distinct suspicion as to why this thing is so very wet and fleshy; as you came upon this clearing, a feminine figure, most likely the originator of those giggles, is rising from where it sat upon this whole thing, all in white with several shades of green giving it contrast, creating images of vines and thorns along its body even as a long, thick and sinuous tail actually seems to grow into a plant of some kind and the vaguely catlike ears perk and twitch in your direction. Its long hair, white as most of its body and braided with the help of a thin and branching piece of grey wood, moves as it twists itself to look backwards at you.

Oh, and the booty. This thing has a very grabbable ass.

"Oh my, a visitor!" A voice like wind rustling through leaves and grass, like wet wood shifting in the breeze. "And a seeing one to boot."

Well, time to get all talky about this, then. Can't be that hard, right? You do it all the time, after all.

"Hello. My name is Jacqueline Frost. Could I ask for yours?" Holy shit, your whole emotionlessness shtick makes you sound awkward now that you pay attention to it.

"Hm, a name, yes? How about... Viridis? It sounds close enough." Great, so she just made up a name. Probably didn't actually have one before you asked, too.

Trying (and failing) to look away from her ass, you consider how you should proceed. "What might you be doing here?"

"I exist," comes the immediate answer, the plant-cat-woman thing stretching and pushing out her ass even more. "I grow, as all things do."

Huh. So... you can probably work with that. "Do you know what exactly you might be?"

Viridis just tilts her head. "I am me."

Great.

"What is growth, to you?" You ask. Kind of important to clarify that. At Viridis' confused look, you try to make it clearer. "When you say grow, do you mean nature expanding and proliferating?"

"Yes. Growth." Mhm, it's clear she's confused you didn't get it immediately. "How about you? Why did you come here?"

Phew, that's kind of a loaded topic, so how do you put it... "I came to take a look who was growing everywhere. If I needed to do something about it."

"Oh?" Viridis shakes out her tail, waving it to her left and right and doing... interesting things, to her behind in the process. "Do you?"

"I'm not sure."

Right, time to get to the meat of the matter. "Could you... restrain your growth? Concentrate it into a smaller area somehow? I just need to make sure you don't hurt any humans, aside from that I am all for growth."

"Hn." Biting her lip, Viridis steps in place for a moment. "I could do it... but it would be hard." Giving you a look, she nods. "Not for free."

Great, that means you could probably figure something out. "How about relocating? Moving somewhere else? I know a place you could grow freely, with giant insects that would likely make for good fertilizer if your plants can defeat them."

"I just put down roots," Viridis pouts. "Pulling them out and putting them somewhere else would take so long and be so exhausting."

"But that's not a no," you point out. "What could I do to make it worth your while?"

Viridis, upon being asked, fully turns towards you, stalking in your direction as her hips sway just as much as her tail, her perky breasts on full display. Kind of getting tight in those leather panties you're wearing here...

"You smell like a fertile female no matter how small you are, but you also smell of virility. Of lots of maleness." Why thank you plant cat person, you like being called male. "If you want me to keep my growth in this place alone, you have to fuel it." Bringing her tail around, Viridis uses it to hide her dark green groin, licking her lips as she looks down at you. "Fertilize me so I can grow in this place, and I promise you the fruits of your labour will be only yours, to do with as you wish."

Leaning down, she whispers in your ear. "And I promise they will be delicious."

You are very horny all of a sudden, especially as you haven't touched your added penis ever since you first got it and this is a very sexy nature or fertility or whatever spirit, but you persevere despite the pressure under your dress demanding to be released. "And to relocate?"

"Lots of effort, so lots of effort for you, too," Viridis harrumphs. "Humans have this thing called fertilizer. They used to bring it here a lot before the growth came. Bring me lots of it, and fertilize me every day, and let my growth fertilize you every day until I take roots again. Maybe."

Well, someone clearly doesn't like the prospect of being replanted, huh? Also, uh, you really aren't sure you like the sound of some of what she's saying there. Then again, you could probably get her to give you whatever 'fruits of your labours' she was talking about afterwards, too, so long as you keep sticking it into the pretty plantcat.

It honestly just sounds like a very big investment of time and effort on your part to cart loads of actual fertilizer to the place you want your personal fertility deity to grow, which is... fair, you suppose. It's just... are you really going to have sex in the body of a kid? With a wolf penis? And possibly let those plants of hers at your other unmentionables?

Because that's what the second option comes down to. First one's still a little iffy, but very much something your hindbrain is pushing towards.

So, this... This is a pretty big step, to say the least. You've been avoiding thinking about it, but you are a little girl right now. One that seemingly anything and everything is trying to get its dick(s) wet in. You are very much not comfortable with the prospect of getting anything near your more delicate parts on broad principle.

On the other hand, though... You take a look around. This... dryad-nature spirit thing is actually pretty powerful if it can just spread its power through the park and change it like this. Simply putting her foot down and declaring 'All Is Growth'. It's...

It's the kind of power you want to have. And to have under your influence. Not to mention, once Viridis is in the Overcity, with her apparent dislike of moving the center of her power around, she would make for a natural ally and defense system, depending on how powerful she can be in her area of influence. Just the kind of thing you could use to ensure the giant bugs will have a bitch of a time actually counter-attacking when the time comes.

So that's the benefits. A powerful ally and potential access to a rich not quite natural bounty, the details of which you can hash out at a later date. What are the costs, the drawbacks?

Starting small, the fertilizer thing. That would be kind of a pain to organize; you would have to either figure out how to get enough money to buy a few sacks' worth of fertilizer at minimum or else just steal the stuff somehow. Which would be the thing stressing you out about this, normally, but as it stands, it's honestly an afterthought.

Tapping that booty is an instant yes. Like, if you were in your old body, you wouldn't even hesitate, and even with your current configuration, it's a no-brainer. The issue is that she wants to get at exactly what you were agonizing about earlier.

So it all comes down to... Are you willing to do this in exchange for access to more power? And a beautiful cat-woman plant spirit creature willing to essentially move in with you and hopefully alleviate the issues you've been having just living in the Overcity?

All at the low, low cost of you letting her do... that while you fuck her?

... Fuck it. You've had weirder girlfriends in college and that's the story you're sticking to.

"If I do this, getting everything you need to move," you finally say after the somewhat longer silence you didn't realize you let the conversation turn into as you open your eyes, "how does that work? I go and get the fertilizer, then I bring you over to the new place?"

"Better if you already prepare the soil," Viridis nods. "Mix the tasty fertilizer into the soil and bring me there, then we can start. I will bring the growth I need and we can start."

"Any time limitations? Do I have to hurry?"

Viridis just tilts her head. "Do it during daytime?" Right, no real understanding of time as it is. One thing off your chest at least- you can... prepare yourself?

However you'll do that, anyways.

"Will need lots of growth to prepare, too," she continues to grumble, her cat-like tongue flicking onto her lips for a scant moment. "Would you like to feed me a little of your own 'fertilizer'?"

Honestly, after this bout of internal angsting and all the associated stuff, a blowjob or something does sound exactly like what you need. "I would like that. How-"

Your question about the exact logistics of getting frisky with Viridis is stopped by the woman simply bending down to pick you up, promptly turning towards the overgrown desks you noted earlier.

Being the size of an actually grown person, she can simply set you down on one of them, the uneven surface (on account of the plants growing all over it) taking a bit to get used to.

The damnably short front of the skirt of your magical girl outfit, on the other hand, doesn't take Viridis any time to flip around as she smirks at you, sinking down to her knees as she begins fiddling with your leather panties.

"Any layer between me and what's under this is one too many," she playfully grumbles while drawing a thumb over the bulge now painfully obvious through the material before finally tugging them down entirely, yourself raising your hips for a moment to let her.

As your glowwolf cock bounces out, the tapered tool already engorged and softly glowing, Viridis just smiles even more, a surprisingly delicate hand wrapping around the sensitive flesh. "Oh my, what an impressive manhood you were hiding under there~!"

"I, hah, took it from a monster I defeated," you explain, gasping at her careful, but firm touch as she feels it up from the tip to the top of the knot, the light of which lightly flares when her fingers rub against it.

"I can see that. You are lucky I know aaall about creatures of nature..." And with that, Viridis licks along your tip before taking it into her mouth, her soft lips and hot tongue feeling like heaven on your stolen meat as her hands home in on your other equipment, nudging your legs open a little wider to get access to your glowing knot and hanging balls, firmly squeezing and rubbing the former even as she gently massages the latter.

You almost immediately feel the urge to rut into her mouth with all your strength, but manage to hold yourself back, just performing a few short thrusts as she takes your length deeper and deeper, the feelings along your entire... toolset, just damn incredible, and once Viridis properly gets to bobbing her head and letting your wolf cock glide down what has to be her gullet, entering her tight, rhythmically constraining throat, you come, her green fingers scritching your knot and really driving you crazy.

Your fingers tangling in her white hair as you shoot spurt after spurt of semen right into her stomach, aware your mouth is hanging open but unable to master yourself, hanging slack as Viridis' expert tongue and mouth make sure to milk any and all leftover cum before, finally, releasing you.

Look, this is literally the first time someone other than you is touching this cock, describing your previous situation as blueballed just doesn't do it justice.

"Mmm, that was tasty," the sexy plantcatgirl says as she begins... grooming your cock? Licking it, anyways, making sure to get every inch with her just slightly rough tongue. "I could tell how much you wanted to ram all of it into my mouth, lock me up with your big~ bad~ knot~... Next time, maybe? Using it properly can be your reward for the fertilizer... Oh, and you just look so cute like this! I had no idea you could even make any other face, but here you are!"

You'll just... take a moment, okay?

Viridis' cat ears a little as you can reach them from your current position, much to her bemused acceptance.

Still, you are kind of on a timer here, considering your portal 'home' closes once the sun finishes going down, which is liable to happen... soon-ish, so you take far from as long as you'd like before you get going again, marching your way out of the park with your panties back in place and getting on your little pink bike.

The way is fairly quiet, giving you a moment to contemplate even though you decide you've made your choices and don't need to cycle through them a dozen times without getting anywhere new, and you even see Jacob again, the policeman scrunching up his face when he sees you and looking as though he's trying to remember something... so you just drive around him, not looking forwards to roughing it on some rooftop overnight.

Still, you make good time and curve straight into your alley and through the wall, not so much as stopping during the transition, and soon lean your bicycle against your base's fence, coming home where your Puchuu is already waiting for you.

"Chuhcome home, chuh," it squeaks. "How were things in the park?"

"Funny story, that," you deadpan.

Relieving yourself through a slightly glowing wolf penis is still... weird, but you aren't exactly going to complain, now more than ever. Instead, finishing up on your morning routine and seeking out breakfast, you find your Puchuu waiting for you in the kitchen, sitting on the table.

"Chuhg morning, Jackie, chuh," is all it says, looking perfectly content to just stay as it is and silently observe you as it sometimes does.

"Morning," you mumble without inflection, having gotten used to just not showing emotion more often than not. Actually, well, now that it's here already...

"I had a few questions, if you don't mind me asking." You were pretty tired yesterday, as you usually are when coming home (curse kids' bodies and their need for lots of sleep), but you do remember outling the general idea of your prospective deal with Viridis- not to mention you really should get to talking with the Puchuu at some point.

"I can't promichuh any answers, but asking is free," it answers, prompting you to pull out your smartphone with a nod.

You did, after all, take notes on anything relevant. Your own thoughts included.

"First off, since it is somewhat important for my immediate future, how do magical girls that don't have powers directly inclined towards doing so fly?" Those earth eaters would be much easier to ambush if you didn't have to walk, after all.

"They don't, chuuh," is the disappointing answer. "Some girls simply do not fly. The majority of them do, in fact, not, puchuh."

You close your eyes for a moment. "Let me rephrase that. Is there any way you would recommend as to how I, personally, would fly or otherwise move around without being in direct contact with the ground?"

"Puchuuh, as chuh are aligned to ice, chuh could probably create ice platform to walk on, chuuh. It may take some practice, howechuh. Using your magic to move it would let you achuh something that might be counted as flight depending on your definition, puuh. Another idea would be moving that ice armor chuh can make, but I do not recommend it- that way lie broken limbs and sudden falls, chuchuchuh," it says, launching into one of its ranting little monologues.

"Next question," you say before it can continue, "how does the whole... Puchuu thing work? Is there anything I should look out for?"

"Puchuuh, Puchuus are... complicated," it sighs. "The equivalent to office politics with magic thrown in, chuh. Suffice to chuh, I have my fair share of enechuhs, so if you ever meet another puchuu, make sure to avoid them until I told chuh what to do."

"Does that relate to you preferring to have only a single magical girl at a time?" You didn't miss it literally made sure the first one was dead before turning you. Who can say how many others came before that?

"More a matter of rechuhlations, chuh," it explains. "I will not pretend most of this chuhpid chit isn't secret, chuuh, but suffichuh to say making a second girl while already having one comes with... affadivits. Issues. Chuh would not believe the kind of paperwork... chuuh. It would leave me busy for a while, chuh, and I would still have certain quotas to fill, puuh, that I can not discuss closer as is. Not a good chuhoice without a solid setup, puchuh."

That is both worrying and strangely reassuring, then. "So to clarify, this whole city counts as your, and by extension my, turf? We don't have to worry about other Puchuus moving in or something in that direction?"

"Not unchuuh there are consistently more monsters than we can be expected to deal with, chuh, or politichuhs that I will not elaborate on work out that way. Which is possichuh."

Great. Actually, while you're at it... "I didn't want to mention it because it seems rude, but... do you have to say 'chuh' or some derivative all the time?"

"Company policy, chuuh. I hate it as much as chuh."

As you talk to the Puchuu, you naturally keep yourself busy around the kitchen, using a little stool of conjured ice to reach the stove and scramble the eggs you're currently looking forwards to eating. That said, you're mostly on autopilot- now that you've begun asking, the questions don't exactly stop.

You also give the Puchuu a pat on the head. Nobody should have to deal with that kind of company bullshit.

"So if I were to capture a Puchuu that I were to find- coincidentally within the city- and deliver it to you, what would happen?"

"Depends on who they are, puchuuh. Worst case, I would ask chuh to release them. Best case, I would offer chuuh a couple bronze coins to have a talk with them. Not as permanent of one as I would like, chuuh, Puchuus cannot be killed like that, and keeping them locked up for too long would have... consequences... but it would inconvenience them." Walking in a tight circle and waving its long tail, the Puchuu gives you its best approximation of a nasty grin. "Greatly inconvenience them. Puchuus also can't feel pain normally, but that I can work around."

Cheery and full of happiness, that's how you like your little ball of spit and vinegar. "So to summarize, if I meet another magical girl, I try to get out of there and talk to you?"

"Yes, chuh. They likely will not attack chuh, but magical girls have been known to kill each other on occasion, chuuh, and their Puchuus are normally not blamed unless they were really blatant about arranging it, puchuh. Either way, most Puchuus take a very heavy hand in controlling their girls, as they are their only and most convenient source of information on the magical world, chuh see? Easy to control how they see things that way, puuh."

Not that your Puchuu was any different right when you met it. You can see it happening- especially with actual kids- when you consider yourself just after you first changed. "How about Veridis, then? I remember telling you about the possibility of replanting her here in the Overcity, so how likely is it the presence of a mutated forest gets us in trouble somehow?"

"Best case, nobody ever finds our little fold of the Overcity, puchuuh. Best cases never happen, so we should exchuhpt issues with wandering monsters and intelligent intruders, unless we take countermeachuures like putting up signs or similar, I guess." The Puchuu lies down on the table. "I am chuuhre we can figure something out, puchuh."

"And how about the deal in general?" You aren't exactly about to tell it the exact details- those you'll keep to yourself, thank you very much- but it does know what you know about Viridis. "Should I bring her here, in particular, and do you have a better idea about what she is?"

"Puchuuh, reverse order, I am fairly sure chuh encountered a fertility-aligned spirit of nature, chuuh! Only concerned with growing and alien to more 'civilized' concepts, puchuh. It will likely become extremely powerful within its influence over time, chuuh, and be able to command mutated plants and animals. Chuh could have a powerful ally or a perilous foe on chuuh hands. As long as chuh don't piss it off, likely the former- it will understand things like intertwined evolutionary lines and symbiosis, while 'betrayal' is simply not something it will care to consider. If it considers you an enemy, though, chuchuchuh... Either way, it's chuuh decision and chuuh head on the line, puchuh."

You give it a flat stare.

"Aside from that, chuh, if it considers you a source of fertilizer, it will likely expand in your direction either way, chuh, so the only other question is whether we should stay in this base or move, chuuh. It is close to a convenient portal and in walking distance to the one in the insect hive, puchuuh, and we can always expand to the neighboring buildings if necessary, chuuh, so I do not see any reason to do so unless you want to in particuchuh. Puh."

The Puchuu almost seems to spit that last word. "Unless there is anything else?"

Shit, it looks to be really getting annoyed at the verbal tick it has to push into everything... you think. "Just two more quick things," you say, only continuing when it sits down to listen to you. "One, it seems I will have to look into obtaining fertilizer, one way or another, so would you mind helping me figure that out?"

"In the interest of watching an everchuhnging ecolochuhcal system develop, I shall chust have to do it," it says. "The chuhnsors also chuh in harder around complichuhted words, by the way. The ochuh thing?"

"I'm guessing names are another one of those things for Puchuus?"

"We do not have names, chuh" it agrees readily. "No reachuhn for it."

"It's still incredibly exasperating to just think of you as 'the Puchuu', so would you mind if I gave you one?"

"Go ahead, chuh, I don't partichuhlarly mind."

Oh god, all this conversation and you still haven't gotten to eat. Finishing everything up really quickly, you sit down and get to eating lightly browned toast with your scrambled eggs, a glass of orange juice to the side. You really need to get through your eggs.

So, what shall you refer to your Puchuu as?

"You shall henceforth be known as Dr. Brianchuu," you imperiously declare, "or just Brian for short. Does that work for you?"

Because if there's one thing you can't withstand, it is hammy puns and references to good old classic.

"Can I call you-"

"No, you can't," you talk over Brian. "I have no idea what you were about to say, but the name 'Pinky' is reserved for my bicycle."

"Suggeschuhn withdrawn, chuh."

"So," you say, shoveling bits of egg onto your second piece of toast, "I was wondering where you actually sold the monster bodies I left with you. It's one of those 'Minters', as I understand it,but is there, like, some magical marketplace I just did not see around the corner?"

This general unchanging expression and tone is actually great for comedic potential, now that you think about it.

"Company chuhnels, chuh. There isn't enough intelligent magical activity in this dump chuuh have a local one, and unless we get enough traffic, there won't be any passageways chuh an established one," Brian explains.

Annoying, but alright. "I guess I won't get to figure out if I can exchange magical coins for mundane money, then."

"Chuhchuhchuh, of course you can, chuh," it (he?) laughs. "It would be a scam, most likely, but you could. Getting some quick cash is easy enough nobody worth not pissing off is going to bother with it."

"How would most magicals get money, actually?" The question is justified, you'd say.

"Just taking it from mundanes that get veiled hard enough they aren't a problem, chuuh, having access to money from nonmagical sources such as parents or even having a business run through magic on the side, puchuh. It isn't an issue for most."

Haah... "Guess we're either outright stealing the fertilizer or stealing money to buy fertilizer, then," you mumble, drinking the rest of your juice. "Alright, let's go get it done, then."

"That eager to see your fertilichuh spirit again, chuh?" At your wordless glare, Brian flicks his ears at you. "It is fairly obvious what your dealing really is about, puchuuh."

"... To Pinky, Brian. Just follow me to Pinky." And with a quick touch, you make sure you have your magical bag on hand. Would be kind of embarrassing not to, really.

Finding a place that sells fertilizer is, thankfully, really not the issue. The local hardware store has piles of the stuff on hand- selling it for cheap, too, a couple bucks all you need for a sack heavy enough to be a considerable burden to carry for someone without a handy magical bag or some actual muscles on them- so accessibility is guaranteed well enough.

The problem is actually taking it. Having arrived riding on Pinky, you and Brian actually talk about how to do this. The way you see it, you have three realistic choices; one, you conjure a half-mask over your face and hope that's enough to veil a mundane into being too brain-scrambled to remember, then shake people down until you have enough cash to just walk in and buy your damn fertilizer as you ignore the looks people give you for being a little girl doing so.

Option two, you steal it. Go in, stuff a few bags into your magical bag, ferry it outside, repeat until you have enough or someone sees it and makes the connection between you and the disappeared fertilizer. The veil is likely to make that harder for mundanes, but not impossible, and if you do fuck it up, it might get annoying. Still the fastest and easiest way to get this done, though.

Last, but not least, you could go all in. Break into the back of the store and just carry as much fertilizer as you could want outside and hide it before moving it back to the portal, much like the second option. More likelihood of trouble if you're seen in there, but you could also look into stealing some more hardware while you're at it so long as you are not. High risk, high reward, really.

"I think we should put any concerns about things like this to bed permanently, actually," you say with some exasperation as you imagine yourself having to deal with this exact situation again in the future. "Or at least for a year and a day."

"Chuuh, you're using a coin, then?" Brian immediately perks up.

"Better yet, I am using a coin and runes combined," you nod. "All I need is a handy knicknack I can-"

"Here, chuh," Brian says, his tail flicking around and throwing a little black cube down into your hand from where he sits on your head.

"Thanks," you say distractedly as you already measure out the runes you will need for this. "Now all I need is a bit of time and concentration and one of my bronze coins, both of which we have."

The next few hours or so (you really didn't keep count), you insistently stare at each of the sides in sequence, carving a compliacted set of interlocking runes corresponding to parts of each of the other sides' inscriptions. To keep it short, each face of the weirdly easily scratched cube shuts down one part of a person's ability to realize you're there. The effect is weak, neglible even... but combined with the veil?

And especially the bronze you drop onto it, having it slowly dissolve into shining wisps of power that thread themselves into and through the runes you inscribed, reaching into the other sides as intended.

"An interesting design, puchuuh."

Clutching your black little talisman, the swirling lines and designs on it now weakly glowing as you have activated it, you walk into the hardware store, the eyes of everyone inside simply gliding off of you.

Hefting up the first sack of fertilizer and stuffing it into your magical satchel, you nod. This is how it should be. You, taking tribute from everyone else.

Actually carting all of this crap off is going to be kind of a pain, though... Well, time to put in the work, you suppose. You're going to need a lot of fertilizer, and you'd better get too much than not enough.

Truly, this is how it should be. Again. You, simply sitting on your bike as you float along on your platform of ice, also moving your forty bags of fertilizer along as you make your way back towards the location of your portal. It isn't open right now, of course, but you can deposit your load on a nearby rooftop while you go do something else just fine.

It did, of course, take you a while to get the conjuration of flat panes of ice you can levitate at your will down, but now none can inhibit your mighty polar fleet!

Mwahaha!

"Chuuh, this certainly is convenient. Just make chuure not to drop any more of this stuff, puchuh."

No dropping has occurred in the process of using the mighty polar fleet, of course, nor have any of your platforms broken down before you figured out the weight limit of up to three bags at maximum, and any claiming otherwise is a filthy, disgusting liar.

"Just don't start jumping on the things again," you chide your unfaithful companion Brian. "Also, do you have any idea what we can do once we store the fertilizer until the portal opens again?"

"Just walk around and see what we find, puchuh? Unless you want to scout the city for monsters, or try and defeat one, chuuh."

Your loot safely stored away on a rooftop along with Pinky the bicycle, you get back on your flying platform, deciding to do as Brian suggested and just exploring town a little.

That you also desire to keep playing with your fancy new spell is pure coincidence, of course.

Flying over the heads of the common man is... oddly freeing, in a way. Simply gliding along over the cars and pedestrians making their ways through the city, looking down on your lessers and surveying the area, you can feel the kind of freedom your magic offers, the undeniable thrum of power through your cool veins.

This. This is why you didn't complain all that much, in the end, about being turned into a little girl. The indignities, the inconveniences, the functional end of your old life... They were a price you paid. Not necessarily voluntarily, true... but in hindsight, you can't bring yourself to call it a bad call, even beyond the nearly dying if you didn't take the chance part.

It's why you didn't go back to your flat even once, didn't even consider withdrawing cash from your old accounts. The old you is gone, the slate wiped clean; everything that remains is Jackie, and Jackie wants more power. Magic, influence, magical items, coins, underlings- it doesn't matter what form it takes, just as long as it makes her more powerful.

Case in point, she did agree to that whole... thing, with Viridis. And it was a choice she would make again, because it promised her easy access to more power in turn.

Chasing thoughts of your approaching self-inflicted defilement away for the moment, you concentrate on what you were doing. Gliding around on your sheet of ice, Brian having absconded earlier to 'go do somechuh', you simply take your time to enjoy how... normal, for lack of a better word, everything is.

People sitting in that cafe, walking around, talking with each other, traffic jamming like crazy as everyone tries to get home at once, people looking out their windows boredly, a sword growing out of a little park you're passing...

One second.

In a small field of roses, an obviously magical sword is floating, colored and themed appropriately. You refuse to jump off your flying platform, instead steering it over to approach the weapon and staying vigilant for any obvious traps or curses or whatever magical equivalent there might be.

There aren't any, and you decide to stretch out a hand, touching the hilt of the sword. The thorns move themselves as though to accommodate you, and the blade simply tilts over, the grip falling into your hand.

It's... light, moving with your arm easily. Swinging it to the side, you can feel the magic pulsing through it, in steady beats as though emulating a heartbeat.

Instinctively, you push your own magic through it, joining with its beat, and the sword shifts.

The handle, wreathed in thorny vines as it is, elongates, even as the blade grows thinner and longer, the entire weapon's balance changing and moving forwards. The plant-like growths, having been the handguard until now, retreat back to a central point that soon reveals itself to be a blue gem hidden under them, a small whirlpool of water released from inside it and proceeding to flow over the blade in waves, closely coating it before freezing up and creating a pattern of ice.

Within moments, you are holding a once more impressive sword, continually renewed from its core.

It's still feeling perhaps a little lighter to you than it should.

Well, this certainly is something to go show Brian, you're pretty sure he will want to see it. Probingly pulling your magic out of the weapon, an act that ends up futile as it instead requires you to disperse it with a metaphorical twist of the blade to retrieve it, you watch the process reverse, a rose's thorns growing from the cold waters as the ice becomes solid steel again, a fitting pattern emerging on it in short order.

This'll definitely be fun to play around with.

Keeping the sword in its ice pattern for the time being as you feel it fits into your theme and is less likely to display unexpected results this way, you happily glide along, repeatedly raising it towards the sky and watching the reflection of the sun through its cold edges on the way back to the portal, when you actually hear someone addressing you unexpectedly.

"Hey, uh, you up there? You shouldn't play with dangerous things like that."

Okay then. Looks a lot like you've just found your first magical human, as opposed to a magical girl of some sort (aka yourself).

Staring at the girl blandly sitting at the bus stop you're passing, you blink once. "It's fine. I often handle much worse than a sharp object."

"... that's good, I think?" She is, very clearly, completely out of her depth here. Moreso than yourself, anyways.

It's a nice feeling.

"So I assume you do not usually see girls floating along on ice platforms around here," you go out on a limb.

"... I don't, no. Did I miss that in the weather report or something?" She asks with a raised eyebrow.

You keep down a sigh. "I am further guessing you tend to see things nobody else does and peope are confused when you ask about them. Such as the flying girl nobody except you is reacting to."

Her eyes (which you only now really realize are red) narrow. "What about it, Little Miss Hallucination?" She hisses.

Oh great.

"Since when did you start 'hallucinating'? Is it something you have always done, or a recent development?" Brian mentioned something about this at some point, but like fuck if you can remember everything he told you about a topic you assumed wouldn't become relevant anytime soon.

"I would assume you would know, seeing as you're just a fraction of my mind or something, but I've been seeing weird stuff around town for a few months now," she says, looking around suspiciously.

"You've noticed it already, haven't you?" You ask, interrupting her. "Nobody is reacting to what should be you talking to yourself, even if I was just a hallucination."

"So what? That doesn't prove anything. Could be I'm just hallucinating my own actions right now," she triumphantly says.

Haah...

So... right. On the one hand, you could just leave this girl to herself and probably meet some horrible fate as she refuses to acknowledge reality despite actually being able to perceive it (in contrast to all the mundanes)... but on the other hand, she might actually be useful down the line, and you loathe the idea of being wasteful about her.

Now how do you get her into a headspace where she will actually listen to you?

"Right. So if you get on this platform and it carries you away, would it still be a hallucination?"

"Probably, if I'm completely dissociating with reality," she snarks at you.

"If you are, it's probably best to assume everything you're seeing is the actual truth and continue with your life the best you can until you get professional help back in non-braindamaged space," you argue. You actually used to have existential angst and thoughts about this kind of thing- if perception of reality is inherently flawed, how can you say anything you're saying or doing is real? What if it's all just some simulation, and you're nothing more than a simulated brain in an advanced computer or something?

Turns out you actually did have a point in there somewhere. Not that it's doing you much good now that you see the parts of the world just outright erased from everybody's minds. As you told her, just do your best with what you do see, not much you can do about the rest.

"I know what you're doing and- why're you coming closer?" Edging back on her metal seat, the girl eyes you with some trepidation. That you ignore, steering your icy floater to avoid bumping into anything.

Wouldn't want the edges to break off.

"Pulling you onboard," you say, finally (carefully) summoning a scabbard to store your currently icy sword inside with your clothing power, slinging the whole thing onto your back before crawling closer to the edge and reaching out a hand. "If I'm real, you get to fly around right above everyone's heads. If I'm not, no harm done."

Bubblegum girl stares at your hand for a long, long moment. Then she sighs. "Fuck it."

Yelping at the unexpected strength pulling her up, she tries to balance herself as you return to the middle of your conjured ice platform. There's an unpleasant amount of shaking going on with both of your weight all in one place- there's a reason you're sitting or crawling on these whenever you can. "Cold!"

"It's made of ice," you helpfully remind her, getting your method of movement higher in the air again.

"Right, because that makes- woah!" You're starting to wonder if she might be stupid or something, but no, she just keeps trying to stand up to prove she isn't getting any sense of vertigo as she isn't actually rising in the air- except she is, on both accounts.

"Just sit down and enjoy the sight," you say emotionlessly. Not like you ever say anything in any other way these days. "Tell me more about when you started seeing things. Did the red eyes and the marks under one of them show up around then?"

"Ugh..." Doing as she's told, she crosses her legs, mirroring yourself. "For the record, I still don't believe any of this is real. And my eyes were always like this, just the thingies under my left one showed up out of the blue one day. Nobody commented on them, I started seeing hallucinations every now and then. Happy?"

Mhm... "You do realize people's eyes normally are not red? Especially bright, vivid tones of it like yours. Though if they were like this from birth, you probably never questioned that," you talk her through your reasoning aloud.

"Don't get smart with me now, I got that one myself." Probably when she kept looking in a mirror and tried to figure things out.

Watching her inch around the platform and stretch a hand for the edge, you swallow another sigh. Hooking a hand around her waist, you just pull her towards yourself, keeping her in place and pressed against you as you reorient the platform. "Err...?"

"Just hold still." Also, touching someone is nice. You've been constantly on edge whenever you've talked to Brian this past week (though you're getting over that, thankfully) and Viridis was very much a switch from tense negotiations to your brain shutting off, so maybe it's just the human contact you've been missing? "There is actually an explanation for all of this that doesn't mean you are completely insane," you finally say after a long pause as you work through your emotions.

"Really? Because I ain't seeing any," bubblegum girl says snarkily.

"Magic is real. Everything you saw and see is real. Normal people either can't see or rationalize it so hard it hurts," you explain the cliff notes. "Monsters are, too, so be careful of that. Mundane people will react to and run away from them, but as soon as they do not see an active threat, they rationalize everything- just a broken gas line instead of a fireball, or an animal attack instead of a werewolf or things like that."

"Right, and my grandma's the queen of-" You give off a short pulse of freezing cold, enjoying the way her stomach muscles lock up at your suddenly concerning touch.

"We call this the 'veil'," you continue to explain. "You have a bit of magic in you, likely not all that much, but enough to count as just magical enough to ignore it and see more of the world while people still see and react to you."

"See, that sounds like a neat explanation," she says, giving up wriggling out of your supernaturally strong grasp, "but am I really supposed to believe I'm some special snowflake that gets to be this magical girl and crap?"

"Magical girls are very much different from what you are," you say. If you didn't know better, you would say you sound amused. "I would know, given that's what I am. Also, we've arrived."

Lowering everything down into your alley, you turn the platform to let you face the wall. "Arrived where? This looks like- what are you doi- Woah."

The Overcity, in all its alien silence and strangeness, never fails to make a point. "At a superposed hyper-dimension overlaid over modern earth in all ways that matter to it," you explain. And yes, you cribbed that from Brian.

"The pathways to this place can be weird, but the one I usually use is open during dusk and dawn," you explain. "I'm taking you to my place, someone that can tell you more is there."

"Wait, you mean I can't go back?" The girl asks.

"Not until the next time the sun rises." Floating up, you reorient your ride towards where you've made your lair.

"But..." She sighs. "Fuck it, then. Apparently we're way past proving magic is real."

"You can try going through later if you want, it's a five-minute walk." For now, though, you're keeping her isolated from any sense of normality and keeping her dependent on yourself and Brian as the only ones that know how the world really works. That's how cults work, wasn't it?

Or usual magical girldom. Or religions in general, for that matter. Hey, maybe you have a talent for this!

"Why are there a bunch of fertilizer bags stacked everywhere near that building?"

You sigh. "It's a long story."

Even once you arrive and set down, the girl stretching her legs a little after being kept sitting by you for a bit, though, the incredulous questions don't exactly stop. "Welchuuh home, chuh."

"Is that a talking mutilated cat plushie?"

"How rude, chuuh!"

"Meet Brian. He, or rather it, is a Puchuu. They turn people into magical girls."

"Brianchuu, chuh." The little sack of dirt is definitely enjoying this.

"A pleasure?" She asks with a raised eyebrow. "My name's Melanie, Melanie Rubris."

"Oh yeah, call me Jackie. Short for Jacqueline," you remember your own introductions. "Come on in. I found her earlier, she seems to be one of those people that can see through the veil," you explain to Brian. "Along with this."

Bumping the sword out of its sheath as you pull it out halfway, a suddenly very active Brian starts nosing over it. "A self-mutable artifact, chuuh! Good find, put the other one somewhere."

Priorities, man.

You wanted to just cook yourself, conjuring your little ice stool, but Melanie refused to let you, except she had no idea how to actually make food... so it all ended up with you telling her what to do as your ice-cold pokerface masked your mild annoyance at the hoops you're jumping through. She does realize you-

"Do you usually cook for yourself?" She asks as she's watching the ready-made food, the cooking instructions having come down to cutting open the bag and regularly turning the insides.

"Obviously," you agree. "You get used to it when you live alone, and Brian doesn't count."

"Yeah. Yeah, he doesn't," Melanie nods. "So, this is where you live?"

"Empty places inside the Overcity are great to live in if you have a way to find an access point and nowhere else to stay," you explain. "Everywhere comes fully stocked with what you would find in the normal wold, too, so you can just take stuff like food from elsewhere. I restock by taking a long walk in the evening every few days."

Truly, the most superior way to live. Only thing better than free food everywhere would be getting it delivered for free.

"I see... So what do you do as a magical girl all day? Didn't you use to, y'know, live a normal life?" Is the next question.

"Practice with magic, investigate magical stuff, hunt monsters and just play around," you shrug. "I don't really need a normal life outside of this, though Brian told me I should go get a hobby."

Melanie just sighs, though you have something more important to mention. "Hey, pay attention, the food's about to burn."

"Huh? Ah shi- jeez." What, is she trying not to curse in front of you?

"Anyways, I already mentioned it, but make sure to stay away from monsters. They do yucky stuff to people, that's why I fight them." That is what young people call it nowadays, right?

"... Define 'yucky'."

You tilt your head. "The diddle-doo? Getting naked together? D-"

"I hate this and I blame the world and everything in it."

"Mhm." Time for a topic change. "So, what were you doing when I found you? It was pretty late in the day."

"Haah... I was going home after my part-time job, working at a music store. Pay's crap, but I can listen to stuff while waiting, so it's... tolerable." Looks like she's opening up hard in response to getting to know more about you. "Actually, once the night's over, feel free to stay over at my place every now and then, okay? I don't mind."

"Won't your parents have a problem with that?" You ask.

"Nah, mom and dad are totally fine with spontaneous sleepovers. Just gotta tell 'em you're someone else's little sister," Melanie shrugs.

"Food. Attention." You can smell it needing a turn.

"Jee- this is a lot harder than it looks." It really isn't, she just doesn't pay attention.

Having slept together with Melanie after just a bit of convincing (both of you wearing underwear, cuddling up to a teenage body for the night was nice), you get out of bed to sneakily make breakfast.

Downstairs in the kitchen, you find Brian, the Puchuu having been 'busy' in the lab all night, apparently, and your new sword laid upon the table. "Chuuh, I analyzed the sword, chuh. Would chuh like the details?"

"Sure." Setting about doing what you came for, you listen to Brian's explanation.

"The sword can chuhange forms depending on the user, with chutrongly elemental mana allowing for ochuh expressions of its powers. At base, it strikes with chutrong force guided by magic, and can entangle foes with its current form, puchuh. However, when used to destroy or captchuh and dominate an enemy of significhuhnt strength, its powers may grow."

Checking over the spread of cereals you end up just throwing onto the table as free choice, you turn towards Brian again. "Define 'dominate'."

"Chuuh, sechuhally dominate them, puchuh. In fact, doing both may increase the odds of achuhving growth against otherwise chuuh weak enemies- chuhst stab them to death and rapchuh them before they expire." Because of course.

"Thank you, Brian. Very helpful."

"Thanks again for bringing me all the way home," Melanie says as she shows you to the door, having introduced you to her parents as the sister of someone in school, as she mentioned before. They seem like nice people, a bit busy with their jobs, but otherwise fairly normal.

And not a single sign of the slightest drop of magic. Not too surprising, but, yeah. Not really directly hereditary, from the looks of things.

The place she's living in, too, is almost painfully normal- a modest home for one family, somewhere nowhere too close to anything important, but neither too far away, allowing feasible commution to most areas of the city with relatively little issues.

Melanie insisted you come inside and have a look around, but the only real interesting part of the house was her room. Posters of various bands, an old MP3 player and similar music paraphernalia were around, lots of CDs you didn't really have the time to sort through, unfortunately.

She actually pushed an old walkman of hers on you- she has a newer model by now, but she noted how awfully quiet the Overcity is and how you really should have a source of noise around, so you have that now, you suppose.

"It wasn't any trouble," you say despite how surprisingly long it took to do all of this, already in a slight rush if you want to make it back to the passage to the Overcity before it closes. "See you around." And indeed, you likely would, if only because you now have Melanie's number saved on your mysterious smartphone.

The first contact you ever added to it, in fact. She gave you a hug when you told her about that, oddly enough.

As it turns out once you're back home, even with the strength your transformation allows you and copious amounts of ice magic, properly digging a garden is some actual hard work. You need to dig up the earth in the garden behind your appropriated home, spread the fertilizer you stole in every nook and cranny and properly mix it with said earth.

Never let it be said you do not consider gardening an honest living. It involves sweat, hard work and probably way too little pay for anyone to be truly happy with.

You have no idea whther it is your general magical girlness or the regeneration (that yes, you have found is not a universal trait of your kind, but rather a fairly rare ability) you possess, but you don't actually need all day to get the entire area you're working done, even with the regular breaks you take to ponder just how far you're willing to go for freaky sex.

That you're still not entirely happy with, but hey, it's sex.

One of those breaks is where you find out from Brian, having idly asked in an effort to find a reason to procrastinate going back to work, that flesh horrors like the one in the hospital are quite... unpredictable, about very, very many things. One moment, one might refuse to so much as come near sunlight, preferring to be torn to pieces or burned alive (as alive as an undead monster cna be, anyways), the next it might stroll into sunlight without a care in the world, even though they will tend towards the former over the latter.

So any plan relying on that is inevitably going to be a bit hit-and-miss.

During another break, then, you finally get around to something you'd been meaning to for a decent while now; seeing as how things with Viridis will inevitably go, you find it... prudent... to prepare yourself. You've been trying to avoid your... natural... organs down there so far, but that is no longer a real option, so you... went ahead and touched them.

Yes, you touched your vagina. That you have. It felt... weird, different from other things, but you reckon a bit of last-minute self-exploration is better than none.

And hey, it didn't feel... bad. Just different. Your dick was completely erect the entire time, too- Brian did good work in integrating pleasure response for everything at once- and though you couldn't fit more than two fingers inside the slick opening you are carefully probing, you were quite satisfied by the time you went abck to work still.

But anyways, it's in the middle of the day once you're done completely spreading the fertilizer, so you just go ahead and cool down a bit as you pracice with your magic.

Well, the time has come. Viridis, having had 'compressed' the most important parts of her 'growth' to the point she could be moved at any time, was still a little grumpy about the prospect of doing so, but all she needed you to do was help carry a few branches of wood and several fruits as the two of you went along, the rest being carried on and in Viridis, apparently.

The trip to your portal, thankfully, isn't all too long, and so it takes little time for the plantcatwoman to find herself in the backyard of the place you're using as a base, taking in the ground under her feet.

"Mhhmm... Good. Fertile and tasty," she judges after digging the toes of her green feet into the fertilized earth they are standing on. "I can grow here."

Setting down her basket grown out of living wood, Viridis tips it over, letting roots and berries and such freely roll out. Next, she sits down right where she is, her plump rear end cushioning her as she spreads her legs wide, a hand similarly spreading her pussy wide open as she begins pressing with her stomach.

Within a short few moments, grasping roots and vines begin to show, Viridis literally giving birth to a moving plant with one pleasured moan after another. Somehow, the fact it is a mess of plant matter coming out of her doesn't impede your arousal at the sight and sound in the slightest.

It takes a little while, but the woman in front of you is nothing if not made for this kind of thing, so before long the little horror is out and busy burrowing itself in the middle of the garden, a lustily smiling Viridis beckoning you towards her with a wet hand. "Come, what are you waiting for? Disrobe and join me."

Within moments, the stuff you were carrying is on the ground, your dress soon following it once you pull it over your shoulders. Your underwear experiences a similar fate, and so your dick, already out of its sheath, waves in the air for a moment as you come closer.

"Mmmh..." Her tail, long and sinuous as it is, comes around to wrap your waist, pulling you closer and to down, Viridis leaning back until she lies on the floor. This close, you can really appreciate her wide hips, strong, spread legs, slim middle and pert breasts, the delicate features of her face rapt with attention as she licks her lips. "Come on... You know you want to."

Her green tail releasing you, you're left with your dick almost touching her pussy, its flared tip a hair's breath from the also green lips looking completely untouched by what their owner has been using them for.

You do the natural thing and push.

Viridis, is tight. And hot, her tunnel squeezing down on every inch of your cock, your pokerface already losing consistency at the pleasure you are experiencing.

Her hands begin roaming your body, stroking your flat stomach and tweaking the nipples of your small breasts, making you gasp. "So small, but so cute..."

Breathing heavily, you push yourself further and further, Viridis easily taking all of you and yet so tight around your member you wonder if you even can ever pull it out again. Yet, all the same, your knot soon hits her outer lips, a whine escaping your lips unbidden at the sensation.

"That's right, you want to knot me, don't you? To seal me up and fill me with your hot spunk, yes?" Her tail, partially dug into and through the earth at this point, pushes above the surface behind you to give your butt a hefty smack. "But you know I won't be the only one seeded..."

You do, you just also don't care right now. Retreating a little bit, you continue to thrust into Viridis, your heavy balls swinging in tandem with your movement, hammering your wide knot at her even as she continues exploring your body, hands moving along your back and thighs, groping and teasing and always encouraging you to push harder.

"Yes! Do it! Fertilize me!"

Your breaths are coming in shallow bursts now, pumping in and out your lungs through your mouth just as you do in and out Viridis, when finally, it happens, you know Viridis and are overcome with sensation as her insides clamp around your entire cock, massaging and milking in equal measure.

You come, unable to pull out even if you wanted to, if not due to your knot, then due to the iron grasp on your dick, or of the hands digging into and kneading your butt. Immobilized like that, it is little surprise when Viridis uses the moment, pushing herself up just a little and letting some of the wood you dropped earlier grow underneath her, giving her a living seat to recline on as you fuck her.

You approve of the use of the 'fertilization' you're giving her.

"I can feel the growth," an almost breathless Viridis smiles down at you, lightly patting your butt as one hand wanders upwards, grasping your head that's hanging a little as you still come inside her, drawing your sloven face up her body. "Here..."

With a firm pull, you're pressed against a breast, open mouth meeting a nipple you can easily tell is leaking a fluid of some kind. Eagerly, you lap it up, nibbling and sucking to get more of the tasty, vaguely honey-like stuff, even if it reminds you more of wild berries than anything else.

You can positively feel yourself invigorating, Viridis' hand going back down now that you're secured... Reaching around to fondle and massage your once again very full-feeling balls, hanging below your body and pumping a few last shots before your knot deflates.

"Can't have you stop, now, can we?" The hand still at your butt draws a cheek to the side, revealing the rest of your privates to what you only now realize to be at your back, seeds having grown into plants having grown into something more under Viridis' attention.

All that with only one shot from yourself?

The spirit you realize you are again beginning to slowly thrust into smiles, carefully nudging your legs further apart as you feel something slick and hard push at your entrance... and a second something at your ass, a sudden whimper drawn out of you as both slowly penetrate you.

"That's right... good girl..." Still nursing you, Viridis pats your head. "Just keep on drinking and rutting into me... Juuust like that..."

Before long, everything picks up speed again, the vines at your back alternating their thrusts as you mindlessly claim Viridis' insides without the slightest hint of higher thought, driven wild by the pleasure and probably whatever she's feeding you, alternating between breasts and mating her like an animal.

You also keep on spilling your seed in her again and again, your entire body in what you imagine to be the equivalent of heat, ever greater loads leading to ever more growth of any and all plantlife around you, visible to the naked eye whenever you reach climax and give Viridis what she wanted. The plants railing into you, lubed by whatever aphrodisiac fluids they were made to produce, use the times you hold still as you knot her to rapidly speed up, driving you even more mad as your walls, both vaginal and anal, clamp down on them, involuntarily causing them to, in turn, push their own specialized seed into you, almost completely fluid but with small, denser seeds you can feel.

"So cute when you lose control and mate me like a beast..."

Eventually, more of the things move in or grow or whatever, two hard plant tentacles joined by another pair completely ruining your insides as they join their brethren in rhythmically pushing in and out even as Viridis' ass is given the same treatment, the protrusions rubbing against your own cock inside her and somehow turning her even tighter.

At some point, uncountable orgasms in, you find yourself increasingly unable to move, a quick look confirming your belly is distended with whatever is growing inside you. Realizing what is going on, Viridis carefully takes hold of your back... and turns you around, switching position with you and soon kneeling between your legs, gently rubbing at your belly as her mouth envelops your cock.

She is keeping your legs spread wide, first to let the tentacles do their work and deposit one last load inside your holes as you feed her your sperm, gladly drinking it down as she looks up at you, then to let them remove themselves from inside you, the feeling of their rubbing and thrusting having become second nature to such an extent you feel weirdly empty without them for a moment... When a mixture of roots and vines and more begins moving inside you, their growth hastened by Viridis' hands and occasionally her mouth as she kisses your swollen belly in the few times she isn't fellating your cock.

You give birth to several tentacle plants, and they aren't the last, the tentacles that were busy with you having switched targets to Viridis only to be replaced with a new set in short order, the catplant spirit gleefully riding you this time and leaning down to feed you more of her ambrosia on occasion.

You aren't done, not by a long shot, and very predictably end up locked in pleasurable rutting for hours on end before you, finally, recover enough of your senses to drag yourself back onto the very stump that was the first thing Viridis grew with your contribution, the mostly mundane garden around you replaced with the beginnings of a lush forest as you drift off to sleep, cuddled into Viridis' soft skin.

Somewhere nearby, a certain creature ceases taking notes it should not actually be able to take, lacking any defined fingers to handle objects with but doing so anyways.

"Good, good. At this rate, it should only take..."

Descending into mumbling just as it descended into the cellar filled with logic-defying devices hidden under a thin veneer of an actual laboratory, it began its work.

When you wake up, it is to the sounds of wind slowly rustling the trees, the lazy movement of air drawing forth sounds you associate with the forest more than anything else. Why were you sleeping in-

Ah. Right. The thing. The thing that happened. Opening your eyes, you see green on white, a look upwards confirming that Viridis is there and close... and languidly stroking your cock.

You can't fucking believe you're still hard after all that.

"Mhmhm, are you awake, then?" Her sultry voice comes, stroking the primitive parts of your brain as associations with mindbending pleasure of all kinds are fired through by your neurons.

"I have to go," is all you can say. "Do... things."

It's the best you can come up with on the spot after just waking up, okay?

"Of course you do," Viridis whispers in your ear. "Everything needs to go and be fruitful. Just be fruitful with me for a little while longer?"

And as she sinks below, luscious lips once again wrapping around your cock, you can't help but look around, taking in the equally luscious forest around you, weakly glowing fruits slowly going through the colors you are quite sure do not actually exist and, well, trees actually existing.

Plants of all kinds and descriptions growing from every nook and cranny, leaves and branches stretching in quite unnatural way... and all that from just one night. Not even a full night, you think, you... kinda fainted a few hours in.

The shudder that goes through you is entirely due to the implications. Totally. Not the way Viridis freely unhinges her jaw to take your knot into her hot mouth, licking and slurping as your load joins anything you left in her stomach yesterday.

Time to get up, for real this time.

Melanie awoke with a start, red eyes fluttering with her usual confusion. Groaning as she rose from her bed like a body might from a grave, she stumbled off to the bathroom, mumbling a greeting in return for her dad's casual, way-too-friendly-and-alert one on the way.

Gingerly looking into the bathroom mirror, she poked at the weird skin marks that'd been plaguing her for a while now. They were still there despite nobody acknow... ledg...

Now wide awake and in a bit of a panic, Melanie fumbled with the cold water numbly, thoughts racing. Had it been real? It would explain a lot of...

The walkman. She'd given the poor girl her old walkman, to help drown out that awful silence in the weird... empty parallel dimension she was apparently living in with the plush toy thingy that didn't care about her.

Briskly walking back to her room, she opened her closet, looking around and... it wasn't there.

Well, shit. She hadn't been sure whether she wanted all of that... all of yesterday to have been real, but it was, she supposed. On the one hand, that meant she wasn't going nuts, contrary to common sense and public opinion. On the other hand, now there was this incredibly lonely girl just floating around town, on magical ice, completely ignoring all the many people around that couldn't see her.

Except Melanie, or anything else 'magical'... except everything else was apparently out to rape her?

She hadn't wanted to ask, afraid of a clearer answer. "Well, fuck."

Pulling out her smartphone, Melanie grimaced. No new messages or anything, so... she would just keep an eye out for the time being, she supposed.

For now, she had to be off for school.

"Chuuh, you chuhre had fun last night." As far as words to be greeted by Brian go, those are neither what you expect nor what you would prefer.

"How much did you see?"

"Enough, puchuuh." Well, isn't that nice and awkward. "I had to take thorough notes, after all, chuh."

Urge to destroy evidence rising... "Where are those notes?"

"Kept in the extradimensional vault, chuuh. Safe from anything that might achuhmpt to mess with them. One time was enough, puchuh."

Great... Time for Topic Change No Jutsu, then. "What did you observe, then? Any changes I should be aware of?"

"Chuuh! As you have been in very... close... contchuht with a spirit of fertilichuh and growth, expect to have some of her aspect chuh have rubbed off onto chuh. Unless you feel the unnatural need to breed anything chuh come across, you chuuhd be fine. Maybe increased sperm prochuhtion and more frequent ovul-"

"Thank you, please stop." Once again, your deadpan delivery lets you not be a blubbering mess begging Brian to stop talking about your anatomy. Progress! Also, on this general topic... "I was thinking about my power to directly perceive magic. Is there some way I could share it with you?"

"Puuh, not possichuh. To begin with, our ways of pechuhving the world are too different for any chuh thing to translate well, chuh. Then, a perchuhnal quirk of magic relating to the individual rarely can be applied to any other being outchuh of some very, very unique circumchunstes, all of which are fatal to the donor, puchuh. Very fatal," Brian explains in its long-winded way of telling people things.

"Another thing," you state with a gesture for your new shiny toy before he can go into another rant. "This sword, is there any way I could ensure it doesn't get stolen? Using coins or runes of some sort."

Brian tilts its head to the left and to the right for a few moments. "Not really, chuh. The weapon is alreachuh magical, and adding featchuhs outside of its pre-exischuhng powers is... costly? Chuuh, better to chust use it and hope it gains somechung along the lines of what chuh want."

Mhm. "Okay. I will go practice a bit for today, then."

"Chuuh, do make chuhre to destroy a monster in the next few days, chuh. It's nothing too urgent, chuuh, but keeping the eyes of the accounchuhng department off of us is always a good chuhng." Well, that's that you suppose. Mention that it'd be nice if you did the thing eventually. Good to know, you suppose? "Also, is that what young people call it these days, puchuuh?"

... Just for that, Brian. "I am not going to be leaving the Overcity today."

Staying at home and training all day out of a mix of spite and actually wanting to prepare for going hunting again at some point, the fact that Viridis is essentially squatting in your garden isn't that much of an issue to you, all things told- this is the Overcity, there are as many nearby houses with viable gardens as you could want, at most a short stroll away.

Your work on somehow charging your ice lances with additional bits and pieces of your mana set to stream outwards and aggressively freeze whatever they hit seems to have born fruit, a small spread of chill and actual ice on anything they impact. Your thought on creating some manner of golems to act in your stead, on the other hand...

Well, you have a bunch of vaguely humanoid statues of ice and snow, you suppose. That you then use as target practice for your sword, just to get used to swinging it around.

Interestingly, as Brian might have mentioned (you will readily admit you don't always listen to him once he gets ranting), the blade is led by your intent more than by your actual arms, almost guiding itself to hit what you want it to. That doesn't make you a swords(wo)man (Swordgirl? Magical Swordgirl?) by any means, it just means you're more likely to hit what you're aiming for than not.

You're still stumbling around with the rest of your body as your sword slams home time and time again. Yeah, it's a good thing you're actually training this.

Still, for all that you spend hours on end throwing around swords and magic like a complete nerd at some convention, that doesn't preclude you from eventually going home.

Time to... do the thing. Again. With Viridis.

Viridis, as you might expect, is just as happy to see you as she was the last time, once she was inside her new place of residence. That is, as soon as she sees you, she drops onto all fours, her back facing you.

"Come on, don't you want to mount your bitch?"

You know what will happen, you just also agreed to do this and you refuse to back out now. So you drop your clothes (save for your kneesocks or whatever they may be called) and get right to it, kneeling behind Viridis and jamming your already rapidly hardening prick into place.

It isn't long before you are joined by the tentacled plants once again, the slick vines slithering along your skin from nearby once they break through the earth and come at you. You actually get to have a closer look at them this time around, keeping a clear enough head for that before their appearance, and the things actually vaguely resemble cobs of corn covered in slick fluids oozing from the cracks between the corn itself, though they're also completely leafless and actually colored a dark, dark green.

It still feels weird as they penetrate you, stretching your pussy and asshole around themselves even as you continue pounding Viridis.

When you fill her with your seed, being filled with seeds in turn, you can't help but think about how this isn't as bad as you expected it to be. Sure, you're slobbering over Viridis' back completely uncontrolled as you have difficulties keeping your expression in check at the sensations you experience, but it could be worse, all said and done.

Of course, it isn't much longer until you drink from Viridis' breasts once again, never flagging and continuing to pump one orgasm after another into her, simultaneously continuing to serve as an incubator for her plants.

It continues to be a long, long, arduous night, during which you vaguely remember a busy catplantgirl riding you every now and then, your legs spread wide to let various plants access your privates as strange things are born in both your womb and your ass, to boot, crawling out in orgasmic explosions of pleasure.

By the time you wake up, nothing of the sort is to be seen anywhere, and Viridis is simply cradling you on her stomach.

Well, that happened.