You wake up. The first thing you notice, still half-asleep and all blurred, is an uncomfortable lack of pressure around your dick- for some reason, you aren't currently sleep-fucking anyone, which is a great source of shame for all your retainers and minions.
Clearly you should install a law that says that this is illegal. You should always wake up with your balls drained overnight inside someone lucky enough to have been sharing your bed.
The world is simply not in balance otherwise. It's like a morning without coffee, or as of late, chocolate. The day cannot begin like this.
It's illegal.
And people other than you should care about that, dammit.
Then you become conscious of a purring sound, the small furry body cuddled into your side no longer ignored because it's been there all night. Right, Tabitha came to cuddle, so you threw the anal demon out instead.
All is well again. You put a hand over there to stroke her back, making your cat purr even louder. Her eyes are opened just a little bit, until a paw comes to cover her face.
Cho cute. Cho cuddwy. Mumumuh.
Stumbling downstairs in your customary, sleepy waltz of pure elegance, you take your usual morning piss before you arrive inside the kitchen, yawning as you rummage around for something edible. You have to have something you can make without too much effort, right?
You try the fridge. Then you remember you haven't been out scavenging surrounding buildings for edibles for days now, so it is almost completely empty.
How annoying.
However, a quick look through your secret chocolate stash lets you-
"Hey Jackie! Finally awake?"
You hurriedly close the secret compartment inside your cupboard. Then you hurriedly close the cupboard. "Muh."
Behind you stands Chucky, now completely de-scarred and a head or so shorter, instead equipped with freckles all over her cheeks and the bridge of her nose, badly hiding a pair of scissors behind her back.
Foolish Chucky. Her capacity for secrecy is obviously nonexistent, even a she puts on a friendly face and greets you with way too much enthusiasm this early in the morning.
"So… What's in the cupboard?" She asks.
"Nothing," you plainly tell her, mumbling a little because you're still not quite awake yet. "What you doing?"
"Oh, I went to take a look around and get something for breakfast!" Huh, is she making herself useful already? "Want some?"
Obviously. You are the deity enshrined within this house, after all. "Muh."
Showing you the bounty she has put into a basket and held behind her back (you don't remember having that kind of thing in the house), Chucky smiles brightly, taking out the glowing fruit from the forest. "Can't wait to try out big city food!"
"… Muh." Whatever. A long as it's edible.
"Mew."
And Tabitha gets her morning kibbles too, of course. Important, important.
Once both you and your cat are supplied with food, chopped-up pieces of magical fruit turned into a mighty salad of sorts in your case, and breakfast has commenced adequately, you take a moment to rub the sleep out of your eyes and actually try to jog your brain awake, stretching and yawning a little.
Don't jog it too hard, I live in here.
"Muh… Viridis is outside." It would be quite a pickle if Chucky decided to pick a fight with your plantcat, so you'd better clear this up quick.
"Oh, do you mean the naked plant lady?" That describes her well enough. "She gave me a kiss and said I was allowed to take a little of the fruits whenever I want."
"… Muuuh."
"What's wrong, Jackie?"
"Nothing."
"Are you pouting?"
"No."
You do not pout about how easily Chucky gets to get along with Viridis. Not at all. That is an absolutely absurd notion.
Absurd, you say.
"Brian. Explain." That's what the Puchuu is for, after all. Like any good NPC, his entire existence revolves around providing you some basic service that you come back around for every now and then and in case a quest marker is pointing at his head.
Uh oh, gimme a sec. I think I actually messed something up last night.
You blink. What were you doing again?
"Chuuh, explain what, Jackie? I need some details here, puchuh."
Right. That, Shit, quick, what did you want explained again? "Brain juice," you finally decide after just a moment of deep, introspective thought. "Leftovers."
"Puchuuh, that. I originally planned to make you less of an idiot using it, chuh, but having half of it remaining means the expected intelligence increase would be too minor to bother."
How rude. You are a genius the kinds of which are unparalleled among humankind.
Damn straight I am.
Then again, considering… "Can I use it on Olivia?" Making your doggy smarter to perhaps, with a lot of effort and training, match your pet cat might be a worthy endeavour. Maybe she could become even a tenth as useful as Tabitha is, then!
"Chuh, why not save it for your offspring? To undo the one big disadvantage of your genetics, puuh."
"Muh." Yes, you are infinitely powerful, beautiful, dignified and amazing, but just because your intellect is the one attribute mildly below the rest of your characteristics doesn't mean it isn't titanic in itself. You wish Brian would lower his expectations in you already- you may be a superior life form compared to him, but even you wish to be acknowledged in all your facets impartially and unbiased by the towering presence of your many other feats and strengths.
"Or you could use it to create a Mind Essence and enchant something, chuuh, though I have no hope that it will be enough to offset your natural abilities."
Man, you are such a genius. Kind, too. Downright saintly. Maybe that one rapist priest is on to something, after all…
"Is there anything else, chuh? I was in the middle of something here, puchuh."
Right, you kind of stormed in on Brian as he was in the middle of dissecting a guy aliv- No, wait, he was mutilating him and turning him into a cyborg, you think. If that this is meant to be an arm.
It could also be an oversized dildo or something instead, you suppose. Or maybe entrails. Possibly a spine, too, Brian really doesn't seem to put much emphasis on how the end result is supposed to look here.
You ignore the muffled cries for help and the wide eye filled with bone-deep terror rolling in their sockets amidst the half-missing skull, Brian stopped just short of jabbing a pair of needles into the openly visible brain.
It looks kind of yucky.
"BlueBall Mark II?" You do not care, of course. Your business with Brian has priority, he can get his appointment done once you're done with asking possibly inane questions. Repeatedly, to compare Brian's answers and see if he lets any information that he may be trying to keep hidden slip.
"Chuuh, use it as a power source to enchant bullets. Cursed ones should work just fine against anything that isn't undead or demonic in nature, and even then, puuh, some of both kinds are still susceptible to the effects. Strong curses are nothing to take lightly, chuh, especially at your level of power."
That's right, for you are amazingly strong.
"Alternatively, you could try to use it as a power source for one of those golems of yours, chuh. It would be sustained independently of you, though your other personality would no longer be able to control it directly, puchuh, and it might even develop additional capabilities over time," Brian say, gesturing with his long iron needles held in one paw each somehow.
Also, that sounds very intriguing. You like the idea of an evil cursed golem doing whatever you want. In the first place, branching out into a ghost/ice type might open up a lot of possibilities in terms of move choices, plus it's a way to expand your team's roster without weakening the purity of the ice type as such.
Man, pokemon is just great. Completing the pokedex every time is a point of honor at this point.
Or would it be a dark type? Yes, it likely would, it wouldn't actually be a dead person or anything, jut a lot of negativity. But hey, screwing up psychic types even better might come in handy for when you face your rival again.
Hooray for knowledge and trivia leaking through all the time. I'm not sure dark types are even a thing yet.
"Or just use the energy in lieu of an essence, chuh, and create a cursed object. That knife you have taken to carrying with you would likely take well to absorbing the energy within the device well, puchuuh."
Also a good point. Mister Stabblesworth is supposed to be a trump card against certain enemies, after all.
And now that you think about it, what about-
Brian swishes his tail as he gets back to the operating chair his current victim is tied to by steel manacles snapped shut over his limbs. "If that would be all, chuh?"
"Muh." You think you wanted to ask something else, but if you can't remember it probably wasn't that important anyway so screw it.
In the end, you come up with an even more amazingly spectacular plan on what to do with the brain juice you have left after, wisely, letting Tabitha drink over half of the stuff you had after taking it off the giant psychic brain's tentacles than Brian did.
It's not his fault. He's just thinking in too narrow categories, doesn't often see the big picture. Oh, and he was probably busy doing something else and didn't really pay attention, but that one's on him.
"Can you use this?" You ask as you hold the container up for Viridis. The green and white woman hooks a clawed finger through the material with ease in return, holding it up to inspect its contents wordlessly.
After a moment, she nods, using both hands to rip a hole into it. "Yes, I shall grow something with this."
You return a happy nod. It's always nice when your plans work without a hitch. "Also, can you rape her to empower the child?" You ask, pointing at the anal demon you also dragged with you, her deeply tanned skin glistening with a faint sheen of sweat at your words.
"Wait, what? Do you have any idea what happens every time she gets her paws on me?"
That's right, you have mastered the art of dragging her around so much that she just goes along with it without even questioning it until it's too late! Muhahaha!
"Muh," you nod once again. "Daughter?" Is the next question you have for Viridis.
"In that direction. Have fun~!" You see a grouping of vines break out of the earth, tying up your demonic minion and muffling her aggravated and annoyed cries.
It's what she gets for having tried to trick you that one time. You'd forgive her at some point, but really, can demons ever be forgiven for their sins when they never repent for them?
You say no, and as you are the theological expert on things like the faith of Jackienism…
You move deeper into the forest that surrounds your home, keeping your senses on alert. Your daughter was already growing pretty fast when you went right back to fucking Viridis as soon as she was born, so you aren't exactly sure how she'll look now beyond some ashen skin and a status as a humanoid.
Which in itself is kind of a big clue in this place, not exactly many of those running around inside this part of the Overcity. And if there were, you're pretty sure they'd be getting bred by the grasswolves instead of running around, too, provided they don't just annoy you or Viridis and get something worse.
Your pet doggies are really way too nice. Very fluffy and friendly.
Anyway, following Viridis' directions, you soon come across a source of magical power, which probably means you're in the right place. Stepping past a couple of trees into a forest clearing, you-
"Hey, 'daddy'. Took your sweet time, didn't you?" Your daughter, grown up and clad in nothing but a few leaves grown over her privates and limbs, greets you with a smug little smile and lidded eyes. Her plant-like hair, obviously inherited from her mother, moves in a nonexistent breeze as she strikes a pose for you. "I've been waiting."
"Muh." Crap, she's hot. As expected of your offspring.
"That all you gotta say? Huh, didn't think mom would be the verbose one," your daughter teases, throwing her apple in the air on one side and peeling her banana's peel aside with her teeth on the other. "Or are you disabled? Monkey got your tongue?"
"Gonna show you where my tongue is," you grumble, already aware of how much of a brat you didn't actually raise so much as fucked into existence and left to herself for a day or so.
She's very bratty for a sister of mine. You sure Viridis didn't cheat on you, daddy?
"Ooh, promises!" Quickly finishing up with her banana peel, she catches the apple again, throwing it up and down a couple times as she gestures for you with the soft, yellow fruit now exposed to the air. "You gonna pork me with the prick that made me, huh?"
"I am," you declare heroically.
"Oh, really? You sure, huh? You want some o' this?" The plant-monkey-girl taps the banana against the corner of her smugly grinning mouth, rubbing a small circle. Then she slide it lower, down her jaw and throat, between her perky breasts and all the way down to her navel, her grey-green skin showing you goosebumps along its path. "I know I look good, but is that really alright… ?"
"Muh." None shall stand in your way. You are the horny now.
"Hahaa, you wanna fuck me, daddy? Wooow, what a bad parent…" The banana wanders lower, sliding over her navel and nearing the middle of her hips, her slender figure not detracting from the maneuver at all. "Wanna know a secret?"
"Mm." You don't so much care as you want to just rip off your panties and nail her right the fuck now, but-
"These are just plant pasties I made," the monkey-like monstergirl grins, holding a finger in front of her grinning mouth. Her eyes are narrowed in amusement. "They might just fall off whenever~ I~ want~!"
With that, she turns around. You see three pieces of flattened plant fiber flutter to the ground as she looks over her shoulder. The crack of her ass is looking dangerously tempting.
"Try and catch me, d-"
"MUH!" You reach out, conjuring ice around her feet, connecting it to the ground and preventing her from bounding away. "Bad girl. Discipline time."
"Ooh, you gonna spank me, daddy?"
She wish. Do it, daddy! Put her in her place! I do not allow such disgraceful behaviour!
"Among others," you remark, dropping your panties onto the forest floor and lifting up your skirt. You're hard already, have been for a bit, and your throbbing length is at hand easily.
"Ooohh… Now I know why momma likes ya!" Your new daughter inhales deeply, as she apparently takes in the scent of your genitals. Then she wiggles her butt and leans over, a wide, sloppy grin not hidden in the slightest. "Wanna see if that can fit in me?"
"Way ahead of you," you mumble, creating a little more ice you can step on so you can actually reach her properly. Your heavy balls are already churning away, the urge to knock up your offspring growing in your head like a pressure in the back of your brain.
Whoops, sorry. I think I knocked on something.
You don't care, you just want to fuck!
Your partially stuck daughter's pussy is of a deeper, healthier green than the rest of her skin and already wet with some lubricant, so you just point your tip straight at it and push, the velvety soft skin pushed around your rod as you bend it apart.
"Haargh… Nice and thiiick…"
Firmly grasping her taut hips, you drive yourself deeper and deeper, unable to resist; you don't so much penetrate her as you buck your own hips, thrusting uncontrolled and free into the tight orifice at your mercy.
And tight it is indeed, squeezing down on your cock. One thing you may have overlooked is that for all that your daughter is, apparently, partially monkey-like, she's still got some plant in her… And, more importantly, Viridis' idea of a plant.
Your penis is currently balls deep inside of her, completely surrounded by a fluid that is setting your loins and your mind on fire.
"Yeah! Yeah! Like… That!" A panting monkeygirl calls out your thrusts, somehow growing even tighter. "You gonna breed your daughter or what?!"
You speed up, determined to not only breed her, but make her bulge up with your cum until it leaks out of her long ears. Speaking of which…
"Nyahaha! You like 'em? They're just extra long to hear better, though!"
"Muh." You get back down from the tips of your toes. It was worth a try.
Renewing your efforts to rail your daughter into next Tuesday, rocking her back and forth like some sort of twisted rocking horse. Anything to play with your dear daughters, of course!
Kiih, I'm so damn jealous right now!
You're smelling something too, now, a deep, rousing scent that has you stop thinking entirely as you just fuck this new daughter of yours, head empty and cock diamond-hard. The wet slapping noises of your coupling ring out again and again, your mind powerless to stop your body even if it wanted to.
Which it wouldn't, even if it worked.
"C'mon, c'mon, c'mon, like, that, do me, daddy! Fuck me up!" She begs. You squeeze her buttcheeks, doing what you can to do just that; your first peak is approaching hard and fast, saliva dropping onto her back from where you can't quite close your mouth adequately.
The faded green of her shoulders is all you can make out as she squeezes down hard and a small wave of whatever aphrodisiac fluid it is she's affecting you with flows over your balls and down to the ground, the world growing white around the edges for a long, long moment.
You come, pumping out your entire load in what feels like it has to be one single, long spurt, filling her womb and making her belly bulge just slightly. For that single, blessed moment, you feel fulfilled, like the cycle of life has made a full turn now that you have (presumably) knocked up your daughter and you can take an ever-so-short rest.
Then your nerves stop lighting up because you just came and instead tingle, burn and explode once again, your boner the very opposite from satisfied.
"That was good, daddy… Now do it again!" Your offspring flexes her legs, cracking and bursting out of the ice she was caught in until now. "And again and again until I'm satisfied! No breaks before!"
She's such a brat. You need to fuck that out of her right away.
Extracting yourself from the situation again ends up… difficult, in no small part thanks to your new daughter's wide range of exceedingly powerful capabilities.
By that you mean motion, really. She's super flexible. And just loves clinging to and rubbing herself against you, literally marking you with her scent and driving you even wilder than you already are.
You live in trying times, that your parental duties drive you to the absolute edge.
I am so, so, so jealous.
Still, you finally puzzle out the way to beat her- having noticed throughout the sex marathon you unknowingly threw yourself into that she kept on getting various fruits from… somewhere, eating them in the middle of everything else (mainly, you desperately fucking her as hard as you could). So you snatch a couple of those from her and ate them yourself instead, depriving her of her snacks and making her run out of energy, ultimately emerging victoriously.
As in, you crawl away from your happily snoozing daughter, making it back to your house with great effort. It was totally worth it to assert your parental authority.
Recovering your strength properly through the magic of chocolate consumption, you look around for Chucky, but it turns out she's out in the forest herself- she left you a note about it, which is nice of her. With her absent, there is only so much you can really do- and you still have a couple hours of daylight left.
… It has been some time since you rode out for war, and you did notice a few bug corpses lying around the forest earlier, back when you still had enough presence of mind to do so. Just a few of the flying mosquito monsters, Elena has been keeping the hive on the defensive (and as she is part of you, it could be aid that you have done so by yourself), but organizing another large-scale push by abusing your magic seems like it would be worth it.
Maybe. Perhaps. Possibly. You aren't sure anything can truly be worth subjecting yourself to the act of actively confronting creepy-crawlies.
"Muh." No. You must be strong now. So you can live in a world without bugs.
Just keep on thinking about the end goal of screwing up all the ecosystems and not about the giant bugs in your way. You can do it, Jackie! Meanwhile, you will just not look at anything, get some earplugs and-
Daddy, no. No sabotaging your combat stats.
"Muuh." Being Jacqueline Frost is suffering.
Yours is a mighty and true procession riding out to war, filling your heart with pride whenever you look upon it. Ten inviolate ice golems, made of only the finest ice and shredded wood taken from random furniture you decided to recycle, combined also known as pykrete, walking in two columns of perfect order.
The mighty bulwarks of civilization and order. The cloudy material grants them a presence absent in normal golems, their nobility not diminished in the least; the penetrating spear and mailed fist of your formations in one, you know you can rely on them to blunt all enemy advances and crush any lesser foes with ease.
Behind them walk the peasant levies, unorganized and of questionable quality, a horde of imps you judged to be sufficient for your purposes. Armed with small spears and clubs made of other imps they cannibalized within the bleakly desolate world you stuck them into until now, these inferior soldiers are nevertheless a potent force when used correctly and the backbone of your troops in one as there's… Around fifty or so of them?
You shoot a bullet over the heads of the short humanoids, a head or two shorter than yourself. They stop trying to stab each other with their little bone shivs, but you know better than to trust them to behave by themselves still. Contraband being smuggled along is a given in an army of this size.
Their current leader, a particularly muscled, ugly and tall specimen, screeches something, waving the severed imp head impaled on a metal pipe it wields as a scepter. Finally some proper order is restored, making you nod in agreement as the march can continue without any summary executions to make examples and strengthen morale.
Further behind yet are your cavalry and your scouts, the noble grasswolves walking with raised snouts and filtering into and out of formation, sniffing the surroundings and searching for any signs of enemy activity to ensure your are forewarned. You are riding on one of the largest of the baker's dozen you enticed to come with you, your noblest of countenances requiring no less than the noblest of steeds available.
You pat its snout, eliciting a pleased growl. He is a very good boy.
Following your cavalry is the heavily armored cyborg division, bringing up the rear guard of your column. It was hard to convince Brian to order his elite troops under your command, even with your silver tongue and extremely persuasive arguments, but you finally prevailed when you promised him not to make any ridiculous demands of him for one week straight.
You do not plan to honor that agreement of course, but he just wanted an excuse to agree at that point anyway.
They move slow and ponderously, dictating the pace of your advance, but the artillery has always been a logistical challenge to overcome, and they are the artillery, bearing twisted ranged weaponry ranging from a heavy rifle replacing one's arms to an automatic bone spear thrower built into another's back.
Lots of close-ranged weaponry too, of course, it's just that they're the most reliable long range you have. Maybe you should look into training imps as spear thrower? Or teach them how to build little catapults or something. Though they would definitely use each other as boulders… Which, then again, might be a good delivery mechanism if they don't die on impact.
Mobility on the battlefield translates directly into power.
You have learned well, young padawan. The bleedover is being useful for once.
It is a 'mere' six of Brian's toys, but you understand- reinforcing your troops has to be weighed against his own operations. Nevertheless, you have been assured they are some of his more impressive backup fighters, which is already much more than you were expecting- you didn't even know Brian had anything capable of fighting at all, but you will take what you can get.
Integrating them into your order of battle was ease itself- they obey your commands mindlessly, after all, which is why they are the rearguard and have orders to immediately open fire on any deserters.
You are looking at the imps when thinking that word. For no particular reason. You just do that.
Still, your glorious army is sallying out, steadily nearing the contested territory between the Queendom Of Her Most Holy And Sublime Majesty Jackie The First And Only and the seditious, accursed bug pits. You let the dignity and righteousness of the moment overcome you, holding back a (frozen) tear at the thought of what these valiant soldiers are willing (or forced) to give for the sake of building a better future.
One with less giant bugs in it.
Something is lacking. You know what, too; there are no war-drums to signal the speed and pace of your movements, no trumpets or banners to announce the honor and nobility of your presence.
One of these you can fix, at least. Holding out a hand, you conjure a banner of cloth bearing what you have spontaneously decided to be your heraldry: A white flake of snow on black ground, with a pair of crossed pistols underneath.
Yes, this will do nicely. Urging your steed on, you point at the front of your army when it doesn't understand the implicit command. "Go," you instead make it plain and clear, and so you soon arrive at the side of your valiant golem formations.
Picking the one at the very front, you drape the symbol of your most noble and transcendent lineage over it, making it both flag and flagbearer of your command.
"Mu-mu-mu-muh, muh, mu-mu-mu-muh muh, muh muh muh muh muuh, muh muh muh muuuh..."
Are you singing the Ride of the Valkyries in 'muhs'?
You are doing no such thing as you return to your proper place in the very middle (and thus safety) of your marching column specifically kept slender enough to walk through the urban environment of the Overcity.
That's super cute, though!
You are not cute. You are dignified. Your dignity could be said to be oozing from your every pore as you bear your dress uniform, which is incidentally your normal magical girl uniform, with pride.
"Advance," you murmur to yourself, steely eyes turned in one direction and in one direction only. "Advance through all obstacles and enemies in our way. We shall-"
Ohmygod, this is too adorbs! You're a cwute girl and you're being all serious and gosh is my body too cute!
You have had it with these interruptions! You have come to make honorable war with the abominable Evil Bug Confederate of the bug pits, not to be part of this… this… tomfoolery!
You use your powers to create yourself a richly decorated dress jacket you drape over your uniform and a very fancy hat you put on with aplomb. There!
Squeeeeeeeee!
The tortured screams of your naysayers feed your soul as you smile at the moralistic victory you have won with this brilliant maneuver. Call you cute, will she?
When you advance upon the enemy's position, you do so not surprisingly, for you have obviously carefully planned this military exercise, but with suddenness, the advanced ramparts the rebellious death row species have been building in anticipation of your inevitable correction of the natural order of things coming to the fore.
Specifically pertaining to the maximum size of bugs, that being no larger than your finger tip, and a complete absence on their part in bathrooms, bedrooms, living rooms…
Inhabited buildings. Yes.
In other words, the bugs have been building up even after the frequent (but irregular) attacks on them you have sent Elena and your golem subordinates on, aggressively expanding their reach to make up for the losses. This is both good and bad. Good, because it means they have to be spreading over a larger area and therefore possess less concentrated presence and troops to protect it. Bad, because it means that they may try to bog your army down at their outer defenses so as to gather their full might in a craven, cowardly encirclement tactic to make it harder for you to crush them all at once.
The first indication of this you see is a wall of wax covering the sides of a building as you come around a corner, several parked cars and other random debris dragged into it to serve as additional reinforcement for the off-white material.
Obviously recognizing enemy action, you grow very, very quiet, adjusting your admiral's hat and ascertaining your elite troops are ready. And yes, Elena does have Mister Stabblesworth tucked inside her palm, ready to let it spring forth and reap a bloody harvest.
There are no openly hostile presences quite yet, so you bid your army to halt, only a few of the dumber imps needing to be punched back to the rest of the rabble by your trusty golems. Clearing your throat, you sit up straight on your grasswolf, balefully glaring at the distant edifice of corruption that is the overgrown shopping mall serving as this… this hive's… hive.
"No long speeches now, but it must be," you intone gravely, gesturing with one hand while the other keeps your additional clothes from falling off. "The enemy we fight is a vile one. We did not want this war, did not send troops rampaging through the countryside, but we will end it to end this threat once and for all."
The only beings in this procession with even an inkling of understanding for your words and the imps, and you're pretty sure they still don't actually speak English. Or any language at all. Still you must deliver your words. The bugs have been making it harder and harder for you to find fresh food around the Overcity and you aren't walking an hour every day just to get some. Or sending your golems on that long of a trip when you could instead make them do something actually constructive.
Like hold your dick when you go to the toilet.
"So we will fight, and you will die, for the glory of the Jackie. May the Muh be with you." Your duties as a spiritual leader fulfilled, you-
There are bugs! Bugs you say! Deplorable bugs! Flying over the prepared battle-lines, a mass of hairy, buzzing mosquito monsters approaches, shortly followed by more creeping and crawling things, from giant centipedes to distended maggots squirming across the ground.
"Fight! Kill!" You suppress the panic in your voice as the imps, easily roused to violence, surge forward, your golems jump into formation and your cyborgs array themselves, your grasswolves smelling the blood in the air and growing hungry and aroused as-
One of your golems smashes a sharpened fist into a mosquito, smacking it out of the air and tearing it apart. Its guts and blood sploosh everywhere.
Specifically, all over the golem. Which happens to be your banner-bearer. "Nooooo!"
You can't help yourself but scream. Not your banner! Not the proud sign of the Jackie! Do these fiends know no honor, no decency?! Is there nothing sacred to them?! How dare they despoil the ancestral sign you spent all of five seconds thinking up with their deplorable fluids?!
Like a vindictive general, you watch over the ensuing carnage from atop your elevated position, for your grasswolf is big indeed, and analyze it with the sharp eyes and cold calculation required of your position as the supreme commander of the Forces of Divine Retribution.
Your golems are doing their job, mighty rocks against the tides of smaller, weaker combatants. They brunt any large groups of them flowing at your lines and make them pay a heavy toll in insect lives, the literal murder machines more than earning their pay.
If you were paying them, anyway. Which you aren't. And if they had the audacity to demand such, you would naturally eradicate them without a second thought yourself.
Speaking of murder machines, though, the cyborgs that spent all this time dragging you down are finally being useful, having taken your command to kill the bugs as literal as it was meant. A mighty barrage of various projectiles is being sent at them with only negligible amounts of friendly fire while two of the six abominations of twisted, gleaming metal and tortured flesh throw themselves into the melee once they get close enough, outright ignoring any attempts to damage them as they maim anything in reach with arm-swords and hooked body blows.
That's not to say they aren't being damaged, they just don't care about it.
By comparison, the multicolored imps are paying the real blood tithe, screaming and screeching and ganging up on isolated enemies wherever they can. Many of them are jumping around madly, doing their best to impale flying mosquitoes before they swoop down and suck them dry, digging their primitive weapons between sections of chitin and generally being little menaces.
They also are taking their own losses, violently drained and bitten apart corpses littering the battlefield, but their leader is energetically waving his skull-staff, screaming orders in their shrill, unpleasant language and personally ramming himself into any clusters of the smaller insects that end up coming together.
Then he roars, relative to his size (it's still pretty shrill), revealing that he actually seems to be wielding a magic staff as he can apparently fire bolts of electricity from it, the eyes and open mouth of the imp head on it glowing with power and serving as the conduits for the discharges.
That's pretty cool, actually. You shall consider him the imp shaman for now.
The grasswolves, on the other hand, are circling around the main fight, jumping onto and across the low rooftop of the smaller buildings nearby as they carefully pick their targets… Falling over them like literal wolves, cooperating to take down and eat their own share of bugs, their jaws producing crunching sounds as they feast on their victims.
Come to think of it, same goes for the imps when they can drag a carcass off to have their way with it. The maggots seem to be the preferred food of your forces, being torn apart with great relish by everyone involved.
Then more waves of insects crash over your formations and you react by concentrating your power, a blast of winter washing over them in turn. The flyers fall to the ground, several of the others are immobilized and your soldiers make short work of them all, supported as they are by your superior magic.
Again and again the secessionist forces come and again and again they are destroyed for their trouble, none of the heretic rebels spared your wrath. However, you do need to actually push deeper into enemy territory if you wish to strike a decisive blow against it as opposed to whittling down the numbers of their expendable troops at as rapid a pace as you are…
Right now, you're well-protected by your formation and the chuffling steed receiving periodic headpats, possessing enough downtime to recover your full capacity before unleashing another overwhelming blow to enemy capabilities, but if you do draw near your ultimate foe's seat of power you fully expect the intensity of combat to grow, even as your casualties are slowly growing.
Right now only a couple imps are dead, but your grasswolves are starting to accumulate small cuts and bruises, the sheer number of enemy forces allowing them to get in the occasional strike despite the wolves' careful maneuvering. Meanwhile, your golems are largely unharmed on account of the hardened pykrete they are made of and Elena's superb leadership, her knife taking down one bug after another with devastating cuts and thrusts, and the cyborgs' metallic parts remain unscratched even as their exposed flesh is being worn away by intense battle against the numerous critters refusing to stop throwing themselves at your glorious Army of the People of Jackie Queendom.
Your attack has been a success so far. Time to test the goddesses of fortune and war (you imagine them a differently dressed versions of yourself, of course) and see whether they shall remain on your side once the fighting intensifies.
Because it will. Of that, you have no doubt, for you shall advance. Advance! Into the heart of the enemy, that you may lance this festering wound bleeding a pus of chitin and disgusting-ness!
"Forward. Into the Muh," you command, dramatically pointing at the horizon. Specifically, the direction in which you can see the ugly bug-structures rise into the sky, the uneven strings of wax holding the enormous hive together despite how structurally unsound it should all be.
Your dramatic command is of course met by either silence, confusion (from the wolves) or chaotic screeching (from the imps), but only a few short minutes after you have disposed of the first waves of enemies coming for you and without squeaking in abject terror and disgust as your ride proceeds to fill its own belly with the fallen insects, bringing you entirely too close to their hairy, sometimes still twitching bodies as it does so, you can reorganize your troops' movements.
The process also does involve shooting a few imps, but none of them even die- they're surprisingly tenacious little buggers, with only a handful of their fallen lying around. They're eaten just as much as anything else, of course, but you don't really care what the peasant levies get up to on their own time.
Now firmly in enemy-controlled territory, you are subject to several smaller incursions once again, noting that the enemy's flying units are making an issue of themselves. On open ground and with air support, the insects can all but obliterate your levies and though your stronger fighters can fight back with relative ease, the grasswolves need space to maneuver properly in order to fight effectively while the golems and cyborgs are just too easily occupied by the suicidal charges of the rest of the bugs.
Naturally, you solve this problem by disabling entire swarms of the flyers, completely negating their combat effectiveness in its entirety and saving your imps for the real battle.
Which, incidentally, is not far off. As you draw nearer and nearer to the hive, resistance against your army grows steadily, but slowly, letting you press on despite the mounting pressure- until it stops, the bugs still coming near, but staying at a distance.
Watching you. You knew it! They're a hostile hive intelligence and they're going to try and eat your brain when you sleep! Your nightmares were real all along! Wake up sheeple!
Calm down daddy, they're just being ordered around by a leader.
Or that. You do not trust them not to try for a sneak attack and vow to tighten security back home in any case. Also, what lead-
You spy a source of magical power, coming from… Above! Staring up, you see it just as it begins to move, a grey-brown blur speeding against your formation from above and-
Being struck back by a mighty blow from Elena, her trusty knife held before herself like a talisman against the personified evil now standing before you.
It has eyes on its shoulders. And shield-legs. And a giant stinger frothing with hostile magic, plus multicolored wings beating and spreading some form of miniscule powder.
You think you might cry if you look at it for too long.
The two legs with long, cleaver-like blades to them remain at ease beneath its shields, but the shorter ones with a resemblance to pointy scythes are moving as its grotesque, horn-like jaws make a chittering sound.
Pointing at you. In challenge. You see the intelligence in this thing and know, there and then, that this fiend must not be allowed to live, for it has seen your face and might recognize it now.
You're also glad you are riding your grasswolf, or else your legs might just give out on you. This creature is twice the size of yourself! That makes it… Sixteen times that of a human!
Faced with a creature like straight from your nightmares, you do the only thing that comes to mind. Pushing the familiar exertion of your power together, you imperiously hide all evidence of how shaken you are. "Fus ro MUH!"
Okay, where'd that one come from? Pretty sure that game's not out yet either and you've never played…
Winter comes for the horrible, horrible bug. It comes in snowflakes breathed by the spell you conjured, it grasps it with a fist of pure cold and desperation and it settles over the area as the edifice to your sheer power that it is.
You may be expending a considerable amount of your strength for sustained spells right now, but this is still well within the scope of your might. However, as you carefully watch your foe, you realize something is wrong; the magic isn't quite working right. It is weakening and hampering your target, as it is meant to, but as you watch its effects take hold, they do not take hold all the way.
The giant monster bug buzzes and rubs its blade-legs together. Is it- This thing is laughing at you.
How dare it.
How. Dare. It.
Unforgivable. Unforgivable! This creature is at least partially immune against the glorious power of Jackieness!
You must suffer not the witch to live.
"Muh!" In an exertion of will, you make the magic you unleashed flare out around you, targeting any nearby reinforcements for the beast. At the same time, you raise a finger, pointing at the-
The-
The blasphemous creature that must be extinguished! "Kill!"
Chittering and buzzing, the monster rises further into the air, staying out of reach of your forces. However, before you can order the imps to be thrown at it while clutching your bombs, it gives off an ungodly noise, clearly giving out new orders for the surrounding insects- as the changed color of the nigh invisible powder falling off its wings indicates.
Your cyborgs take aim. Your golems take position in teams of two. Your grasswolves growl and prepare themselves as the imps build a spear wall even as their leader prepares to ritually sacrifice one of their number.
All around you, the dark writhes in hostile shapes and the battle is on.
It seems like this abhorrent creature is content to sit there in the sky and just wait for its gathered underlings to come in. Well, fuck that, you refuse to let it.
Aiming carefully, you point one of your guns at the monster, angling the shot in hopes of crippling its mobility- or at the very least force it to dodge downwards. And with the force of an angry avalanche, one of your patented ice lances flies out, ready to teach this creature the follies of it existence.
Then it pulls its legs in, weapons protected by the shield-like protrusions on two of them, and your glorious missile is blocked off by the strangely tough spiked material, driving the creature back.
But it stays in the air, despite your best efforts. "Muh," you curse, already considering whether to risk another shot or switch to another mode of bombardment when-
The giant bug moves, coming at you in a storm of probing sickles and chopping blades. You attempt to get out of the way, but in your formation dodging isn't that easy; you take several blows that would be painful were it not for the barriers of ice automatically flaring to life to protect you from actual attacks like this and your protective magical equipment combining its might into a wall of force that completely turns away the rest.
You got away without a scratch yourself… But it will take some time for your equipment to recharge and this thing hit you hard until you managed to get away by urging your steed to jump aside.
And the swarm around you is drawing ever closer…
"EEK!" "YA!" "NUH!" "OOF!"
Elena shook her head at her daddy's antics, using her body to try and evade the series of well-executed attacks. If things were different, she could almost respect this thing's skill with its weapons… Almost.
As it was, she just directed her underlings to work with her and went on the attack, trampling over the ugly little buggers in the way.
It stopped going after her daddy when they all shanked it at once.
Beaten back, but not bloodied, you silently approve of the sudden assault your enemy finds itself to be subjected to, several of your trusty golems ramming into it from behind and treating it to the 'stabbytime special'. With it distracted from yourself, you use the breathing room bought to conjure a floating platform, silently ordering two of your minions to get on it as you hand them a bomb each.
Then you use your magical ice to launch them at the enemy.
They proceed to throw themselves at the giant bug, dunking said bombs right at it as they pass by.
There is a beautifully executed twin explosion. If your hands weren't full, you would be applauding.
Of course the thrice-accursed monster is still alive, buzzing back off once the smoke has cleared, but it hasn't gotten away without a scratch this time.
Also, what are the others doing? Where is your ranged support? The peasants dying in droves to protect you?
You look around, seeing the mass of bugs held at bay by regular telekinetic pushes the head imp is somehow emitting regularly, allowing the rest of the horde to act at will.
It's actually being useful. Figure that. And here you thought sacrificing the other imps was just for fun.
Now that you have established how this fight is likely to go, with you hiding behind your minions in the hopes of avoiding serious injury, you can take a moment to load up a few of your special rounds in the hopes of distracting this horrible abomination. The bullets, charged with runes glowing a faint blue, are easy enough to ready thanks to your practice in doing this.
Truly, it has absolutely nothing to do with a natural ability with your soul weapons letting you do this kind of stuff almost at will. It was diligent practice all the way.
You wait for the monster to be distracted, which happens thanks to a well-placed spike of ice fired by one of your golems, and fire with both pistols, unloading their lethal ammunition at the perfect moment. Avoiding a shield just barely, both of your shots slam right into the creature's side, penetrating deep beneath the weaker chitin and releasing a small shockwave of neon blue electricity dancing over its flesh.
"Kshhh-aaaaa!" For the first time this entire fight, it screams. Well, 'screams'. Shuddering as its flight grows unsteady, it swoops down on you once again, but this time you're prepared and expecting it, ducking under grasping bladed legs as your grasswolf steed jumps to the side.
Frustrated, the giant insect swerves around the battlefield instead, dodging the lunge of two of your wolves and slapping one golem aside, casually shattering it with a brute application of its blades before it grabs one of the imps embroiled in an embittered fight against the swarm. Rising with it firmly stuck at its scythed arms, it reveals…
Ugh. It reveals a giant bug penis, slimy and misshapen appendage sliding out of its abdomen. Your ugly minion doesn't actually have any clothes to wear, so its backside is defenseless despite its struggles to the contrary, letting the bug use it like an onahole as it spears it on its cock.
It screams out most pitifully, but you are supremely uninterested. Especially as it gets a hard-on itself from the rough treatment.
Then, however, you're much more preoccupied with the bugs swarming everywhere now, one of the cyborgs almost completely covered in stinging and biting ones. You consider, briefly, whether to use a bomb against them all, but are distracted when several of them approach the big one…
And fuse with it, becoming parts of its chitinous exoskeleton and shifting forms and colors until they're nothing more than parts.
Seriously, what the heck?
You cannot save that imp. That much is sure. Instead, you turn towards your new task: Eliminating the swarm of bugs to keep it from fusing and probably somehow reinforcing the big one. To this end, you go and order one of your golems to plunge into the largest group of squirming insects in sight, heedless of any dangers involved.
Then you use it as a conduit of your might. Pumping a considerable amount of power through it, you trigger one of your more destructive spells, turning it into a focal point of what you can only describe as a violent explosion of cold.
It spreads like a wave, freezing a considerable amount of chitinous bodies solid and killing them instantly. The rest are in disarray at this sudden change, requiring a moment to react and fill the suddenly existing holes in their grouping, giving you a valuable opportunity to react.
Which you do by cramming another two rune bombs into your golems' hands, having them throw the things at the big one. You grimace despite the pleasing explosions forcing it to land, tattered wings too damaged to be of much use anymore.
You're down to your last bomb. And casualties amongst the troops are also mounting, annoyingly.
The swarm's leader spreads its bladed legs out in a clear threat display, the imp still stuck on its cock (Or, thinking about it, possibly an ovipositor?) swaying with every move.
It is impaled along with the rest of the bug when Elena, finally getting serious, uses your sword, ramming its blade deep into the core of the horrible creature you face.
It screams, bone-shaking sound enough to affect even yourself. What, did she cut off the tip of its dick or something? That would be hilarious, actually. But no, you aren't sure and perhaps it doesn't matter; in an effort of sheer will, the giant bug lifts itself up into the sky again, racing parallel to the ground to seek vengeance for its mighty wounds…
And missing you by a good couple of meters. It tries to swerve, but gets off course on account of its heavy wounds and- if you had the slightest sliver of empathy for these creatures, you would wince as it crashes straight into the rest of the swarm accompanying it, smearing bugs onto the ground and killing a good chunk of them.
The dead imp flew off in a random direction halfway through, too, the dead body leaking some fluids you refuse to investigate.
So much for this thing, then. It gave you a good fight, but in the end… In the end, there can be no mercy. This is a fight for the correction of a great wrong, and it must be fought to very end, no matter the cost to anyone that is not you.
"Finish it," you command, leaving Elena to clean this foe up. And she does, too, swiftly walking up to the temporarily stunned bug and beheading it in short order with only two or three hacking swings, then stabbing the severed head too, to be extra sure it stays dead.
Good. You approve of being thorough in things like this.
The rest of the battle, once the enemy commander is dead, is a mere formality for the most part; all you need to do is to finish off the scattered swarm of miscellaneous giant bugs, none of which are anywhere close in the danger they represent to the one that was such a problem.
A few imps die, but it's not like anyone really cares, and so you finally get to take a tally of your current state. You use up a couple of BlueBall rounds, but you still have more than enough you need not worry about running out anytime soon, as opposed to the rune bombs you had prepared, of which remains a grand total of one.
That's not to say that using it in the battle you just fought was a bad call, of course, just that you don't have much more of those on hand. A shame, too, they're pretty handy.
In terms of casualties, three of your ice golems have perished in the line of duty, destroyed by the abomination or worn down by the swarm before you could get it under control. Several of your grasswolves have taken actual wounds by now, some of them pretty deep; one of them might have trouble walking from now on if Viridis doesn't just decide that it should heal.
Two of the six cyborgs you have are much worse for wear, too, moving in stuttering bursts and distinct losses to their range of movement. One is missing its eyes entirely, the cybernetic replacements clawed out and lost in the melee. All of them have some scratches and are missing parts, but these two are a wash until they're repaired.
As for the imps… A little over half of them is still alive, you guess? It's hard to estimate and they made a point to butcher their fallen to eat them raw as soon as the battle was won. They're also taking the dead bugs apart to use their body parts as weapons, replacing bone spears and clubs with legs and mandibles you have no doubt will be sharpened and used against one another soon enough.
You can replenish and even heal your golems, 'tis true, but you can't do the same to any of your other troops. You may need to seriously consider whether to press on or retreat for the day, having struck a massive blow against your enemy already and ready to prepare for your next assault…
Right, your resources are exhausted, your troops… Well, lacking in general compared to what you'd demand of them if any of them even had the concept of expectations they could fail to live up to (save the grasswolves, who are goood doggies), but even so you do not have to retreat quite yet… And have struck a most devastating blow against your foe to boot, your terrible onslaught leaving their peasants and their knights in shambles and even the protector of the southern wall has been struck down in truth.
They will not be able to fill this position again, not on short notice… And the smaller, weaker swarms are hardly a challenge for a sizable enough warband.
This means you have an opening that shall stay open for at least a few days, but while you remain here and before any enemy reinforcements are sent, you shall follow your wise councilor's council and-
Just make them tear everything down so our next assault becomes easier! Take their buildings and their walls! This is Strategy MMO basics!
That.
"Muh! Muh muh, muuh!" You give the marching orders, gesturing for the waxen structures around you. Not every part of the area around the shopping mall, also known as the Den of Chitinous Evil, is filled with the stuff- if anything, there's a sort of open area around it for some reason before a second wall of fortifications rises in the surrounding buildings and stuff- but you have every bit of it nearby removed anyway, scraped off by muscular, trained golem knights and their trusty Swiss Army Knife hands, then carried by the imp levies pressed into service as simple laborers to a central pile from which you retrieve it.
What? Wax might come in handy. It's supposed to be this super amazing 'natural' resource, right?
Not that anything to do with bugs is natural and least of all the giant kind amongst them, but still.
Meanwhile your doggies are busy eating and the cyborgs are standing around, as they are too stupid to understand orders that don't involve trying to kill stuff. A shame, but fine. You didn't want their help anyway; you can tear those buildings down on your own!
Boom goes the house, a sizable piece of ice stuck through it. This isn't enough to destroy it outright, of course, but by slowly utilizing several ice lances cast in succession whenever your mana recovers, you can do a lot of 'residential redevelopment' on the fly.
And of course you run away the moment you hear the insidiously unpleasant buzzing of bugs and spot movement in the distance. Jackie, away! Having taken a bunch of wax and the big bug's corpse, of course. They're yours now. Spoils of war righteously earned and nobody can tell you otherwise!
It had taken a lot of work and patience, but after carefully analyzing all the data she could get and getting lucky once, she had found… A lead!
A lead on Jackie, to be precise. Or on a place she might be connected to and that was thus suspicious.
According to eyewitness reports (that old lady Kerrie had helped across the street), there was a church in an area nearby where a 'pretty young thing' also sometimes came by to talk to the priest and help out around, doing community service according to him.
What had struck her as odd was the long, white hair explicitly mentioned by the woman. This did sound a lot like Jackie, so obviously Kerrie had to go and investigate!
Finding the church wasn't hard, all it took was to keep her eyes open as she wandered the area, and once she was inside it was simplicity itself to pretend to be just another churchgoer, taking a seat among the pews and peeking around from the corner of her eyes as she 'prayed'.
Her parents used to go to church with her every Sunday, so she knew how to blend in. Of course that hadn't been happening ever since the divorce and the move but nevermindthatmagiclagirlstuffnow.
Oh, look at that, a conveniently appearing priest! He seemed to be taking the time to talk to people as he went, slowly making his way across the church holding small talk and chatting casually like he did this every day. He probably did, too. There weren't many visitors at the moment, but it seemed this place was fairly well-visited normally.
Well, it didn't seem like anything obvious was amiss… Even if that priest was a bit much sometimes from what she was overhearing. Kerrie got back up, satisfied with her preliminary scouting run and already planning to take a closer look around the building at a later date.
She'd need to get backup ready, talk it over with the others and-
She halted out on the street, glancing a piece of paper stuck in her pocket.
Pulling it out, it was… Instructions for where to find an emergency stash of holy water? That was refilled regularly?
Were there such things as holy water emergencies? And if so, what were they?
"Good work, chu! Having a reliable source of blessed water on hand is invaluable for some monster, chu!"
"But… Why?"
"Because, chu!"
Carting all the goods back home is no less of a bother than arriving to plunder them to begin with, but once you're back (and only lost a handful of imps that got either squashed by various falling objects on accident or else wandered off and got lost quickly enough your cyborgs didn't shoot them for insubordination), you set about the lengthy and exhausting task of returning your soldiers back from whence they cameth.
That means your golems and the misshapen cyborg things are brutally corralling the imps back into the mist dimension using the garbage chute Brian showed you how to use once… Or did he?
He didn't, he just beamed the information into your head. It was kind of itchy for me.
Huh. Handy. Anyway-
It also nearly gave you a brain aneurysm, so we kind of decided against just making you a genius at everything by downloading the internet into your head.
You were so close to true greatness…
Anyway, you just lead the wolves back to the forest, giving each of them a few head pats and belly rubs before they go. They are very fluffy and warm, though perhaps not as fluffy and warm as Tabitha who is already friends with them, playing around and even riding on the backs of the grassy lupines.
Lots of fluff. You may or may not rub your head against a few of the animals you play with before you head back home carrying your kitty cat, seeing to the dispersal of the golems and Brian's receiving of his own mooks probably made out of some people that looked at him wrong at some point before you take the time to consider your loot.
"Muh!" You demand, holding a chunk of torn-off monster wax in front of Brian whom you accosted in one of the many hallways around his lair. You are getting better at finding him, you feel; this time you just had to search for twenty minutes around the lower third to the left.
"Chuh." Nobody can escape the Jackie.
"Muh," you repeat your demand, poking the piece of uneven, surprisingly smooth stuff into Brian's direction.
"Just throw it into the furnace for sticky essence, chuh," he finally says, flicking his tail dismissively.
You turn over your magic box, shaking it a little when its contents refuse to come out. Maybe what you stuck inside this time really was a little too big.
Shaking the box furiously now, you finally dislodge one arm, the large chunk of chitin cloking against the ground.
"Puchuuh, do you want to dissect it for information and to see what would work on you, or just sell it, chuh?"
… The thought of transplanting insect body parts onto yourself have you choking in horror and disgust, revulsion gripping your body and mind for a short moment. Good thing Brian wasn't along to distract you with psychological attacks like this, he totally could've gotten you killed.
You're really being overdramatic. It's just bugs.
Yes, just the most horrible kind of being to have ever existed. How weird of you to be averse to their very existence. Little miss bug apologist is surely right.
Jeez, fine, fine, be that way, Elena grumbles playfully. See if I help you next time you black out because the bugs were too much.
… You regret nothing!
"Sell," you wave at the body as if to ward it away, closing one of your eyes so you don't have to look at it too much. "Get rid of it. Also, farm job. Pay."
You don't run a charity here. Brian wanted you to get really active, you went and took out a massive cursed sub-dimension thingy full of horribly stinky mutated old women and dead fetuses. And now he still has failed to even pay you?
You're disappointed in him. Truly. You want some of that cash and you want it now. Few things make your brain tingle as pleasantly as lots of high-value magical denominations.
Sure, one of those things is sex and you get lots of it, but your greed isn't about to sit back and watch forever when it could get in on some of that action.
Something of your naked want must have shown in your eyes, for Brian actually doesn't try to mess with you for once; instead, a hatch opens in the ceiling above you, dropping a small sack of something clinking against itself on you.
You catch it with unopposed, supreme grace, of course. Your supercharged reflexes let you simply snatch it out of the air, proclaiming your superiority to all.
"And interest," you say, intent on demanding full recompense for the emotional harm you have suffered due to this delay in paym-
Brian's tail swishes in that usual way it does. "Anything else, chuh?"
You… don't think there is. "Muh," you make, already thinking about how you'll spend the rest of your day.
It's been pretty stressful, actually. You had to march while directing an army after spending most of your early to late morning preparing stuff, fight in pitched battle for far too long to be healthy and of course, coming into close contact with bugs.
Right, you need to play video games all night again. Bloodborne has never betrayed you. There are no bugs there.
"Mgubah?!"
I told you to watch out for the spiders.
But you weren't told they'd be this big! Nor that they'd have such an unfair stunlocking base attack with their disgusting long spider legs!
They touched your character! They touched her! That is unforgivable!
Once again the stream of Jackie_The_Great_And_Mighty was active, and once again the comments were just a repetition of the word 'cute' for several seconds whenever she did something.
People were having fun and that was really the most important part.
Cuddling into your bed, you play with the shiny disks of silver you… Received, yes. Because you deserve all the coins in the world anyway, the hard part is making reality acknowledge that fact. Your magical senses are poking out, deliberately taking in the bright, swirling coils of power contained within these mysteriously shiny objects.
They are really very, very shiny.
Caressing the smooth metal one last time, you gather it all up in your hands, already knowing what you're going to use the silver coins for. Taking a deep breath, you jam your head into them, aggressively snorting the treasure you fought so hard for.
More! More power! Mooore!
You roll around your soft little nest for a bit, working off the energy and the rush of the injection of pure, ice-ifying power.
This has been a good day. Despite being, well, everything that happened. You stretch, feeling out the fluffyness of your domain.
… You have to get up one last time to wander around the house until you find either Tabitha or anal demon. Whether you get to cuddle or 'cuddle' all night, you don't care, but you won't go to sleep alone!
I-It's not because you don't want to sleep alone, okay?
Your sleep is even and restful, using the tanned body possessed by your enslaved demon as a pillow while languidly plumbing her ass all night. You wake up halfway for a bit when Tabitha comes by, hopping into bed with you to lie down with her little itty bitty kitty head on your pillow, next to the squirming anal demon's head.
You reached out to let her sniff your fingers and pat her head a bit before drifting back off again. It was a good night's sleep, all in all.
Now well-rested and your balls pleasantly relieved, you go about your morning routine, stumbling downstairs and rummaging through your cupboards-
Why do you have a bunch of fruits lying around the kitchen? And what is that thing in the oven? It smells kind of good, but you didn't put it there.
"Morning, Jackie!" Ugh, Chuckie. Does she have to be this energetic and alert in the morning? "I'm baking apple pie, you want some? It'll be done really soon."
"Muh," you mumble to yourself, walking into the general direction of your kitchen desk. "'Ngredients?"
"Oh, I found everything I needed around the house! Though I did use all your flour, sorry about that," your employee says, taking a seat next to you. "I can-"
"'s fine," you wave her off, considering whether or not to break out the chocolate anyway to see how well it would go with that pie. "Just gotta find more."
You weren't really using the baking stuff that came with the house anyway. May as well let her do so and eat the result.
It's smelling really, really good. Your tummy is grumbling.
Smells really really good. Me wanna.
"You hungry?" Chucky asks, quietly sliding the pair of scissors she still carries with herself into her waistband. "'Cause I am. Nothing's better than a fresh apple pie made with fresh apples. They're really sweet and juicy, too, Monkey got them straight off the trees for us."
"Monkey?"
"The skimpy girl outside with the green stuff? She said she's related to you. City girls are really bold, aren't they?"
You are just completely not going to deal with that right now.
"Oh, timer's just about to run out. It's really nice having a high-tech kitchen with all these gizmos," Chucky says, bustling around the completely normal and almost boringly mundane kitchen. Opening the oven, a wave of warm, smoky air escapes, bringing with it the scent of of the one thing nature is good for; sweet fruits to bribe you into allowing it to continue existing with.
The sliding door to your garden opens, the almost naked monkey girl you fucked into Viridis coming inside bearing a batch of bananas. They're almost aggressively yellow and bright-looking, as well as one and a half times as large as normal ones you'd buy in a supermarket. "This smells great, can you also do banana smoothies?"
Meanwhile, the crumpled form of your demon slave makes its way downstairs, too, walking very bowledgged and leaking your cum, having been filled with enough of the noblest of fluids to sport a swollen belly the size of a watermelon. "You know, this kind of reminds me of hell. The good parts of it, I mean."
"Muh." You will not share that beautiful apple pie with everyone. Anal demon can eat dog food, you think you had a bag of it lying around somewhere to try and feed it to your grass doggies.
Good Chucky.
Luckily, your morning isn't too lengthy, even as you fight tooth and nail to reduce the amount of people you need to share that pie with. In the end, anal demon gets a very thin slice while you, Chuckie and your daughter figure out how to distribute the rest.
Viridis also gets some. Apparently, though she doesn't really require food, she still can taste, and offering tribute is a thing for whatever kind of being she is according to your offspring with her. Which is fair enough- she is obviously superior to most lesser beings, just as you are superior to all other beings as such.
If people should pay tribute to you, she should also get a share, so she consequently receives her own slice of pie. It is however, unbeknownst to her, a little smaller than yours.
Because obviously you get the biggest slice. That is the only possible outcome.
Once you're done eating the surprisingly filling meal (you suspect the apples and other fruits that sprang into existence around your garden are magical, 'nuff said), you go on to ready yourself for a trip to the real city right beyond your portal, figuring you should have enough time to hang out with Melanie a bit and still get back in time before it closes for the day.
Social obligations. They are exhausting and time consuming. Worth it in her case, but there's a reason your planned palace has an entire sector of it planned in for the express purpose of facilitating your harem's logistics and ease of keeping it fucked unconscious just to you don't have to deal with any drama.
Of course your extreme manliness and charm are going to keep them all pliant and unable to object to anything, but-
Please stop, having my old subconscious sentiments about you dredged up like that is painfully embarrassing, daddy!
Elena shouldn't be ashamed of anything. There's no reason she should ever be, really. Your daughter(s) can be whoever and whatever they want to be and you will personally stab anyone trying to claim otherwise in the throat.
You realize that attitude is part of the problem here? Stop being such a great dad already!
No.
Also, while you're at it, now that you have a farmhand to help you with your garden-forest, you may need a bunch of stuff; seeds of whatever useful plants you can think of, maybe some gardening equipment. A certain someone could kill some time by leading a gang of golem thugs to rob a few gardening stores.
Leave it to me! I love robbing places.
You magically create a dozen icy bodies before you, feeling how Elena possesses one of them almost immediately to give you a salute while the rest go about their usual shiftyness. Oh, and come to think of it, while she's at it she may as well add some flour and whatever people use to cook to the shopping list.
Can do, do we get some disguises for this?
You reach out a hand, conjuring clothes for each of the golems, from 'construction worker' to 'deliveryman', with honorable mention of the three of them you dress up as a totally normal family of three, a mommy, a daddy and a child.
Perfection, in other words.
Anyway, back to Melanie. Using your tracing bracelet paired with one for her, you easily find her location- it's not a school day, apparently, or else she just blew school off to instead go work that part time job of hers at the music store. Either way works for you, really.
A little bell goes off as you open the door like a normal person, striding inside. There's a couple of customers, but you opt to just ignore them as you make for the counter, as opposed to forcing them to buy a bunch of random stuff and thank you for the privilege before summarily throwing them out so you have some privacy.
"Muh," you greet the dark-haired girlfriend you came for, lifting yourself on the tips of your toes to greet her somewhere she can see you.
"Oh, Jackie, didn't see you there." Putting aside the newspaper she was glancing over, Melanie gets up, leaning over the counter to smile down at you. "How you doing today?"
"Apple pie," you announce, taking the (middling to small) piece of it you saved for her out of your box. It is inside a tupperware box, of course. "Chucky made it."
"Aww, that's sweet… Also, who's Chucky?"
You consider the mistake of not just sneaking behind her and performing cunnilingus in secret while out of sight from anyone inside the store.
Bugging Melanie into letting you behind the counter doesn't take long, thankfully, despite her insistence that she really shouldn't, and so you soon manage your way on the other side of the fortress of customer service.
Of course once there, you waste no time grabbing for Melanie's jeans. "Jackie!" She hisses quietly. "Don't-"
"Muh," you whisper back at the same volume. You shall get what you came for, after all, and propriety can go fuck itself on your giant cock.
This is exactly why you were such a great person since before you were me.
The struggle is subdued, kept quiet by Melanie's desire not to have anyone find out and your desire to not have to shoot anyone to eat her out. Well, at least not today. Finally, however, you have her pants down to her thighs, meaning that she is then unprepared when you grab for her panties (black lace, which makes you happy).
"What are you even doing?" The teenage girl asks between grit teeth.
"Identity check," you give back, looking up at her completely innocently. "Have to make sure you haven't been compromised."
"And what does that have to do with-"
"Taste check." With that, you lunge across her lap, burying your face between her soft, slim thighs.
They feel very nice. Not as nice, though, as the oft, tender lips trying to hide away between them, assaulted by your tongue without delay. "Hah," Melanie makes, surprised and her hands twitching.
She looks up, worried someone might have seen or heard. However, you made sure the customers around right now were all facing something they were browsing before you did this, so you are not interrupted as you further the Jackie agenda by pulling her clothes a little further off in order to spread her legs.
A hand strokes though your hair. You take a moment to enjoy the feeling, closing your eyes for a moment. Then you're back at it, sliding your wet tongue over Melanie's slit and considering whether or not to nibble on her clit.
"You're such a naughty little girl, aren't you Jackie?" She asks breathlessly, forcefully keeping herself quiet.
"Mnh," you make, pushing your tongue into her tender, virgin pussy. It tastes like she smells, that is, nice and a little flowery.
May just be your nose talking and overriding your taste buds, though.
Slowly relaxing, your girlfriend pushes her pants and panties down her knees, letting you access her properly. "Haah… What will I ever do with you?" She asks, gently tugging on your head and drawing it closer.
"Any new info?" You mumble, immediately diving back into her muff. You have to be absolutely sure and Melanie's really starting to get wet now.
Holding back a chortle of laughter, the black-haired teenager shakes her head. "Alright, have it your way. Just don't stop, will you?"
Does it count as prostitution if you're paying for information with sex or doesn't it because she would give it to you anyway and the sex is incidental to the matter? Asking the real questions here.
As you pleasure your girlfriend, she begins telling you about what she has found through the perfidious extraction of memories by way of conversing with people. Apparently, there are a few things she can tell you, which is nice, as it will allow you to do what Brian wants, if a bit annoying because you were also planning to focus on the bug hive for a bit.
According to her, there's trouble in the woods- again. Why anyone ever actually steps foot in that deathtrap of a natural landscape you doubt you'll ever understand, but from the sounds of it an entire camping ground was completely wiped out by what the authorities are calling a sudden landslide caused by intense rainfall.
Did it even rain lately? You don't think it did.
Secondly, there's some rumours about a certain office building officially belonging to the Egalitarian Office of Dining, a company ostensibly all about food.
You say 'ostensibly' because that name is a painfully obvious ruse and probably stands for something very different, but hey, not like you care.You got the address.
At that point, a customer comes along and actually wants to buy something, so you take a moment to tease and finger Melanie with all your heart… Including a thumb going up her butt, as you know what she likes exactly. She can't complain, and so your entire tongue wriggles across her sweet little love tunnel you are absolutely wrecking one of these days (whenever you can get her to agree).
Who seriously buys CDs these days? Just pirate everything off the internet, that's what it's for! Well, that and magical girl hentai.
Once that's all done and you made Melanie endure at least one orgasm while keeping up her customer service face, you finally come to the third piece of news she has for you- you're already used to this, you aren't going to be surprised about the number three popping up again.
Apparently, one district of New Generork has been experiencing some unusual troubles with street- and traffic lights, making for some problems with everything. To be sure, you asked if they were missing entirely or anything, but it seems not; instead, they're just glowing completely random colors at random times of the day.
No lightwolf, in other words. Or at least very unlikely to be one.
In the end, you come up from Melanie's lap with a nice little snack and knowing more than you did going in, wiping your chin a little as you go. This was a very fruitful exchange.
She would agree, you're sure, but she's a bit busy being slumped down and trying to regulate her breathing. You'll just consider her silent support for what it is.
Mana Pylon: A large obelisk made of ice, engraved with runes that let it passively gather mana from the environment. Large capacity. Can absorb a limited amount of magic, weakening non-ice spells cast in its vicinity and charging a powerful detonation that destroys itself. Deals 12d10 damage in a large area; Crafting Time: 1 AP
You do a lot of work, if you do say so yourself, once you return home and revisit the list of things you could and probably should be doing. Sure, you don't get any immediately noticeable results, but if self-improvement across the board was that easy, everyone would be doing it instead of being a mass of useless flesh middling at best in every conceivable aspect just trundling their lives never accomplishing anything worthy of note.
You blame the education system, personally. Young people just aren't being taught the quintessential qualities of hard work and good character, instead reducing schooling to regurgitating and promptly forgetting facts as though that was the actually important part in a show of the continual degradation and increasing superficiality of society.
Wow, I don't know whether to call you an old man or agree that school sucks, daddy.
When in doubt, just choose all available options.
Anyway, you have received the wares you sent Elena and her underlings to 'acquire', having the golem brigade throw everything out behind the house. You, meanwhile, are off to find Chucky, the professional farm girl currently relaxing in the kitchen.
"Muh. Got some garden stuff," you tell her, jaw a little tired from the extensive cunnilingus you performed earlier. Sure, you technically regenerated that away so hard it never became an issue in the first place, but you feel like you would be sore.
Phantom soreness and itching. Truly the worst the world can still do to you because of just how powerfully amazing you are.
"Thanks, Jackie!" Sticking the knife she was handling into a pocket, the girl in question stretches her arms, hands entwined with each other. "I've been talking to the creepy murder puppet with the murder basement, it said I could actually learn some mid-tier spells if I really apply myself or something."
"Mm," you nod, filing that information away for later. As in a few minutes. In the meantime… "Also, can you do magic fruits?"
"Only one way to find out! Oh, also, want a smoothie? I made a few for monkey, but I'm sure she wouldn't mind. I just love using that smoothie maker. I mean, a whole machine just for making them! How crazy is that?"
"Muh." Specialized equipment makes many thing easier. Including turning fruits into mush.
Naturally, once you have done your part in disposing of the surprisingly tasty and juicy fruit mush, you proceed to accost Brian once again, tracking the plushy little miscreant down inside his own domain.
You have to make sure he never feels safe from you. That is the best way you have to bend him to your will right now.
"Brian. Brian. Brian. Brian. Briaaaan." Poking at the door beyond which you are perceiving the careful lack of his magical energy signature, you bump your head into it a few times, absolutely convinced he's hiding inside. "I know where you aaare…"
"Chuh," you hear on the other side of the door, faintly, but before you can proceed to blow it apart through careful usage of your magic, it opens by itself. "What is it, Chuhackie?"
Wow, it's been a while since he did that.
"Chucky. You did a thing."
"Puchuh, if you mean a few more tests to determine her capabilities and possible uses, then yes, chuuh. What of it, chuh?"
"How make her useful?" All this talking is still tiring you out, even if it isn't actively painful anymore. Still, what needs must and all that. "Muh."
"Chuuh, she has been overloaded and partially transformed, but stabilized since. I suspect as she was related to the focal point of the grudge generating the magic involved, it may have inadvertently reached out to her and conveyed some of its power to its nearest relative that was not an awful person, as opposed to the warping influence that-"
"Muh," you interrupt, pushing into the room and picking Brian up, ignoring the dismembered body and abundance of hacksaws inside. It actually reminds you of your old corpse disposal room a little. "Don't care. Usefulness."
"Chuh, she has some power, but no control," your information dispenser explains. "With practice, she could learn to cast spells of her element, puuh, but it is unlikely she will reach extremes of power. Curse magic excels in-"
"Manuals? Booklets?"
"Puchuh, could help her. Or practice with someone that could teach her."
Good. You have something to look into now.
However, you aren't done quite yet; you have many, many questions for Brian, first and foremost among which is-
His tail swishes as he jumps out of your arms, returning to the dissection table. "Anything else, chuh?"
"Muh," you shake your head, already thinking about where you'll be going for the evening.
The city within the Overcity is as bustling and vibrant as ever, by which you mean to say there's not too much foot traffic, but enough people are using the streets to make for a constant backdrop of activity still. You're on your way to do a thing, but also not exactly in a hurry, so you can afford to take it easy without hurrying or anything.
Which is how you make your way along one of the underhive streets, demonstratively looking anyone you come across in the eye to make sure they all know who the real boss is here.
You may have no street cred anymore, but this time around you're acting within a context where looking small and cute is as telling as being two meters tall and built like a brick shithouse.
Man, you kind of miss your old height, still, even if you had to murder a bunch of those giant hooligans before the rest of them got the message.
Uh, daddy?I don't think-
Anyway, your meandering pace and careful advance are what see you come across a very particular sight. In one of the side alleys, many as they are all over the city, you see a set of clothing strewn across the ground, just lying there as if someone was wearing it and suddenly disappeared into thin air.
Taking a quick look around, you summon a golem, making it drag the stuff out of there just in case it's a trap, noting the jingling and clinking coming from it.
As it turns out, a whole bunch of silver coins are inside of the clothes. Almost as if someone got turned into coin, somehow.
Now the people-coins are yours, now, and you are richer than you have ever been before. Yaaay.
Baphomet's library is in as perfect a condition as ever; the free-flowing lava streams magically bound into place are bright and abundant, not giving off any heat whatsoever, and the doors are open in an invitation to come inside.
You finish nibbling down the last of your newly acquired silver coins, for now. You used up a good bit of them, but still saved some in case you'll actually need to pay for stuff.
Coming inside, you don't take long to make out the owner, the goat-y demon humming to herself as she sorts a few shelves' worth of books, telekinetically moving them around as she goes.
"Oh hello. Jackie, right?" You are not surprised she remembers your name. After all, who wouldn't? "Have you come to have another read?"
"Muh," you nod, approaching her. Although you can't feel any heat from the molten rock serving as this place's decoration, it's still pretty toasty inside this library… A bit too warm for your tastes, actually, but just a little, and your inherent magic takes care of the rest. "Want to learn about stuff."
"I find that wanting to learn is a good attitude to have," the demon of indeterminate strength smiles softly. "Why don't you come along and tell me what about? I can help you pick out books."
"Muh." She's always really friendly. And even gives you headpats and all. You never were all that big on libraries as such, but this one is very much nice.
Going over the topics you wanted to look into, it seems that while Baphomet is happy to let you study many of the books available to the public, taking them out of the library is another matter… Of sorts.
Simply put, you get a book on household magic, mostly cleaning and stuff, cooking magic, which your Sorbet spell apparently falls under, interestingly, and one on magic about hair- and skincare.
It turns out that's a whole thing. Not that you'll ever really need it, but Baphomet said it would be a shame for your hair to get damaged, so you didn't object when she gave it to you.
Beyond this, however, things were a little… different. While she definitely has grimoires (actual grimoires) in here, your host mentioned that those were going to cost… One way or another.
Naturally, you want to get them, but she isn't letting go of them for cheap. Or rather, she is, according to her, but a silver coin for a book on 'Foundational Ice Magic', 'Cursing Like A Sailor' and 'Rampant Growth' each is way too high!
Not to mention she said something about more cantrips, but demands that you study them inside of the library itself only unless you can find them yourself to check them out.
There are literally billions of books here. You are not doing that, not without an instruction on how they're sorted because Baphomet may or may not have an actual system for that, but you have no idea what it might be!
And you're pretty sure she's perving on you about the whole making you learn this stuff inside the library thing. It's in her eyes… And in how she openly fondles her breasts as she tells you the only way you'll get her to point you in the way of more of those books is if you promise to learn everything you can from them right inside the library.
Faced with little true choice if you do want to get what you came for, you agree to have an impromptu study session right inside the library, determined to succeed in your mission. Oh, and you also pay Baphomet those silver coins and get the grimoires she's willing to sell you right away, just to get that out of the way.
Silver x18-x15
"Pleasure to do business with you," she says as you receive the goods, securely stowing them away for the moment. You considered encasing the books in ice just in case, but the risk of water damage was too great, after all.
"Muh," you make in agreement. This goat girl is probably much stronger than you, so it doesn't hurt to be polite.
Wait, you seriously don't recognize the name 'Baphomet' halfway through the 'pho'?
You're not sure whether you should, but in either case, no, you do not.
"Right this way, if you would," she says, walking off deeper into the library. Following after her, you soon come unto the same room you dimly remember having perused some of the knowledge within this place before, though it has been a while.
However, as you watch several books levitating around the desk you were seated at the last time, you look up at Baphomet, giving her your absolutely manliest look. "Lap?"
If the horned woman's face shows any confusion at all, it passes too quickly for you to make out, her bright cyan-blue eyes (matching her hair) crinkling as she smiles and strokes your head. "Oh, you're just too cute to say no to," she says.
You shall take what you can get. Now you can finally-
You're scooped up by her surprisingly strong arms, lifting you in the air effortlessly. "Mh," you complain, but you go unheard.
Instead Baphomet sits down, dragging you onto her lap as promised. Her furred legs are very warm against your bare skin, her short skirt not hiding her upper thighs and above being pretty close to human still, and her large breasts are soft and nice where they prop up the back of your head.
She also smells very nice. Like cinnamon and fresh wet summer air. You wonder whether it might be a perfume or else her natural body odor.
"Here we go, 'Household Magicks For Ye Olde Dummies'." Her slender hands open a book whose title you hadn't bothered to read yet. "I expect you to pay attention if you want to feel good, by the way," she whispers into your ear.
The Jackie stands at the attention. And no, you don't even mean your di-
One hand goes down under your skirt, casually wrenching your panties down your thighs and wrapping around your already half-hard erection, slowly, almost torturously, giving it a languid pump.
"Chapter One: The Vanishing Of Dust," Baphomet announces as you luxuriate in the feeling. "Pay attention, you will be quizzed and tested on each chapter as we go. Do well and you get rewarded. Don't…"
She lets go of your cock at that, its head slapping against the underside of the table wetly. You nod.
"Good girl," the demon purrs and it's all you can do not to become a slave to those words on the spot.
Someone's got some big dom energy here.
So you proceed to be taught how to magically dust surfaces, remove spills, clean stains out of clothing, polish wood and metal to a shine and more, all the while you have to pay attention to things other than the beautiful bookworm cuddling up to you.
Your hands ache to relieve yourself, to just jerk one out and hope you can concentrate marginally better, but you aren't allowed to. "Hands on the table!" Your teacher demands the first time you subconsciously pull them lower, gently smacking the back of one of them. "You're not allowed to do touch yourself."
You repress the urge to weep as you learn.
Refreshing the color of paint, fluffing up pillows and cleaning bedsheets with a wave of a hand, you learn about many small magical feats, including a bunch of theoretical stuff that is very strange to you. When you cast, you normally just form your magic, imagine what you want it to do and fire away, but it turns out there's a whole science and art behind it, requiring you to think a whole bunch of a lot whenever you want to do other stuff.
"I'm not surprised," Baphomet tuts after you explain your confusion in as few words as possible. "Magical girls are often overspecialized to the point of disability. But be assured, this is how everyone approaches even the simplest feats of spellcasting… Though you will have it harder," she squeezes on your cockflesh, "than most, repressing what will always come natural to you."
You pant, but for all that you want nothing more than buck into her grip, she's pushed both of you so close to the table you just can't.
Every time you do well, you grants you a few long, drawn-out strokes as you prove to have memorized the articulation of magical power required for a particular spell, sometimes making you demonstrate even if you can't cast the spell right away. If you can't, you eventually cycle back around to it after learning about a different one.
If you do badly, too distracted and horny, she cruelly lets go, the missing heat of her palms and fingers like lashes of punishment against your manhood, your hands cramping up with denied needs, 'motivating' you to do better each and every time until you understand what to do even through the haze of lust clouding your mind.
You know, if my teachers back in school were sexy demon goat girls like this, maybe I'd have cared about it more. Especially with these kinds of rewards.
Finally, however, you are making progress; something must have clicked, or else the cocktail of adrenaline and serotonin swirling through your brain has achieved the correct mixture, but you manage to show capabilities you did not have before beginning this study session, learning rapidly and swiftly at the same speed Baphomet conveys knowledge unto you.
Her stroking grows regular, constant, and it sparks a new fire in you, an almost mindless state of understanding overcoming you as you race towards what was to come for what feels like days at this point, twitching on her lap as she milks an-
Pressure. Pressure on your cock, its base held in a vise-like grip, turning your mewl of pleasure into a moan halfway through, teeth grit and eyes clenched shut for the duration of the aborted orgasm.
"Who said you were allowed to do that, hm?" Baphomet asks, stroking your hair gently with her free hand. "You have to learn the whole book first. Then I'll think about letting you."
"Meew…" The whine rising from your throat is utterly unmanly, but you cannot help it. This torture is too great.
Revision is hell, even as the material being covered is still fresh in your mind, but Baphomet does not allow you to move on without at the very least understanding everything, even if you cannot put it into practice (yet).
You must learn everything about how to magically keep a household, not quite running, but gleamingly and perfectly clean, at least, learning a plethora of small, simple spells specialized to do their own thing each in order to be as efficient as possible.
The vast majority of mages, you are taught, have miniscule mana pools compared to a magical girl, presenting their own challenges and tools to overcome those insufficiencies; spells that you would consider hyper-efficient are therefore the norm, to name one of such.
You have to learn those spells, individually, of course. You cannot proceed until you do.
Baphomet continues to reward you as you go, stroking your cock, fondling your balls and playing with your pussy- she uses magic to turn the pages, leaving her hands free to torment reward you. Sometimes she even nibbles on your ears or whispers praise into them, spurring you on to ever greater heights.
Of learning.
Finally. At great length. You match the expectations put into you. Having learnt just about everything important inside the book itself, the spell formulas, the use cases, ceasing any confusion on which spell does which again.
"Such a good girl. See? You just needed to be motivated," Baphomet whispers, masturbating you faster and faster. "And good girls get rewarded, don't they?"
You gasp, unable to turn or do much of anything, your arms strictly kept above the table at all times.
She works you over with supernatural dexterity, seemingly knowing exactly what to do and how to touch you to set your nerves on fire, murmuring voice coming from right next to you penetrating your skull. "You want this, don't you? You want nothing more than this. To learn and be rewarded. You can do it now."
A slurping tongue violates your sensitive ear.
"Cum for me."
Your sperm explodes out of your dick, the strength to control your body, pay attention to anything around you or even think leaving you at the same rate as the white spunk is fired out of your crotch cannon.
It could be seconds before you regain sensation from the white blank your mind descended into, or it could be hours. All the same, you do so to the feeling of something around the tip of your manhood, demonically skilled hand still wringing you dry of any and all sperm you have.
"That's it, let it all out," she whispers. It feels like she may have talked you through the delayed peak edged to the extreme, but you can't quite remember. "Give it all to me. I should have just done this the first time you came through these doors, shouldn't I, you wouldn't even have resisted. Wouldn't have even thought of it."
Duh… Sexy goat demon girl that wants your cum can have all of it…
Once you're running dry again for the moment, even the nigh inexhaustible supply of Jackie I. not inexhaustible all the time, Baphomet reveals the bottle she milked your release into, holding it up against the light for a moment. "Hm… As I thought, very good. You're a real little breeder, aren't you?"
You're the biggestest breeder of them all.
Then she kicks the bottle back, draining it of the still freshly warm seed in one go. Once it is empty, not even a drop adhering to its insides somehow, she licks her lips, patting your head happily. "A good taste. Maybe I should make you pay by tying you up and milking you for a few days next time? I could train you to produce as much as possible, maybe…"
"Please don't," you weakly protest, voice still subdued and powerless from just now.
"Hm, oh, very well, I'm sure we can think of something else. Speaking of…" The books on the table before you rotate around, reorganized by an invisible hand. "Don't forget anything you just learned, I will quiz you on it later. For now, which topic shall we cover next?" She asks sweetly.
This woman is a demon. She's a demon and you're in hell. The good kind of hell. You make a sound that you would say is manly, except you can't help but wonder if Tabitha hitched a ride with you again and just mewled at you.
The study session you inadvertently signed up for goes deep into the night, knowledge being poured into you like through a hopper; it is a bit like theft and a bit like a dry sponge returned to the water, but most of all it is very draining.
Somehow, all the edging is really taking the wind out of you once you've earned a few orgasms, to the point you find it difficult to concentrate or even keep your eyes focused.
Thankfully, Baphomet isn't too strict with you, eventually letting you off with a strict reminder to practice what you've learned to make sure you don't forget, but your brain is just too tired to do anything beyond nodding.
She then takes pity on you and takes you through a door that's like smoke and mirrors, into a bedroom with a centerpiece of black sheets and elegantly twisted ebony furniture. Guided by the demonic librarian, you let yourself fall into the soft abyss of gentle murmurs that is her bed, spooned soon after by her own body.
You drift off into deep, restful slumber very quickly, only occasionally teased and stroked to full hardness as murmured instructions rain into your brain, seeding unconscious, uneven movement all over your form.
"That's it, that's how you do it… You need to seed them properly… When you sleep you need to hold them in place and use them right…"
You dream of Olivia, and of Melanie and of anal demon, too. They're very nice dreams.
Melanie bent her upper body to the side, stretching an arm over it to loosen up one half, then repeated the maneuver with sides reversed. She needed to do something right now, burn off some energy, and those stretches always helped her concentrated for doing that.
Just keep on moving her body, stop the thoughts for a second. She needed to think, but she needed to think clearly.
So… There she was, safely back in her room. And there was the phone she'd stolen borrowed. Along with the pictures taken on it.
And the proof she'd been gathering.
That fucking pig!
Resisting the urge to smash something, Melanie dropped to the floor and started doing sit ups.
She'd first begun investigating the neighbouring school's principal because she thought there was something unusual about when he showed up to work; sometimes, he was keeping to a regular schedule, but other days he just came into his office randomly, irregularly.
Normally she'd chalk it up to flexible work hours and needing to do things elsewhere, he was a middle school principal after all. That said, magic was a thing and she was kind of making it a point to investigate unusual stuff, so she'd looked into where the man was going.
Well, turned out there was something he was hiding, though it wasn't exactly magical.
A fucking sex trafficking ring that worked by taking advantage of low-income families to rape kids.
Urge to stab the fat bald bastard with her magical scissors rising. It would be so easy, too, she'd just have to snip through his skull and she'd be cutting apart his brain just like that.
She felt her trusty 'infiltration' tool's weight in her pocket. It would be so easy, too, easy enough for a cold shudder to go down Melanie's back.
… She shouldn't. As angry as the things she'd seen on the filched phone (that didn't even have any screenlock or anything, the fuck) made her, she should be better than that.
She had proof. She knew where the disgusting dirtbag and his 'gentlemen's club' were meeting and the evidence on his phone. She should take those to the police and let them handle it, right? Except the sudden flare of gang warfare that'd killed a bunch of policemen (that may or may not be magical, but she didn't want to send Jackie against other humans if she could help it) and there was supposed to be some major reorganization going on and she just wasn't sure they would be able to do much.
… One of the main reasons she was so incensed, Melanie supposed, were the parallels between these child rapists and herself taking advantage of Jackie like she was. She knew that it wasn't like that, the little hellion was very enthusiastically consenting to what they had going, but…
Rargh. This wasn't getting her anywhere. Maybe she'd just bring it up with Jackie next time she could get in touch with her, ask her what she thought. That would probably be for the best.
You awaken from your slumber oddly refreshed and exhausted both; your body is filled with energy while simultaneously feeling drained. Looking around, you can see you're inside Baphomet's library, sitting in the same room you were in yesterday.
Did you… somehow hallucinate going to sleep? If so, that was an oddly specific dream…
Your eyes snap shut onto the sheet of paper on the desk in front of you. It is a questionnaire about a bunch of the things you learned (or 'learned') yesterday. Almost by autopilot, you grasp for a pen (there is one where you remember it being) and fill it out quickly and efficiently.
You need to prove something like this isn't difficult to you. You are far beyond such simple memorization, yes indeed.
"Well done," you hear from behind yourself once you put the pen down again, a familiar softness rewarding you for your efforts. Ah… This is nice. A nice way to wake up. "You've been a good girl, haven't you? Putting your all into learning as much as you can."
"Muh," you sleepily agree.
Baphomet just chuckles. "Very well, I will leave you to gather yourself then… Unless there is anything you'd like to ask me before you go?"
"Mm," you make, asking for a moment to put your thinky bits together. "Gotta exchange coins. Silver for bronze," you explain. "Suggestions?"
"M~hmhmhm," the goat-demon makes. "Well, if you give me a silver coin for the information fee, I may be able to direct you towards a character that's just unsavoury enough to get what you want… You need them to increase your strength, I take it?"
"Muh," you make, conspicuously noncommitally.
"Oh, it's easy to see. You are exceptionally well-suited towards gaining immense strength by consuming coins, it's obvious in the craftsmanship. The quite recognizable craftsmanship, if fact." She leans down, whispering sweetly into your ear. "I look forward to your development…"
"Fuaah…" Your heart isn't prepared for this kind of stimulation so early in the morning!
… It's way too early, go get some coffee, daddy…
You slip Baphomet that silver coin and, in a display of overt boldness characterizing your sleepy self, give her a kiss on the cheek because of how close she is to you right this moment. She, laughing, pats your head (you shall allow it) and lays out a…
She puts a piece of paper with a puzzle on it onto the desk. "Have fun~!" She wishes you, swiftly disappearing back into the depths of the library.
Great, now you have to figure this one out. It seems to be a number arrangement thing with bits of text in it to throw you off or else provide a solution.
Luckily your titanic intellect and handy brain daughter can solve it, once you rouse her to wakefulness, to reveal an in retrospect fairly obvious description of an address. With your new goal clear, you make your way outside and proceed to meander into the nearest side passage to figure out a way to get into the Hub's underbelly where you may find the right person.
You never really noticed it before, but there are addresses even in this place, covering the Overcity literally everywhere. It does make sense- it's an infinitely stretching city, so like all cities it needs streets and street names and all that stuff, it just adapted to the Hub city somehow to remain consistent with its usual scheme.
Which means that there's a random assortment of languages and consistently inconsistent logic to everything, but street names and thus addresses to still exist. You wonder if your house still has one, with the forest covering the whole block and then some by now?
No matter. Time to put on your game face. "Muh."
The place you're looking at is a dark, dirty alleyway leading up to a door guarded by a pair of goons, large, bulky humanoids with green skin and tusks that are dressed in black suits barely capable of containing their muscle-packed bodies and armed with submachine guns.
Somehow, you feel the urge to shoot one of them in the head and then make an example of the other one. You shall resist, however, for now at least.
Walking up to them, you gesture for the door, taking note of the distrustful looks you're receiving from behind their black sunglasses. "Muh."
"Business?" One of them asks in a deep, gravelly voice.
"Not yours," you return. "Lemme in or get chunked."
You mean it, too. Random minions like this don't deserve any more of your time and attention than absolutely necessary and this is anything but truly necessary.
The two communicate in grunts for a moment before, finally, one of them opes the door for you. "No funny business."
"Only dead serious then."
You still got it. Watch out ladies, the Jackie is on a roll!
Once inside, however, you detect a horrible lack of ladies. Instead you find a room probably made up to look like some mafia gathering place, you suppose, all opulent and shit, but you know the look of a place like this doesn't have to correspond to, well, anything, with magic in play.
There's no lava flowing upwards nor contorting geometry to impress you, anyways, and that's all that matters for this stuff.
Well, there's a guy in a red bathrobe sitting inside, luxuriating on some red velvet recliner amidst golden and red furniture with shiny dark wooden floors and ceilings, but it just all seems kind of tacky to you. Also, this guy can afford minions, he can afford to wear actual clothes when receiving visitors.
"Ah, 'ello there! So rare to receive visitors from up above down here. Come on in, what can I do for you?"
You take a closer look. It's a middle-aged man, black, short hair, wearing sunglasses indoors, kind of playing up the Italian mafia thing. He's wearing soft indoor flippers to match his color scheme and seems to be scrutinizing you closely, as though to say 'I know who you are and what you want'.
Which is ludicrous, of course. No mere mortal being can understand the glory that is you.
"Here to exchange coins. Nice and easy," you announce. "Silver to Bronze. Need some for 'business expenses'."
"Ah, I see, i see. Well, I'm not sure how you found your way here, but I certainly can help you. Don Cappuccino has never let anyone down yet, no he ain't."
God, if you knew about the stupid name you would've thought longer about associating with this moron.
"Of course we'll need to agree on a rate, eh… How about this, ten bronze a pop and we can-"
You interrupt im right there. "Pop, pop, makin' kneecaps drop," you say, conjuring one of your guns and hooking the blade under it around the crook of his knee.
Then you fire. "AAARFG!"
Huh. His kneecap did, in fact, pop. Clean off his knee.
"FUCKING- Do you know how painful this is?! What was that even for?!"
"Muh." It being painful and debilitating is kind of the point. "For the insult. Now give me a real offer."
"Fine, fine, fuck!" Don Cappuccino is holding onto his leg, clutching at the wound as though to try and stem the tide of blood. Not that there's super much, you went out of your way to specifically target his kneecap. "Twenty, are you happy now?"
One of the bouncers outside comes to poke his head into the room, but you merely flare your magic and glare at him as you point your pistol at the other knee. "Muh."
"Twenty-five! That's the absolute best I can do in this economy!"
Your eyes narrow into slits as the guard slowly retreats backwards again. Good on him, he has some survival instinct after all. "Not good enough."
"No, really, I can't pay you more!" There's some desperation in his voice now. You were waiting for it. "Do you know how hard it is to keep exchanges like this even open? The logistics of using silver coins alone are difficult for poor folk like us! I have a family, please, have some mercy!"
You clear your throat. "It is the sacred duty of the strong and rich to exploit the weak and poor. Now gimme some good cash or say goodbye to Little Don."
You point your gun at his crotch. If he didn't want you to, he should've worn pants or something at the minimum.
Cappuccino grits his teeth, making a grumbling sound from deep inside his throat. "Fuck it and fuck you! Thirty and I don't have to see your face again!"
"Meh. I do what the fuck I want," you inform him, but ultimately decide not to pursue the matter further. he may just behave in a suicidal manner (aka try to fight you) if you push him too much further.
Thirty bronze a silver it is.
Lugging a huge sack full of bronze coins is a tad bit unwieldy, but you manage to cram it into your box of holding before starting on your way back home. You muh goodbye at the Don (who shouts at you to piss off already while drinking a healing potion) and his professional cocksuckers as you go, but don't spend much time dallying around otherwise.
The way back home is largely uneventful; once you're out of the Hub, you just follow the usual signs marked around the route you're always taking, absently noting it seems to have shifted a bit from last time.
And, incidentally, you do confirm that you still have an address. Apparently you're living in 'Deepwood Lane' now, according to the Overcity.
Which, meh, true enough.
Anyway, though, no amount of bronze is going to change your immediate plans and you kind of want to enjoy yourself with them for a bit before you snort them off a hooker's ass like coke, so you first go to your room, spread them over your bed and dive onto the pile.
It's not a giant pile, but your size means you can still pretend it is fairly easily. Your smile grows sloppy and your eyes crinkle in happiness as you plink and plonk the shiny little disks of value around, playing with them like you're already high off the power they will grant you.
Once you're satisfied, you do gather them all up again of course… Using simple household magic you're just learned yesterday. It takes you a few seconds to cast and requires concentration, as you have to actually cast it the hard way (that you were theoretically aware of apparently exists, but never actually had any really good, close idea of until you learned to use it), but it does get the job done.
Now, as for what you were planning to do before you use the window of opportunity the evening presents to return to the normal city…
Most of your day is spent in deep meditation and selfless practice in the secret arts of the Jackie.
The mysteries of the universe are unraveling. You vibrate with untold mystical potential, holding reality itself in the palm of your hand.
You have reached nirvana. You have become the Buddha.
Or in other words, you went and played with Tabitha so much that you somehow found a way to make ice golems in the form of cats.
It is often said, or at least you understand this to be the general understanding from listening to Brian lecture you sometimes, that golems are generally humanoid because the typical creator and controller of golems will themselves be humanoid; this enables them to automate more processes and magical hugamajug easier and smoother. You, however, have transcended the human form; none shall be able to rival you now! Mwuahahaha!
Sure, they're objectively much weaker than your normal golems, but they're also much smaller and even faster on account of their size. More importantly, they are very cute.
"Meow," Tabitha makes, surrounded by a ring of little ice cats her own height.
"Meow," you make back, sitting opposite from her.
"Mrw." Then she jumps into your lap and rubs her head against your hands.
You pat and scratch the kitty head. "Muh."
But beyond this, you also did a bunch of other stuff! For example, you went out to oversee the brain fruit grove, finding that the large trees growing fruits in the shapes of literal brains were growing well, though they're far from ready for a harvest yet, and ran arou- inspected the forest surrounding your base.
Or rather, the forest is part of your base. This is your home. It's yours.
… You kind of want to mark it, but that would be kind of unhygienic, wouldn't it? Nevermind that you sometimes go weeks without a shower if you just don't feel like it.
However, you did find suspicious apples and suspicious bananas. Even suspicious oranges and supremely suspicious pineapples. Investigating them further, you found that all of them were very juicy and tasty.
Suspiciously juicy and tasty.
Well, except the pineapple. You don't really like pineapples, so you graciously allowed them to be stored in the kitchen for communal use, as opposed to the cabinet in which you keep your secret stash and other miscellaneous foodstuffs you like.
The big 'JACKIE'S USE ONLY' written over them in big, red letters should denote that clearly enough.
You also shot Olivia a message to let her know you need her 'friends' (she doesn't have any, obviously, but you go along with her play-pretend for the sake of her fragile mental state) to help you fight monsters tomorrow and confronted your monkey daughter, finding her big, swollen belly to be unreasonably sexy as she lounges in the trees and casually fellates a banana.
Obviously she has to be very attractive, she's your daughter after all.
Gunununu…
"Muh. Are you still Monkey?"
"I am monke, returned to monke," she mumbles past her meal. Chewing and swallowing, she sits up. "Whassup?"
"Want name?"
"Eh… I'm fine being Monkey, but sure, if I like what you come up with."
"Muh." You are a great parent. Not everyone gets a say in how they're named, you know.
Naturally, the exact choice of name has to be well thought-out. "Mumumumuh…" You think hard. You pace, you ponder, you consider all angles and you sound out ideas.
Then you grab your phone, beginning to goggle up various words and their translations in various languages.
Then you come up with various words and meanings that fit together well, additionally keeping in mind potential naming schemes and concepts you want to bring in.
Your monkey daughter just watches you from the corner of her eyes, having gone back to using her long tail to lazily pluck various fruits from the surrounding trees.
Finally, you decide what she shall be named. "Muh," you make, pointing right at her. "Mirasol Simia Frost."
"Mhm…" Mirasol squints her eyes at you, rubbing her chin, then rubbing her pregnant belly as though it, too, had a chin. You suppose she's including her baby in this discussion. "It sounds nice, I suppose. It mean anything?"
"Mirasol is 'sunflower'. Spanish. Because you're very positive." Hey, nobody said you have to be excessively creative here. "Simia is 'monkey' in Latin. Because Viridis."
"Mhm, makes sense, makes sense. Why Frost, though?"
You tilt your head. "My last name. You get it, too. Duh."
"Aww, thanks, mommy." You are the best power mom in the world. "That's not so bad, I guess. Better than what I thought you'd say."
"Mh." You are especially great, for you can surprise others with your greatness time and time again.
"Well, time to go and carve my initials into a bunch of trees like gang tags so the animals know their place," Mirasol exclaims, slowly pushing herself up until she's standing on her tree branch, then launching herself off of it, using her long hair plant tendril tail and strong limbs to traverse her favored environment with childish ease.
Also, good on her. She already knows how the world works out here in the wilds. Maybe she'll even earn herself a place as one of your important daughters, like Elena.
… Okay, I'm happy now.
Good.
The magical grimoires you purchased and took home with you are, without a doubt, very, very interesting. Not so much because you glance over their pages and instantly learn new spells- some work like that, but even those don't work for magical girls like yourself outside of your specialty- but rather because they signify a new and different approach to magic.
You have already learned most of this under Baphomet's tutelage, but it does serve you well to further what you have learned already- after all, why waste the knowledge (and thus power) you already do have when you can further increase both instead?
Well, the book on curses and plant magic you set aside for the moment, with a note to yourself to show them to Chucky and Mirasol later, respectively, but you very much are happy to take a closer look at Foundational Ice Magic for yourself.
The grimoire outlines the basics of creating, shaping and manipulating ice in general, going to great lengths to point out that this is in no way water-related magic despite the, apparently common where- and whenever it was written, misconception to the contrary. Just because something is chemically pretty much the same, it says, does not at all mean that it behaves the same way as far as magic is concerned.
There are a few basic exercises meant for mages to 'attune themselves to the Ice', something you do not need to bother with; as a magical girl specialized in ice magic to the exclusion of all else, you can simply throw your mana around and get ice spells that way. However, it is interesting to know the lengths 'normal' magic users without some natural advantage in this regard or a very great talent in the field of any given form of elemental magic may have to go in order to reach the same heights you achieved just shortly after your first transformation.
Aside from the mana exercises' uselessness to you, they are somewhat interesting to read about. Things such as cooling one's hand down until it becomes almost dangerous to its health repeatedly, meditating on the nature of coldness or simply living in a cold environment and getting more and more used to it over time. You idly wonder how many people had to die of frostbite for the extent to which one can do this kind of thing to become clear to the remaining survivors.
Someone had to find all of this stuff out the hard way, after all, didn't they? Then again, healing magic is apparently a thing, so perhaps they just kept on torturing themselves to near death and just got healed instead.
Anyway, it also outlines something much more interesting: A reason why many ice mages would seek to surround themselves with icy environments. Apparently, it is possible to, through using environmental mana attributed accordingly, enhance one's spells to achieve greater effects than otherwise, a particular strength of ice magic even as while this particular practice is possible for a few other kinds of magic, few work as easily and as effectively as ice.
Of course you still need a bunch of ice and low temperatures surrounding you for a some time, so it's not something anyone can set up quickly or quietly, but it is a thing. You may need to train this in the future, should be perfectly possible for you to learn.
Leafing through the rest of the spellbook, it does, in fact, also go into details on what it calls fundamental spells that any respectable ice mage should have prepared at all times, for reasons ranging from safety to combat effectiveness. You ignore the spell meant to let the caster endure extremely low temperatures through magical means, as you already are incapable of freezing at all through your natural advantages, though you make note of it should you ever need to find a way to confer a pale imitation of your immunity to other, inferior, beings.
Much more importantly, the combat spells. The 'ice missile' is completely uninteresting, your heavily customized ice lance is basically that just in better, but there are a few interesting ones. Ice Barriers are easy and quick to cast, apparently, so despite their apparent fragility unless stacked against each other you may wish to look into them for the sake of battlefield control. The same goes for a spell to cover an area in extra smooth ice- so smooth, in fact, that most are supposed to just slip and fall down, to give the engaged beginner ice mage some time to deal with them or flee.
In a similar vein, a spell called 'Shackles of Ice' conjures extremely hard ice around whatever limbs the targeted enemy has, tying them down and shackling them to their environment, where possible. Apparently a more dedicated disabling spell, noted in particular for its ability to circumvent magic resistance or resistance against ice in particular. The only way for the target to get loose is to either break out through raw force, remove the ice through their own magic (which may be complicated through, for example, disabled arms depending on the way their casting works) or to wait until the effect runs its course and the ice begins to melt off.
Very interesting. Also very useful for taking prisoners alive and fuckable.
Further, you see a spell to erect bridges of stable ice across two points, meant to be traversable, not something absolutely necessary, you can always just use platforms or take the time to manually shape some ice, but it's an interesting thing to see. An ice shield spell, basically yet another inferior version of one of your spells- your ice armor is that, just in more stylish.
Then, of course, the spells called the basics of the basics, so fundamental to the topic of ice magic, the book reads, that they can hardly even be called spells and border on natural abilities of any truly dedicated ice mages. In fact, many monsters with ice elemental leanings can perform these to some extent if they are at all inclined in the mystical.
Creating ice. And moving it around.
You cannot help but find that you only got one of these. Obviously, the author is talking out of their ass and everything they wrote is highly questionable.
YOU CAN FEEL THE POWER FLOWING THROUGH YOUR VEINS AND THE TOUCH OF FATE BENDING UNDER YOU
"Muh. Muh. Muh."
"Uhm… Is it normal for her to run in circles like that?" Chucky asks.
"Probably?" Mirasol answers. "Not like I've been around all that long.
"Muh. Muh. Muh."
AND YOU SHALL OUTRUN THE SUN AND THE MOON AND THE STARS AND THE WIND AND Oh you lost a bronze coin there. Good thing you found it again.
The evening of your long, eventful day, you decide, should be spent on something hopefully relaxing. Taking the portal back to the normal city, you hop on a quickly conjured ice platform, moving on a meandering course that should bring you towards the general direction of that office building belonging to the Egalitarian Office of Dining marked on your Goggle Maps map.
It isn't like you're going to go in guns blazing quite yet- although you certainly don't really run away from fights in case they're offered to you, right now you mainly just want to scout. Take a look around the building, see if you can find any particular hints, that kind of thing, like you always do when you have the time.
Information wins wars, and your little war against this hotspot of the supernatural masquerading as a functioning city has yet to slow down in any noticeable way.
So you'll go there, see if there's anything obvious, then immediately wander off and go do something fun. Maybe you'll visit Olivia, demand tribute from her household in the form of cookies, or you could-
The sound of breaking glass interrupts your musings.
Dammit. You just had to poke Murphy with that last one, didn't you? Quietly murmuring discontently to yourself, you accelerate your ice platform, drawing closer to where you heard the absurdly loud and clear sound come from.
Also a few screams, but who cares about a few mundies?
As you already expected, it's the Egalitarian Office of Dining's place. In particular, a small girl, barely even your size, seems to have been thrown out of a window and onto the open street. She's wearing only a pair of white shoes with black ribbons on them and a soft sweater with even more black ribbons, barely covering her to the mid-thighs- and she's also a catgirl, with completely black ears and a tail you see behind her. Her eyes are red and she's smirking up at where she came flying from.
Then a giant blob of darkness with a single, big red eye and a bunch of tentacles rises from the ground, turning it into a mirror-like red gate to wherever it is coming from, and one of its tentacles stretches out to hand the girl something.
A magical girl weapon. You recognize it on sight.
"̸H̵e̶r̵e̵ ̶y̵o̶u̴ ̸g̵o̸,̸ ̶m̴a̸k̷e̵ ̵s̴u̴r̶e̴ ̴n̴o̴t̷ ̶t̶o̵ ̷l̵o̷s̸e̶ ̶i̷t̵,̶"̸ it says, patting the girl's smooth white hair with its front tentacles. "̸A̴n̵d̶ ̴b̴e̷ ̸c̸a̶r̶e̴f̸u̵l̶,̴ ̵t̵h̴e̴r̴e̸ ̶m̵i̸g̴h̸t̶ ̴b̸e̴ ̸m̶o̵r̶e̷ ̵o̷f̴ ̸t̸h̶e̸m̴.̶"̴
Its voice feels… Weird. Kind of like worms of darkness trying to burrow into your brain. It isn't entirely unpleasant, just kind of wriggly to listen to.
"There's someone else right there, though," the girl points you out with one hand, the other one taking the flower-inspired, mildly blackened staff in hand.
"̵O̵h̴,̶ ̵h̷e̴l̵l̶o̶ ̷M̸a̸g̸i̸c̶a̶l̵ ̸G̴i̸r̴l̸ ̶w̸e̶ ̶d̶o̶ ̴n̷o̸t̴ ̷k̶n̸o̷w̶.̷"̴ It waves its tentacle at you.
"Muh," you shout back, having approached a bit closer while still keeping some decent distance just in case either of them suddenly become aggressive. "What are you?"
"̵I̴s̷ ̶i̵t̶ ̴n̷o̶t̸ ̶o̸b̶v̷i̴o̵u̵s̴?̸ ̶I̷ ̷a̷m̵ ̸a̵ ̷f̴r̴i̵e̷n̸d̶l̵y̶ ̵P̷u̵c̶h̶u̸u̷ ̵a̵c̷c̶o̶m̴p̷a̵n̸y̴i̴n̶g̵ ̵m̴y̷ ̸M̵a̸g̷i̵c̶a̵l̶ ̸G̴i̶r̸l̸,̶"̶ it says.
"Hello fellow magical girl," the girl that appears to be magical greets you. "It is nice to meet someone who is definitely in the same situation as I am."
You look at the two of them.
You look at the obviously unnatural blob of eldritch darkness, and the waves still made in the portal to some nightmare dimension the girl is standing on.
"Nah. Bad disguise."
"̴I̶ ̴a̴m̴ ̷n̷o̸t̴ ̸s̴u̸r̸e̶ ̸w̸h̵a̸t̸ ̷y̴o̸u̸ ̷a̵r̴e̶ ̷t̴r̵y̴i̶n̸g̵ ̶t̵o̶ ̵i̷m̸p̶l̸y̵.̷"̶
You ponder whether to even deign with with a reaction or just ignore the obviously eldritch horror from beyond human comprehension while you try to figure out what the fuck is even going on.
Then, however, all three of you simultaneously look up a the gaping hole where a window used to be in the Egalitarian Office of Dining's apparent local headquarters; you because you sensed a magical presence approaching, though you aren't why these two do.
A man in a business suit looks at where you're gathered, standing there right out in the open above you. He wears some kind of… stuffed green tie, his receding hairline crowned by some obviously styled, short-cropped hair, and you can't help but feel like something is fucky about him despite his almost aggressively bland face.
(Just to let you know, Awareness and Third Eye are pulling double shifts here)
"Well, well, well, if it isn't another rat sneaking around the cheese," he says conversationally and you can hear him perfectly fine despite the distance between you. "No matter. The exterminator's fees will be the same."
"̴Q̸u̶i̴c̶k̶l̵y̴,̴ ̶f̴e̴l̵l̶o̴w̶ ̸a̴l̶l̴y̴ ̷o̸f̷ ̶j̵u̴s̷t̷i̷c̴e̷ ̴a̴n̵d̷ ̷f̸r̷i̵e̴n̷d̸s̴h̷i̵p̸!̷ ̸W̷e̷ ̶m̶u̴s̸t̶ ̴t̸e̵a̵m̸ ̷u̶p̴ ̴t̸o̴ ̷d̷e̷f̴e̷a̴t̷ ̷t̶h̸e̸ ̷f̵o̶r̷c̷e̴s̴ ̴o̴f̸ ̸c̷a̷p̵i̶t̷a̸l̴i̷s̶m̸!̶"̴
"What the black blob said," the cat girl shouts, fearlessly grinning up at the business man. "We cannot let modern society's obsession with consumerism take over food prices all over the country!"
"…" You wonder whether it's alright for you to point out how stupid all of this sounds and probably is. "Capitalism is good when it is a form of economy instead of a form of government," you thus say first. "Also, 'Egalitarian Office of Dining' is a very shitty and obvious attempt to conflate some kind of abbreviation."
"Ah, we have been discovered!" The salaryman talk-shouts at you. "No matter. The Esoteric Order of Dagon knows to take care of blabbermouths."
Just, what is it with some of your days?
Like… The man with the unfortunate amount of tentacles coming from his back literally just gave away the game.
Not that you're complaining, but this whole situation is very, very stupid. You have to say it again because it's just that stupid.
"Muh. You're all stupid."
"That's very rude to say to someone on your first meeting," the cat (kitten?) girl states. "We don't even know each other's names!"
"̷M̷a̸y̵b̴e̸ ̴i̴n̴t̵r̵o̴d̸u̵c̴i̴n̴g̸ ̵y̵o̶u̴r̷s̴e̵l̴f̷ ̵w̸i̶l̸l̴ ̷h̶e̵l̷p̶?̶"̶ Her eldritch darkness blob suggests.
"Good idea! I am Magical Girl Abyssal Rose, nice to meet you!"
"Muh…" Do you really have to return her introduction? Your budget of fucks to be given is rapidly running out over here.
That would actually be very rude. Come on, even if we just chase her out of the city after this.
Well, if Elena is sure… Except, no, wait, you don't really have that kind of magical girl name, do you? Your transformation doesn't include one or anything, so-
Elsewhere, a plushy, dark paw presses a button.
"… Magical Girl Ice Empress," you say, the words almost bubbling up out of nowhere. Good on yourself for improvising so quickly.
However, before you can instruct Abyssal Rose on the proper reaction to hearing your exalted title (that of prostrating oneself in abject exuberance at its uttering), the tentacle man upstairs steps right up to the edge of the hole torn into the building. "Are you quite done with the last words? I have a meeting to get to."
Man, eldritch cultists really don't live up to the hype. Trading in the robes, the ritual daggers and the human sacrifices for office suits and boring meetings? There's a reason you aren't exactly sad to see your old job behind yourself, the meetings were just the worst. They always swam into this overwhelmingly boring mishmash of voices your brain actively refused to understand.
You eye the office building at large.
You repress your sigh. This is all turning out to be one major, massive pain.
That's what you get for trying to take it easy for once, you suppose. Curse this cruel, indifferent universe refusing to let you catch even the slightest of breaks!
What about your afternoon naps, evening naps, slow mornings and-
Not the point. The point is you wanted to take it easy now and you can't because some assholes just have to have satanic board room orgies or something inside your city.
And dammit, that would at least still be better than normal meetings.
Disgruntled now, you take out your phone, calling the number you, for one, never put into it, named Brian. You aren't sure it even is an actual number, there's just a couple random symbols on the screen whenever you try to check it, but if it works, it works.
"Brian here, chuh."
"Muh muh."
"Chuh, hello Jackie."
"Weird cult office building," you cut right to the chase while the tentacled cultist jump down, caught and lowered by a long tentacle coming from inside the building wrapping around his waist before disappearing inside again. "No complications?"
"Chuuh, the Order of Dagon is a known problem. Wipe them out, puchuh, ignore any civilians inside."
That tells you two things. One, it is entirely possible there are normal people inside that have no idea what's really going on. Two, you don't need to give a fuck about their deaths when you blow everything up.
"Muh."
"Really now, where are your manners?" The cultist asks, spreading his arms out to his sides. "Did your parents never teach you not to play with your phone when someone is talking to you?"
"Meh, shut up. Pathetic wage slave." Even when you wore a suit yourself, you always made sure to disrespect people that annoyed you just out of principle. If you'd stopped a call every time someone wanted something from you, you'd never have gotten anything done.
"Oh, make it personal, will you?" The man's eyes narrow into slits. You think you can make out something slimy moving around inside them, just under the surface.
"There were two, but I killed the other one already," Abyssal Rose lets you know. "Maybe we should run away and come back after I've recovered?"
"Muh," you deny her proposal. She can sit back and watch you do this a million times better than her by yourself.
"̸L̷e̵t̵'̷s̶ ̴f̶a̶l̵l̷ ̴b̵a̶c̶k̴ ̸a̷n̸d̶ ̸s̴u̸p̸p̸o̵r̴t̴ ̶h̸e̴r̸,̷"̷ her apparent magical mascot instead suggests. C̸o̶m̶m̵u̷n̷i̷s̶m̷ ̶s̵h̸a̷l̷l̶ ̸f̵a̷l̶l̴ ̴b̵y̸ ̸o̶u̸r̶ ̷h̸a̸n̷d̵s̷!̵"̷
"I thought we were fighting capitalism today?" The girl asks.
"̵S̶h̶e̵ ̵d̸id̴n̶'̶t̶ ̵s̸e̸e̴m̷ ̶t̴o̸ ̴a̵p̶p̴r̵e̷c̷i̷a̷t̴e̷ ̶t̵h̸a̸t̵,̵ ̶s̸o̸ ̸w̵e̷'̴r̴e̸ ̴s̴w̸i̴t̶c̴h̵i̷n̸g̷ ̶s̶i̷d̸e̷s̸.̸"̸
"Makes sense. Kill all the reds!" The girl in the red jacket cheers you on.
And, well, fighting communism is always a good idea, you won't deny it. It's just not realistic and does more harm than good, ultimately. Just like pretty much any system of government humanity has come up with to date.
"I just want you to know the cleanup of all of this will be expensive," the businessman grouses quietly. "Do you know how hard it is to get Crawler blood out of furniture? That girl summoned dozens of them."
Oh? Now you're interested. "Could always just demolish the building," you mildly point out, still not showing any particular amount of emotion. "I can help you with that."
Flaring your magical might, you surround yourself in the reactive layer of magic you have learned to protect yourself with, drawing your guns as you take half a step forwards, bringing yourself into a fighting stance that, incidentally, lets you grab the sword carried on your bag out of its sheathe at a moment's notice.
You are prepared. Time to give this person-shaped creature a few new orifices.
The man, for his part, doesn't bother approaching or even facing you properly; still staring at you with half-lidded eyes, his hands make a series of complicated signs as his thin lips open to chant a mixture of preaching and unintelligible blubbering. "Ia! Ia! Dagon Fh'tagn! B'lag, Urrath!"
The ground vibrates ad shakes under your feet as massive, green-ish tentacles, lined with big suckers, push themselves out of the office building, waving through the air. Dozens of them stretch out like tongues out of orifices, arraying themselves against you.
Menacingly.
I've seen enough hentai to know where this is going, Elena mutters in your head as smaller ones join their greater cousins. Slowly but surely, the cultist man grows a pair of green, gnarled and twisted wings, a crippled arm reaching out from the back of his midsection as well.
How bothersome.
Okay, first off? These tentacles (and that cultist man) need to learn their place.
Groveling beneath your feet.
Pushing a large chunk of raw mana out, you construct the very first spell you ever cast once again, unleashing a gale of supernatural cold against your enemies and straight into and through their bodies, leeching warmth and strength both out of them.
You hit your main target, the controller of the tentacles, the large ones and a number of the smaller ones, though sadly your charge runs out midway through so you only clearly affect a few of the latter. Still, this should provide a noticeable advantage at the very least, the small ones immediately drop as you strike at them, unable to move at all.
The tentacles shake in protest, but the man standing amongst them doesn't so much as move a muscle. "Ug'lash! Ia! Ia! Ag'harn!"
The big tentacles, covered in frost and giving off a wafting mist due to temperature differences now but still mobile all the same, stretch towards you ponderously, moving in all directions before swinging themselves at you, tearing up the street and the building behind you while only a pair of them remains behind!
You easily dodge the first few swings, weaving past them with the sublime agility natural to your being. You jump, sidestep, twist and twirl; nothing can touch you, for you are above such inferior beings as this!
… Then the tentacles get clever, combining their efforts. They may be moving rather ponderously right now, but they can coordinate and force you into a disadvantageous position, climbing past their horizontal swipes by hopping onto and over them repeatedly, only to be stuck in the air when the last one comes at you from above.
"… Muh."
You are slammed against the ground with considerable force, cracking the pavement a little and temporarily disabling your protective shield of ice magic. As you gather yourself up, all emotion wiped completely off your very being, you hear the peanut gallery somewhere behind you.
"Fooore!"
"̸W̴e̵ ̶s̷h̷o̸u̸l̶d̴ ̷h̸e̶l̸p̴ ̵h̴e̷r̸,̴ ̴t̴h̷a̶t̸ ̶l̸o̶o̶k̶e̸d̵ ̶l̷i̵k̴e̵ ̵i̵t̶ ̶h̴u̷r̵t̴.̷"̴
You are unfeeling and beyond all emotion. there is nothing that can perturb or aggravate you. Enlightenment is a light description for your state of mind.
So you do not grab your guns with knuckles whitened with rage. And the air around you isn't crackling with frost turning into small, white mites of snow, either.
Angered by this blatant disrespect for your person, you raise your guns, ready to snap off a quick barrage right at the cause of this frankly embarrassing showing- by him, of course, you are merely being merciful here.
However, the tentacles guarding him interpose themselves between your target and the trio of speeding, rocket-like icicles meant to obliterate this nuisance, writhing in pain as they're skewered and the sheer, lethal cold loaded into your projectiles invades their flesh, but although the two of the things you hit retreat back into the building entirely, the rest of the large tentacles now pull back to interpose them between yourself and the easy target instead.
"Muuuuh!"
You are livid. Flabbergasted. Freezing solid, as opposed to boiling because that's not something you do anymore.
Appropriate language is important for magical girl cliches.
This is no laughing matter! This… smug… Jerk! The jerk is hiding behind his meatshields, laughing at you! Jerkily!
"Arr'ragh! Dagon Fh'tagn!"
This time the smaller tentacles come out to swarm you instead, or at least the ones you didn't disable right at the start. Annoyed, you estimate your chances to just- Ah, no, how many rune bombs did you have again? Just one of them won't do you much good here, otherwise you could just blow a bunch of stuff up to cause enough chaos to get at your real enemy.
"I got something for youuu~!" The magical cat girl calls out. "Just one moment~!"
Ugh, great. Let's hope she knows what she's doing, because you kind of have your hands full here!
You throw yourself to the side, naturally, extending your most noble of additional bladed limbs to scuttle along the ground, hopping and jumping and occasionally reaching back to lop off an unwelcome limb coming too close to yourself.
Sadly they keep on gaining on you, only held at bay through your, frankly, ingenious use of positional to force them to move around each other. You even jump backwards once, right past where they're going for you, and scramble to keep moving quickly enough they can't bog you down.
The, finally, it happens; next to you, the shadows writhe and twitch, moving like a fluid flowing upwards for a short moment until they settle into a pitch-black humanoid.
Shaped like yourself.
It immediately takes off into a run towards the enemy cultist somewhere behind the masses of tentacles, causing them to react to it as though it was you as they lose interest in the real you completely, at least for the moment.
What, are you that replaceable? Are cheap knock-offs really going to have everyone run after them instead of the original?
"Now's your chaaance~!" Abyssal Rose lets you know. True enough, the big tentacles, too, are reacting, repositioning and setting themselves up to counter the charge… All the while you can simply circumvent them, as long as they stay focused on the wrong target.
You waste little to no time at this point. Jumping with your four bladed legs in conjunction to your normal ones, you hurriedly climb up on a nearby building's wall, getting yourself an angle on the cultist you're really after here.
As soon as you get a bead on him, you suspend yourself by your back legs, jamming them into the construction now behind you, and focus all your ice lances into a single, concentrated, extra-lethal construct as you hold out both your guns.
The mutated man sees you.
You fire.
A sonic boom rings out, your mega-lance (patent pending) speeding towards him.
A hastily chanted defensive spell of some kind shatters, circles of magical patterns floating in the air powerless before you once your spell passes right by the tentacles only now realizing what is going on.
The cultist is hit. He is not skewered so much as he is blown apart, the sheer force now affecting his body outright liquefying it into a mushy, red mess.
The red mass formerly known as a business cultist is then frozen solid due to the ice energy loaded into your massive projectile.
Then the giant icicle hits the ground right beneath the EOD's office building.
It keeps going. The red is being shattered and smeared everywhere as it goes, the basement underneath the rest of the construction penetrated like Olivia's ass when you're asleep.
Your ice lance disappears underground, destroying all in its path. It must have hit something important, as all the tentacles wiggle and writhe, slowly dissolving into green dust and gas that disappears into nothing.
Oh, and with its foundation gone, the office building is suffering some significant structural damage, its own weight taking care of the rest for you. It tilts, crumbles here and there, the material itself torn apart by the sudden, nigh-cataclysmic event, and the screams of the people within are like music onto your ears.
Another job well done. Damn, but if you aren't great at what you do.
"Flawless victory," you nod to yourself as you turn around and leave, moving out to rejoin Abyssal Rose and her 'Puchuu'. You think a fire might be breaking out in one corner of the building, but that has nothing to do with you, so you'll leave it to the normal emergency services.
What? You're an ice girl. If there's a fire nearby, it can't have been you, logically speaking.
"Muh," you tell the uneven duo once you find them again, standing on a nearby rooftop. Naturally, you're using an ice platform to get up there, your back legs folded into your back again where they belong when not in use.
"Good work," Abyssal Rose tells you, waving her rose-like magic wand around. "Getting him once he got those squishy-squishs would've been soooooo~ annoying, y'know?"
"Muh." You would have taken a bit of time to chunk through those on your own, you'll admit. It would have been a mild annoyance indeed.
"̵W̴e̷ ̵t̶h̵a̶n̸k̸ ̷y̷o̴u̷ ̶f̶o̸r̶ ̵y̶o̸u̴r̴ ̸h̷e̴l̴p̸ ̵i̵n̷ ̶c̸o̶m̴p̸l̶e̶t̵i̴n̷g̴ ̶t̵h̷i̷s̷ ̶e̷n̷t̷i̷r̶e̶l̶y̵ ̷n̷o̴r̴m̴a̶l̴ ̵a̸n̵d̸ ̵a̵v̶e̶r̷a̸g̵e̸ ̵m̴i̵s̶s̴i̷o̵n̷ ̴f̸o̵r̵ ̸a̶ ̴M̴a̸g̸i̷c̶a̷l̵ ̴G̵i̶r̵l̸,̴"̶ the dark blob says.
"Bullshit," you immediately reply. "Just admit you took out a business rival."
"Hahaha, they gotcha there." Rose, because her full name is kind of a pain to think every time, laughs. "You gonna fight us?"
"Meh," you shake your head. "This is my city. They should've paid for protection."
"̸A̴ ̸m̴o̶s̴t̴ ̸e̶n̷l̸i̸g̵h̷t̸e̸n̴e̵d̵ ̴a̸n̴d̷ ̴s̴y̴m̴p̷a̷t̷h̷e̵t̵i̵c̸ ̵p̸o̷i̵n̴t̷ ̴o̸f̵ ̴v̸i̵e̷w̶.̵ ̸P̸r̶a̵y̶ ̷t̸e̶l̷l̵,̸ ̸w̷o̶u̷l̴d̷ ̸y̵o̸u̶ ̵m̵i̸n̶d̷ ̵i̸f̸ ̷w̸e̸ ̷d̷e̴p̷a̸r̷t̸e̷d̴ ̸a̸s̴ ̶w̶e̷l̶l̴?̴ ̸I̸ ̷a̵m̸ ̸a̷f̸r̵a̷i̴d̴ ̸m̴y̶ ̵M̷a̸g̷i̶c̸a̸l̵ ̵G̶i̶r̵l̸ ̶h̸a̶s̸ ̵s̶o̸m̷e̶ ̷t̷a̶s̸k̵s̴ ̴a̸h̶e̸a̸d̸ ̴o̸f̸ ̴h̸e̷r̵ ̶y̸e̵t̶.̴"̸
"… Are you sure he didn't recognize you?"
"̸P̶r̸e̴t̶t̶y̸ ̷s̷u̶r̵e̶,̸ ̵h̵e̶'̸d̴ ̵h̴a̶v̶e̵ ̵s̷h̶o̵t̵ ̶u̷s̷ ̴o̵t̷h̸e̷r̵w̴i̵s̵e̷.̷"̷
"Alright. So what the hell was that?!"
"̶T̶h̴a̵t̴ ̶w̴a̷s̷ ̴J̷a̷c̴k̸.̴"̵
"I know that, you numbnut! How did he get halfway across the continent and in that body?!"
"̵Ac̶c̶e̶s̸s̸i̵n̸g̷ ̵c̷o̷m̷p̸a̸n̶y̷ ̶r̸e̸c̸o̵r̶d̶s̶,̶ ̷o̴n̷e̴ ̵m̵o̵m̵e̷n̴t̴.̴"̸
"… Well hurry it up, we don't have all day here."
"̷J̴a̷c̸k̴ ̸W̸i̴n̶t̴e̶r̴s̸,̴ ̷r̷e̵c̸o̶r̴d̷s̴ ̵e̵x̴p̵u̵n̷g̶e̴d̷.̴ ̶R̴e̸c̸o̶r̸d̴s̵ ̵r̴e̶s̸t̴o̷r̴e̸d̸.̷ ̴H̸u̶m̷a̸n̸ ̵e̵m̵p̷l̸o̶y̵e̸e̶,̵ ̸D̴i̵v̵i̷s̸i̶o̶n̴:̸ ̷T̵e̴c̵h̷n̴i̴c̸a̸l̷ ̷S̶u̵p̵p̵o̷r̷t̵.̴"̴
"There's never been anyone else doing his job like he did. In a good sense."
"̶N̶o̶t̷e̴d̷ ̶f̷o̵r̵ ̵i̵n̸c̷r̶e̵a̶s̶e̷ ̶i̸n̴ ̵e̷m̸p̷l̶o̷y̴e̶e̸ ̸r̵e̷t̸e̸n̷t̷i̷o̷n̶ ̴i̷n̴ ̴h̶i̴s̵ ̷d̴i̷s̴t̴r̶i̷c̶t̴ ̴b̶y̷ ̴1̵2̸8̶%̴.̵"̷
"Turns out all we needed was someone crazy enough to murder the issues we kept having."
"Are the Demoted and the Glitched still down by half?"
"Their numbers have been increasing again as of late."
"Dammit."
"̷L̴e̸f̶t̴ ̸e̶m̷p̴l̵o̸y̶m̵e̸n̵t̷ ̶c̴o̶n̵t̵r̵a̴c̴t̴ ̵f̷o̷r̵ ̵'̸p̷e̶r̶s̵o̸n̶a̶l̶ ̵r̶e̵a̴s̸o̶n̷s̵'̴.̵ ̵S̶i̷n̴g̷l̴e̸ ̶f̴a̴t̶h̵e̵r̵,̷ ̵d̸a̴u̸g̶h̶t̸e̶r̶-̵"̴
"Okay, can we cut the crap and get to why he's a magical girl inside the body of his own daughter now?"
"That's actually pretty tame for him."
"I'd have thought he'd have unleashed a Great One or something."
"He was always really funny when we called him in to a meeting."
"Stop treating employees as entertainment."
"Have you seen the ways their joints move? They're hilarious!"
"So he disappears off the face of the map before anyone can 'convince' him to stay and now we suddenly find him again through a cleaner? What are the odds?"
"Please don't ask questions you know the answer to."
"̵T̵h̵r̷e̸a̴t̵ ̸l̸e̷v̶e̸l̵:̶ ̵H̵i̸g̴h̶.̵ ̸T̸a̵c̴t̵i̸c̶a̵l̵ ̶s̶u̵g̴g̴e̷s̶t̴i̴o̴n̵:̵ ̷A̸v̷o̵i̴d̷a̷n̴c̷e̷.̸"̸
"Well duh, it's him. Good ol' Jack never disappoints."
"I still believe it is unprofessional to have him murder targets without paying him as a hitman instead of a sub-department head."
"He got a raise, what more could he want?"
"Enough."
The many voices ringing within the dark, endless void fell silent.
"Here is what we will do…"
"Muuuuugh… !"
Of course that stupid book was in the wrong for daring to insinuate you didn't possess a basic ability expected of all ice types. It is a lying liar who lies, for you naturally can do this already!
"Muuuuurgh!"
You simply never chose to use this power before, for you always had other options you preferred to such a basic and obvious one, but you could have done it at any time if you wanted!
"Muguguguguh!"
That's right! That's right! You could do this whenever you want! This is nothing for someone of your status and power! Nooothinggggg!!!
"Chuh."
"Mugyah?!" You flinch, Accidentally levitating the block of ice you've been staring at for half an hour (During which you could have done so at any moment if you felt like it!) up against the ceiling. "… Brian."
"Puchuh, I got that aphrodisiac you wanted me to make out of the critters from the garden."
"… Muh." You take the vial his tail is balancing wordlessly, the slightly frothy pink liquid inside kind of making you want to drink it because of how it looks like bubblegum.
"Chuuh, if you drink it, only do it when I'm at a minimum safe distance of half a mile or more," your fluffy mascot alchemy slave warns.
Your warriors assemble once more for war, a dutiful, loyal army under your command and utterly devoted to the glorious mission you shall embark on; the eradication of way too enormous bugs.
Weapon tests have, unfortunately, shown that while your golems can in some ways stand in for yourself, this only applies in some very select circumstances; channeling your mana through them in order to empower items they are holding is, sadly, not possible, invalidating your first plan surrounding several explosive suicide attacks strong enough to blow massive holes into enemy lines. Regrettable, but it cannot be helped, in the end.
In the meantime you simply went ahead and gave the golems you already had around some spiffy uniforms and had them collect wartime taxes and rough up the peasantry some- dozens of spinies are being collected, gathered up by your minions.
With the grimoires meant for Mirasol and Chucky also handed out, you proceed to concentrate on assembling your mighty war-host, to challenge the abominable enemy standing before you. The whole realm is drawn from, that you may crush your foes, see them driven before you and hear the lamentations of their women. Because that's what being a magical girl is all about.
Your imps, gathered in twice their previous numbers, with a little extra time to herd them up; the imp chief you noted the last time around seems especially motivated, continually screeching at and beating its subordinates to keep them all in line.
More cyborgs, similarly doubled in number to a total of ten, are added to your host by your loyal retainer Brian, his elite troops once again forming your rear guard. Hungry and playful Grasswolves, utterly ravenous and unstoppably livid as you show by scratching them under their chins and almost being thrown to the ground by the resulting reaction, shall make up your scouts and cavalry, all the while your Golem Guard has only increased in strength and numbers as well, barrels of spinies gathered and readied as ammunition.
It is inspiring, to see this assembly of the Empire's finest (the Empire of the United Glacier, of course). And that doesn't even include the group of powerful sellswords whose services you have acquired through ruinous expenses (by asking them to be ready for a fight around this time).
Now you just have to go get them and your army can march!
Kerrie, Olivia and Bubbles were waiting on the same roof they'd met at before, awaiting the arrival of Jackie. Some of them may have their reservations about the magical girl sharing responsibility for the city with them, by which Kerrie meant she herself did and the other two were frustratingly unwilling to call the taciturn girl out on it when she did suspicious stuff, but when she'd let Olivia know there was a monster she needed help with, they'd still told their parents they'd be gone for a sleepover and not to worry about it.
Or she and Olivia did, anyway. Neither of them had any idea what Bubbles' living situation looked like, she wasn't telling and they probably didn't really want to know to begin with.
Girls like them didn't turn to prostitution and sluttery as a way of life if they had happy home lives.
Still, there they were, awkwardly standing in the wind and just chatting to pass the time. They didn't really have much common ground to go over, but there was always enough stuff to just talk about if someone was willing to try.
Even though she kept getting the feeling Olivia and Bubbles were having some kind of high-level verbal sparring match about something, but she wasn't in on it. It was very frustrating, but what did baguettes and notably saucy sausages have to do with anything?
Were they just foodies, after all? Did the rest of Kerrie's team have something in common she didn't and they'd just not been mentioning it to be polite?!
Thankfully, Jackie came before she could go down a spiral of self-recrimination over being the reason for her team's interpersonal issues, floating down on them from above on a sheet of ice. "Muh."
""Hello, Jackie.""
Once they'd all stepped onto their own ice sheets, held in the air by Jackie's magic somehow, they began moving, slowly floating towards wherever they were going. Olivia's platform, however, came closer to Jackie's as well, the youngest girl among them stretching a black piece of cloth out towards the greenette.
Olivia pulled it around her face, covering her eyes and letting Jackie tie it up behind her. Then she return to formation, all three of them sliding through the air in formation.
"… So, like, why're you blindfolding Olly?" Bubbles finally asked the question they were all thinking about.
"She doesn't want anyone to know the way to her home, duh," Olivia explained. "Look, just accept it and we can-"
"No, she isn't trying to blindfold anyone else," Kerrie explained to the (temporarily) blind girl.
"… Eh?"
"Olivia has to know her place," Jackie said.
"Eeeeeeh?!"
In the end, Olivia kept her cloth on at Jackie's insistence, though she really didn't try to do the same to the other two. The travel through the city was short, cutting over most roofs and around the buildings high enough to impede them as they moved at the speed of cars, until they eventually slowed down again.
They were lowering down now, shuffling into an empty alleyway lit by the setting sun. "Where are we going exactly, Jackie?" She asked, feeling like they were owed an explanation by this point.
"Muh." Her answer was short an followed by all of them suddenly speeding up, ramming against a wall!
Except… they didn't crash. Opening her eyes again, Kerrie realized they were in a city, but it was like it was… muted. Quiet, quieter than it ever got inside any city.
Just like Olivia had described that one time about visiting Jackie's home.
"Muh," Jackie made again, their transports moving again.
"Guys? Did anything happen?" Olivia asked, still blind.
"We're having, like, a complete trip out here, don't worry," Bubbles told her.
Kerrie's brows furrowed as she watched Jackie, paying attention to the white-haired girl, and she saw what she'd noticed a few times before but never really wanted to mention aloud. Her face was moving, her body shifting as though she was silently talking to someone invisible…
Or someone only she could hear.
"Jackie?" Kerrie quietly asked. "Are you hearing any… voices?"
"How'd you know?" She asked, tilting her head.
Well, okay. So… Uh…
Shit, was Jackie, what was it called, neurodivergent? Unless she was shitting Kerrie. But no, she wasn't that good a liar, it always showed on her face. She could be autistic, or schizophrenic, or whatever…
That did put everything into a whole new light.
Kerrie was kind of busy recontextualizing everything she knew about Jackie- sure, she could just be fucking with her or actually talking to disembodied voices that really existed, but now that she thought about it, Jackie just being severely autistic or otherwise not thinking like normal people did explain a whole lot about her actions if it was true- when they came within sight of the forest Olivia had described as well, indicating they were pretty close to wherever Jackie actually lived.
That was good. They had to know so that if there was some kind of emergency, they could come help calm her down. "Wait a second, is this… An actual sleepover?" She asked aloud. "Did you call us to have a party at your house, Jackie?"
"Nuh," the girl shook her head. "Bugs," she instead said, pointing at somewhere on the horizon.
Kerrie looked, but she couldn't see anything like that, just… A large building.
That wasn't a large building at all, or at least not the kind she was used to. "Is that some kind of giant bug nest?"
"Muh." Jackie, if anything, seemed to be grumpy about it. "Lots of big bugs. Have to kill them before they grow too much."
That would explain what Jackie did all day, perhaps. "So we're here to help you kill them?"
"Muh." She nodded this time. There seemed to be a pattern between affirmative sounds and negative ones, but Kerrie wasn't going to draw any conclusions yet. "Also, my army."
"… You have an army?"
"Muh."
Jackie pointed down. Kerrie didn't see anything at first, but as they moved forwards she could make out shapes in the undergrowth beneath the treetops that-
There were wolves. Or large dogs, could be either. They were green and camouflaged against their surroundings, but seemed to be just like dogs otherwise. Inside a clearing, in the midst of a large ring drawn by their presence, were dozens and dozens of small, human-like creatures, except they were red and blue and green and very very ugly and seemed to be fighting among themselves, a chaotic melee that never seemed to end, except some of them were armed with small bones, stabbing and clubbing each other.
And nearby where-
Kerrie thought she may be sick. "What happened to those people?"
Jackie shrugged. "Brian."
They were people, except with steel inside them, with lots of angry red flesh around it and empty, soulless eyes, staring blankly and sometimes squeaking with the sound of metal rubbing against metal.
Whoever Brian was, he needed to be stopped.
"Huh, cyborgs. Neat!"
"Can I take the blindfold off already, Jackie?"
… By herself and quietly, as her team wouldn't be much help here. And Jackie didn't seem to be finding anything wrong with this, either. Could it be this 'Brian' was the one responsible for the murders and disappearances she'd thought were connected to her? That would explain where the bodies had come from…
Urgh, Kerrie was still going to throw up if she thought about it too closely. She was just not going to look at them too closely.
"Also, Tabitha. War advisor."
"Meow!"
"Ah! The cat!" Olivia replied.
"Mooow."
… Was it just a normal cat or… ?
They'd been told to wait while Jackie 'got something', the ice sheets they were standing on levitating in the air without moving- much, anyway. That said, she was just moving herself to the edge of the clearing, the green wolves shuffling as she came closer.
"Mirasoool~."
Her voice was actually very beautiful when she really used it. A shame she barely did.
There was nothing but the rustling of the trees for a bit, the creatures in the middle of the clearing actually growing a little quieter, before a figure appeared from within the woods, striding in across branches as though they were a wide, open path.
It was a nearly completely, scandalously naked monkey-girl-plant hybrid, with just a few leaves covering her naughty bits. "Hey mommy, whassup?"
""- mommy?""
They weren't going to get anywhere at this rate, but this had to be talked about, discussed, cleared up and consequences made cl-
"Oh, Jackie here's one of my mommy's, she and Viridis made me. Mom also made the forest. So anyway, what's going on?"
"We kill big bugs," Jackie 'explained'. "You coming?"
"Am I ever."
It was a weird procession making it way through the empty streets of the empty city, its hollow expanse more creepy than anything else. There were street signs in all sorts of languages that Kerrie couldn't read, shops open and closed with no rhyme nor reason, still fine meals and garbage cans with a little trash inside of them- as though there used to be people, only for them to disappear from one moment to the next, leaving the lights and the electricity still on.
It made her hair curl in the back of her neck. What kind of place was this, really?
She shook her head. Back to the 'army' Jackie had announced.
She'd conjured more of those ice summons in humanoid shape they'd seen before, exactly ten of them, and sent them ahead of the rest of their group. The wolves were around, somewhere, however Jackie kept them under control, and the disorderly mob of screeching little buggers was still fighting among itself but actually moving in the general direction demanded of it, in no small part due to the things coming up behind them, giving off a shot that rang uncomfortably loudly in the silence all around every now and then to 'motivate' the smaller monsters not to stray from their path.
She, Bubbles and Olivia were walking behind Jackie, next to whom the woman named Mirasol was in turn staying, the cat that was apparently Jackie's pet balancing on the white-haired girl's head.
It was kind of cute, but also not the point. Kerrie quietly let the confusion and indignity of everything that'd happened in the last two hours or so wash over her and, really, how had they, magical girls, come to walk amongst monsters that were actually obeying one of them in order to defeat more monsters?!
Like, sure, maybe taming one or two, but actually using monstrous things like those 'cyborg' and what looked like some kind of miniature hellspawn? How the heck did that even happen, not to mention be allowed under the rules of magical girls?
Not that there were any official rules, but the unspoken ones! The ones about friendship and justice and protecting the weak and not, under any circumstances, leave any doubt about who the bad guys were!
Jackie cleared her throat, reaching above herself to take her pet cat into her arms. "This is a war not for glory, nor for wealth, but for survival. For what is a life worth when, at any time, a giant bug could surprise you in the bathroom? Amen."
… Was that a prayer or a rousing speech? Not that Kerrie didn't see the point she was making. Bugs were gross, giant bugs were even grosser.
… Oh shit, they were going to be fighting giant bugs, weren't they?!
That weird group of theirs continued on moving ever closer to its ultimate destination, Kerrie's head filled with thoughts of what they would be facing and what strategies to employ. They'd all trained for this, or at least she, Olivia and Bubbles had, it was just a matter of putting what she knew they could do into practice.
Their distance to the strange insect-building shrunk quickly, letting them all make out more and more details in how unusual it was. Made of some organic material that had a weird, dull glimmer to it in the lights shone at it from nearby buildings (Had it always been this dark, had she just not really noticed it'd been night in this place this whole time?), geometric shapes and holes defining its surface. It was built like a cross between a beehive and some kind of termite nest, though distinctly unlike both, or at least common kinds, in form.
Thank you, Discovery Channel, where would she be without you?
A much more pressing concern than the exact method of construction, however, was the activity clearly visible to the naked eye. Swarms of bugs were moving all across and around the area, black masses flowing every which way, and it took Kerrie a moment to adjust her understanding of relative size to realize just how big they were.
Like, alarmingly big. Big enough she'd consider burning a whole building down if she ever saw one under normal circumstances. Biting her lip, she let a hand rest on her sword, ready to draw it at a moment's notice.
"Muh. Must still be riled up from last time." Jackie had actually gone near that place? Was she incredibly brave or just that confident in her power? "Get ready. Fodder will go first."
True to the white-haired girl's words, it didn't take long for the first wave of buzzing, skittering bugs to come at their group, not that they were being quiet enough to make that strange; she could see ants, centipedes, woodlice, cockroaches and more, but she didn't have the time to watch, the small, gangling humanoids Jackie had brought with them somehow screeching and throwing themselves at the bugs as soon as they saw them.
The small creatures, roughly equivalent in size and even in numbers, began to fight a chaotic melee, bone weapons and mandibles, chelicerae and similar finding a plethora of targets to sink into.
The green wolves spread out as well, moving to strike at targets of opportunity, and the large ice creatures Jackie had summoned set up a perimeter to hem in and decimate the creatures now standing in their way.
She could see it wouldn't be enough, though, not for long; this close to the giant hive, there was a steady, unceasing stream of enemy reinforcements slowly coming to push towards their positions.
And then they'd have to fight the giant bugs in melee.
Actually, you know what? Fuck that.
"Hey, Jackie?" Kerrie asked as sweetly as she could. "How expendable are those little things?"
"Muh."
"Olivia!" She called out, not willing to wait on this.
Her green-haired teammate nodded, already knowing what she wanted. "On it!"
Raising her twin spears, Olivia concentrated, conjuring a stiff, almost forceful breeze coming from them and towards the giant bugs, steadily growing stronger. "I'll try to aim it, but I'll hit them, too!"
"Doesn't matter, no giant bugs!" Kerrie drew her sword in a fluid motion, stance low and magic brimming with a keen edge to match it. She breathed out as she did, executing the maneuver like she'd done it a million times.
She hadn't, it was just a couple tens of thousand, but it was her one good move, she had to be able to do this right.
The blade of her sword was filled with heat, flames flickering into existence along it as she executed the quickdraw, a line of superheated air glowing red in the wake of her slash.
Then it exploded into a blast of fire, caught and nourished by Olivia's wind magic and propelled up into the air, spreading into a massive storm of fire, and beating down on the bugs still rushing at them and the creatures fighting them. ""Inferno!""
It took a considerable amount of both of their mana reserves, but their combination attack wasn't a move meant to allow for the enemy to fight back.
Bright red fire smothered the magically mutated insects, their screeching and the popping of their bodies just barely audible over the burning of their flames. Their allies, too, were hit by the attack, a dozen or two caught behind enemy lines and burning up, screaming piteously, but Kerrie was just breathing heavily, having provided the majority of the energy to start up the surge of fire.
Olivia, meanwhile, was concentrating hard, doing everything she could not to lose control of the still burning flames, her magic serving as a catalyst and more fuel to enhance and enlarge their combo.
"Haaaaaah!" Using her spears like a conductor's baton, streams of fire were mobilized from where they were consuming nearby houses, blasting towards the source of their enemies.
By the time the smoke cleared, there was a clear path forwards, strewn with the flash-grilled corpses of what had to be hundreds or thousands of giant bugs (and the few friendly creatures they hit). Kerrie looked at Jackie, sweat beading on the corners of her face, but a proud smile adorning the same anyway. "Pretty cool, right?"
"Muh. Good enough to clear the trash. Well done."
Jackie created a sheet of ice, stepped on it and floated upwards… To put a hand on Kerrie's head. She looked at her quizzically, but then she felt the small, cool hand pat her.
Aww, that was actually really cute. She took back everything bad she'd ever thought or said about Jackie, that adorably serious face while she did this was so amazing, if she didn't feel so completely wiped right this moment and they weren't on an active battlefield, she'd pinch her little cheeks-
"What about me?" Olivia demanded.
"… Muh. Good work, good work."
Both of them stood there, letting Jackie pat their heads. Meanwhile, Bubbles just kept to the side, watching something-
The wolves were eating the grilled bugs now. As well as the little monsters. And both of them were also eating their own casualties. The crunching of heated exoskeleton and bones was kind of sickening, but then she saw Jackie's cat also taking her share, a severed giant ant leg being nibbled on with both front paws keeping it in place and the cuteness factor outweighed the grossness factor again as long as she didn't look at the rest.
They were moving again shortly after this, leaving most of the bug corpses lying in the dust; Jackie's small army of critters could eat a lot, but not that much, and especially not quickly enough to matter.
They were running now, hoofing it to what Kerrie recognized as the remains of a wall and several small spires of the same material the main hive was made out of, half-finished and covered in soot now. Amazingly, it seemed like the stuff didn't burn all that well, but the hole in the fortifications they waltzed in through was wide enough that just didn't matter.
It still begged a question, though. "Why is there a hole here? Did they use cheap filler that burned up to nothing?"
"Muh," Jackie made, effortlessly keeping up with their overall tempo atop her ice sheet. "Tore it down earlier, need time to build well."
That made sense. It was also insane to consider Jackie assaulting this place by herself and not only winning, but also taking the time to destroy what the bugs had built to prepare for another, later attack with more reinforcements.
Still one way or another they soon arrived, the majority of the bugs that would have stood in their way having been wiped out already. The scattered remnants were dealt with easily enough by their own minions, torn apart by cackling little monsters or simply smashed, stabbed or crushed by the icy golems Jackie was controlling.
Or eaten alive by her wolves. The only ones that hadn't yet done much of anything were the horribly disfigured figures trailing after them, very obvious guns still speaking of what they were good for should the need arise.
They soon set up inside a courtyard of sorts, a cleared-out area between the walls and the main body of the hive they were assaulting. The ground was covered in a thick, hard substance of some sort, but nobody paid it any attention so Kerrie didn't mind it, either.
Before them was the place, large, conspicuous, a tower made of the labor and excretions of millions of insects, a cold shudder running down Kerrie's spine. How were they going to even make a dent in this thing?
"Muh, Kerrie," Jackie said, turning towards her. "Flammable?"
That was a good question. Scrounging up some of the mana she'd recovered while on the way, she sent a spark of flame against the segmented material, only to have it essentially fizzle out.
"No luck," she shook her head. "I don't think this stuff is going to burn easily. Maybe if we had a few days, but…"
"Muh." Jackie shrugged, walking closer towards the hive.
She drew both her guns, casually aiming them at a part of the giant wall they were confronted with, and pulled both triggers at once- except what rang out wasn't a gunshot.
The sound barrier was definitely broken by the massive icicle pushed out between her weapons, like it was somehow fired by both at once, and bored into the tough shell built up by the giant bugs.
Everyone held their ears closed due to the loud noise, but Kerrie quickly realized her and the other two members of her team were the only ones doing so- only realizing belatedly magical beings were a lot hardier than their normal counterparts, including magical girls, and nobody's hearing suffered any permanent damage.
A few of the wolves shook out their heads (and ears) and that was it.
On the other hand, there was now a big hole in the hive's side, wide enough for all of them to look inside. There was a cave and tunnels, leading off into the dark, and so they all approached in short order.
This thing wasn't as cramped as she'd have thought, really. Kerrie had expected barely being able to stand up and maybe a horrible stench on top, but the tunnels were big enough they should be able to fit in single file without issues and the scent of honey filled the air as she stepped inside.
It was still dark, but luckily they'd come prepared. "Is it alright to make a light?"
"Muh." Jackie shrugged, which she took to be a yes. Exchanging nod with the rest of the team, all of them took out their flashlights and glowsticks, strapping the former to their costumes and keeping the latter in reserve just in case.
"Muh?!"
"We got some stuff in case we needed to work anywhere dark," Olivia explained to the surprised Jackie. "You know, as a precaution."
"Zip ties are awesome to tie people up with, too," Bubbles added as she used the pieces of plastic to get her light in place. Kerrie wanted to say something against that, but it was both true and Bubbles was the source of their little gadgets, paying for them out of hand with a wad of cash she'd pulled out of somewhere inside her nigh nonexistent costume at the time, so she held her tongue.
"… Accessory? But… Works… ?"
Leaving aside the mumbling Jackie, Kerrie took a moment to help Olivia do her preparations; Bubbles was weirdly flexible and could do this by herself, but outside of a fight the green-ette was kind of a klutz at times.
They were sending in the small creatures first, keeping back a reserve of them at all times including a particularly big and mean-looking one that Kerrie noticed when it actually beat one of its own kind to death; somehow, she wasn't really feeling charitable for them, nor regretful about the ones her and Olivia had killed along with the giant bug swarm outside.
Wherever Jackie had found these ugly, crude and violent things, she was surely correct in spending their lives at every opportunity. Magical girls killed monsters and these things most certainly counted; all the better, then, if they died while helping them fight more monsters.
… Oh hell, was this a slave army? And was Kerrie tacitly agreeing to its existence? What even was her life anymore…
The sound of fighting was heard from further ahead, of course, with several of the ice golems used by Jackie joining in as a matter of course- one of them, using a sword and a knife, was leading the way, as best she could tell, and the concept was amazing. After all, if Jackie had summons like those she could call on, it only made sense to give them weapons, right?
They were just strong enough they didn't need normal ones, but Jackie probably had magical stuff she could give one of them. If it worked like in video games and stuff and she could get enough magical equipment, each of her summoned fighters could theoretically equip a full suite of armor and they'd become an inexhaustible army as long as she had enough mana, right?
Right?
… Right… ?
Having re-evaluated just how powerful Jackie could be, Kerrie shook her head.
Most of the wolves didn't seem interested in pushing deeper all that much, simply staying behind around the earlier cavities within the hive they'd found and resting, but trying to make efficient use of pack animals like them in these close quarters was a lost cause anyway. More importantly, they were steadily moving into whichever direction seemed the most promising but, after asking Jackie, it turned out they were actually moving…
Down. Because that was 'obviously' where the source of the bugs was. Bubbles had agreed for whatever reason and nobody else had any better ideas, so down they went, making their way through the confines of the giant hive.
On the way they encountered several bug corpses, left behind by the advance party forcing its way through anything in its path; nibbled on in many cases, but she clearly could recognize that the deeper they went, the bigger the insects became.
This probably wasn't a good sign.
Kerrie couldn't help but think of some fantasy book quote she must've read or heard at some point, more than half-forgotten and only now bubbling up in the murky waters of her subconscious. 'They had dug too deep, too greedily,' or something like that.
It was probably about something something dwarfs. Stubby little fantasy people with a penchant for doing that kind of thing.
The bearing this fractured memory had on her current situation could be explained with one look at the surroundings. Gone now were the narrow pathways and claustrophobic caves from earlier; instead, clearly far, far underground, in a space dug out by whatever godless creatures called it their home, there were…
Well, massive caverns. The scent of honey was growing stronger and walls made of honeycombs, indistinct shapes moving within, proving beyond a doubt this place was clearly and absolutely the source of the swarms of giant bugs they'd kept encountering.
Which was why they were on an absolute rampage, destroying everything in sight. The screaming small monsters were smearing themselves with glowing, thick, yellow liquid as they literally ate into the unfinished bugs, the ice golems and the cyborgs not far behind as they smashed, stabbed, cut and shot any occupied honeycombs, for some reason tearing the other ones out wholesale at Jackie's direction.
If a 'muh' could be counted as such. She was pretty sure she was just controlling them directly.
Speaking of, Jackie herself was firing more of those icicles at the walls as they went, though they weren't as big as the ones from earlier and she always took a little time between them. Was it a use limit, or a mana management kind of situation? Either way, she wasn't the only magical girl to be laying into these enemies against all beings.
Kerrie herself was firing off her fire slashes at anything that seemed like it might be alive and cutting open the surprisingly hard organic walls with her sword wholesale in places, whereas Olivia was strictly refusing to use up any mana at all at this point, stabbing her twin spears into honeycombs one after the other, giving off little cries of exertion.
The only one among them to not be doing anything was Bubbles. "This suuucks, but I'm not gonna get my hands dirty on these things, no thanks."
"You could throw stuff at the occupied ones?" Kerrie suggested, only to be rejected with a bored shrug and hands meeting behind the aggressively blonde girl's head.
"Nah, you gurls, like, go. You got this. 'Sides, I gotta save up my super awesome power for the real fightin', yeah?"
"Muh," Jackie made.
"Yeah, I know. Shouldn'ta, like, challenged Murphy."
"Wait, what?"
Kerrie's confusion notwithstanding, Bubbles turned to walk towards one of the walls of this horrid place… Whereupon it exploded, allowing an enormous insect entry, buzzing aggressively and spreading a fine mist of some kind of powder by the moment. Its dark coloration made it harder to make out details with the darkness predominant around them, but she could make out spikes, blades and a flurry of activity as it immediately attacked!
However, her teammate didn't so much as slow down. Bubbles twirled around herself, threadbare 'outfit' wiggling a little as she turned her back to the monstrosity. "Oh hey babe, you wanna have a go at this ass?" She asked, slapping both hands onto her behind and looking over her shoulder.
The enormously horrendous bug halted.
Kerrie lost all faith in humanity as her teammate walked up to the thing and rubbed a hand over it abdomen. "Bubbles. No."
"Bubbles yes!" That was exceedingly unhelpful. "But uh, we may wanna get a move on, I got this- her, it, whatever, for maybe ten minutes before I'm dry."
"Muh." Jackie's communications were getting clearer, or maybe she and Kerrie were simply of one mind.
Then Olivia came up to them, having finished absolutely covering herself in thick honey from her stabbing activities. "Why's everyone angry at Bubbles agai- Oh my god, get away from that thing!"
"Stahp! If you hurt it, my control gets, like, shot!"
"… Muh. This way to the biggest bugs." Kerrie wasn't going to ask how Jackie knew, she just wanted to get Bubbles to stop molesting that giant bug and kill it instead. She was striving to always see the good in people, but her ideals were being put to a very hard test right there and then.
They were racing through the hive's belly now, moving as quickly as they could. Apparently, Jackie wanted to use the opportunity Bubbles' control of the monster allowed them to strike directly at the head and heart of the snake.
Or so she thought. The explanation had been a lot more abbreviated.
"Muh. Bug against big bug. Go."
Like that.
Still, Bubbles, now riding the prodigiously sized insect, was leading the charge. And a charge it was, their entire little army (Damn, since when had she started copying Jackie's way of referring to it?) pushing deeper and deeper into any opposition they encountered.
It seemed this strategy was well-suited to large numbers of individually strong fighters combined with weaker fodder. Kerrie would note this for future endeavours.
More bugs came and more bugs were summarily trampled, buried under superior firepower applied with targeted precision, never giving them the time to amass in number capable of challenging them.
Finally, however, they stopped cold, not in the face of any opposition, but rather that of… Light.
The cavernous room was lit by some kind of thorough glow, small streams of even more honey flowing from the walls and around the ground, a little darker than the stuff they'd seen earlier. It was also filled with- one, two, three- five of the giant bugs.
The kind that took everything Bubbles had to take control over in a single specimen's case.
"This might be bad," Kerrie noted aloud, the handful of actually pretty strong-feeling monsters already waiting for them with sharpened blade-legs. "If they all attack at once, we-"
"Muh." That was not a supportive 'muh'. If anything, it felt kind of disbelieving. She turned toward Jackie, following an outstretched finger pointed at the back of the place they'd stormed into.
A throne room, Kerrie only now realized. And it was occupied.
Standing there was what she couldn't describe as anything other than a bug woman. With emphasis on the woman part.
Tall and beautiful, with a soft face and four eyes she could see on one side of her face, big and blue except for one of them while the other side was obscured by her pure white, long hair with hints of blue in its tips. Her skin and, uh, chitin, was just as white, with even more fluffy white fur sprouting from her neck, upper arms and wrists.
She was also not wearing any clothes. Her abdomen was segmented all the way down to her legs, but her, uh, chest was very prominently displayed, big blue areolas and inverted nipples pointing at them.
"Oh, you've been very, very nasty, haven't you?" The woman asks in a surprisingly soft voice, crooning at them. "Killing all my poor babies like that… It's only fair if I have you replace them, isn't it"
"This might be really bad," Kerrie repeated her earlier opinion. Those thighs looked like deadly weapons, capable of crushing heads like grapes!
"Muuuuuh…" Why did that sound like a 'muh'-censored expletive? "She's hot."
"I am actually quite warm," the buxom and worryingly intelligent monster asserted, stretching her arm out to showcase just how fluffy it was. "Would you like me to warm you up while you're being bred by my legions?"
"Oooh, can we choose what fucks us?" Bubbles asked.
Everyone looked at her askance.
"Muh." Jackie shook her head.
"Only thing breeding anything here is me," Jackie declared, spelling out the perhaps longest sentence Kerrie had heard her say ever since they entered the bug hive. "Also, you are not a bug."
The insectile woman blinked, smiling and amused. "Oh? What, pray tell, am I then?"
"Ice type," Jackie triumphantly said. "Fluffy and warm, so ice type."
"I'm not sure I follow your logic here," Olivia interrupted, eyeing up the giant bugs menacing their group. "Wouldn't she be bug type with maybe ice typing added o-"
"Ice Type."
The whole chamber's temperature dropped by a few degrees and the ground shook under their feet, the rumbling power of Jackie's obvious denial of reality manifesting itself bluntly.
"Okay, you convinced me, she's obviously pure ice."
"Muh."
"That's very cute and all, but you still haven't faced my guards yet~" the boss monster said, derailing this aborted discussion about P*kemon. "I wonder whether you will-"
"MUUUUUUUUUH!" Jackie let out a fearsome battlecry, firing off several massive ice rockets (because that's what they were, really) in quick succession, rapidly piercing through and summarily destroying three of the five giant bugs before she returned to talking normally in the sudden silence once the rumbling subsided. "Kill the weaklings. I'll catch her."
Mirasol sighed, stretching her arms and her neck in sequence. She really wasn't used to walking on hard concrete and it felt kind of funny on her feet, but she could manage. Though if everywhere really was like this, she understood why the doggies preferred to just stay in the forest most of the time.
Ah well. It was nice to get 'out of the house', so to speak, though she was already missing the trees. How did anyone relax and sleep the day away in these synthetic boxes people built or, in this case, spontaneously manifested out of nowhere?
"These really don't look comfortable at all," she vaguely complained to nobody in particular. Not that she was all that distressed, granted- she was there, after all, so she could always just drop a few seeds, pump them full of magic and go from there.
Hence her current seat, a small (by her standards) tree she was lounging in while the other seeds she'd brought were putting in the real work.
She glanced down where dozens of tough, shrubbery plants were fighting the oversized bugs that were coming towards the bug hive, drawn towards it by the scent released from the destroyed pieces. Really, it was hardly much of a battle; long vine-tentacles were wrapping around and snapping apart tough exoskeletons, cobs of spiky corn were emptied and reloaded every now and then when she used her magic for it and mighty roots snapped out of the earth to crush the insects heedless of the massacre being performed.
This was how things went best, honestly. Nature at work, no need to interfere.
Yawning, Mirasol took out a banana, peeling it with the usual quick poke to command it. It shouldn't surprise her given her parents, but she was pretty good at this whole magic deal, wasn't she?
She was definitely killing more bug just staying there and shooting the shit than her 'sister' (that may or may not be a hallucination coupled with a secondary personality emerging or something, dunno) did diving into that hive. Easy-peasy, lemon squeazy!
… She took out a lemon, squeezing it until it burst and throwing the now primed seeds in a random direction, filled with her magic. A wild mass of wood and vines quickly grew, entwined into a big, yellow lemon-shaped cannon at its tip, firing corrosive acid at the bugs in the area.
Mirasol licked the lemon juice off her hand, ignoring the bugs again. She'd use some more magic if they kept coming in a while.
The fight that ensued was a thing of sudden, broiling violence, one that Kerrie was not afraid to admit she didn't keep an overall view on; she was busy enough just keeping up with what she and her team were doing.
The big bugs, for all that Jackie had dispatched them with contemptuous ease, were strong. Strong enough they put an entirely different light on how Bubble could control one- and was using it against its brethren.
There existed no line of battle; everyone was simply throwing themselves against the nearest enemy in a display of poor planning and life decisions, but after a few moments somewhat of a division became apparent- The trio of magical girls Kerrie was part of and the bug under their control against one giant, armed and armored bug, Jackie's small army of minions against the other led by her chief (armed) golem and Jackie herself against the bug queen and anyone and anything in her way, heedless of any self-inflicted casualties.
Kerrie was flanking the big thing as they clashed, Bubbles' domination (and they would be talking about this later, she'd talked about hampering and attacking foes with cloth, not literally stringing threads onto them like marionettes to treat them as such) not perfect enough to let her use one example of the species to fight another one; her and Olivia were attacking from the sides as their mildly sluggish meatshield occupied the monster, fighting a battle of attrition they were bound to lose but that was meant to put them into a better position anyways.
On her side, she was slashing out with her flaming sword, the enemy fending her off with its great shield and stabbing back with its own bladed limb, but the bug on their own side was interfering every time, actively taking wounds meant for her. While anyone on their side attacking it might well dispel Bubbles' control, the same wasn't true for the enemies they were fighting, so this was an efficient way of using its presence while weakening it for when Bubbles ran out of mana.
Olivia, over on the other side, was having more luck, stabbing her wind-propelled spears into whatever vulnerabilities she spotted and triggering her lighting discharges whenever she got a good hit in.
They were slowly wearing this monster down, forcing it into disadvantageous positions and pressing the offense, at the cost of the mind-controlled thrall. She might have felt bad about it if it wasn't an utterly disgusting giant bug and she would be so forcing Bubbles to take, like, a dozen showers once they were done here because holy yuck of Yuckage McYuck, she was literally clinging to its back and riding it!
Yuuuuck!
Anyway, they were winning, slowly but surely. Kerrie had gotten in one good hit, lashing off the monster's eyes to one side, and the screeching creature did not take much longer to die afterwards, despite the choking powders spread around everywhere with every beat of its wings. Sure, its death throes managed to knock Bubbles off her ride and free the bug she was using, but they defeated the latter in short order as well, it already being badly wounded by the earlier fight.
In the end, both were dead, the formerly controlled bug's last twitches bringing it closer to the one they'd been fighting from the start, bladed arm rubbing against its.
"You know, I'm feeling kinda bad now," Olivia said, breathing hard and holding the side where she'd been knocked away by a wild swing at some point.
"I'm not," Kerrie told her. "Screw these bugs. They had it coming for being bugs."
The greenette smiled at her wanly. "That's a very Jackie viewpoint to have."
Of course, as for Bubbles…
"I never, like, got to take these for a test run. Fucking waste."
Yeah. That. Nobody was saying anything about it for the moment.
Anyway, some minor wounds and some bleeding of Kerrie's forehead aside, they'd defeated the creature with little casualties or, indeed, issues. Completely abusing expendable meatshields was turning out to be an amazing strategy.
Now, as for the other still-living bug…
There were the little monsters hanging off of it, crawling over and trying to get through its outer armored shell (something Kerrie knew from experience was no easy feat), mostly just distracting it while the other fighters were demolishing the creature. The horrific cyborgs were firing everything they had, from miniguns replacing their arms to rockets fired out of contraptions hidden inside their backs, all the while the icy golems drove themselves at the monster's limbs, using arms and hands transformed into swords and spikes and hooks.
The lead one was tearing through the giant bug's armor like toilet paper, too. It was downright cathartic to watch that knife hack through the shields that'd blocked so much of Kerrie's own initial barrage of attacks.
Also, somehow one of the small monsters that was less small than the rest was killing the others as they were dragged towards it in order to conjure lighting that shot at the monster. She wasn't going to question it.
And as for Jackie-
"ICE TYPE."
"I greatly disagree."
"Muuuuuh!"
"Don't you want to just feel the fluff?"
"Fluff!"
"Come on, you know you want to surrender…"
"No. You surrender. I'll give you lamps and sex."
"Tempting."
"Wait, Jackie is a boy?!"
"No, she's a girl. She just has a penis, too," Olivia explained.
"But… Are you sure?" Kerrie tilted her head.
"Yeah, that's some prime cock she got, I made sure," Bubbles casually confessed to possibly having raped the mentally disabled girl.
Dammit, why did she have to deal with this utter shit again? Oh, right, someone had to be responsible here.
The fight between Jackie and the female bug monster had been fast-paced and downright furious, requiring everyone else to keep their heads down and fight around the battle raging amongst them, massive attacks flying every which way.
Jackie was dispensing her icicles rapidly and powerfully, the pieces of ice jamming into the walls and staying stuck where they were dodged. The insect queen was no less impressive, smacking them to the side with disturbing regularity and deflecting them with the plating of her torso.
She returned fire by scattering purple dust and magic in the air, forcing Jackie to avoid the stuff and keep up her bombardment, in addition to summoning more bugs out of the walls and ceiling, either summarily ignored by Jackie or else destroyed in a flash once she somehow extended four bladed legs from her back and begun scuttling along on them.
Kerrie might have screamed in shock and sudden disgust at the thought of a Jackie-Roach. Just a little.
But yeah, there was kind of a stalemate, but finally things changed when Jackie gestured for a few of her ice minions to come sacrifice themselves; they were immune to the poison, though they still had to take care due to the immense physical strength of the bug queen, the same reason Jackie was avoiding letting her come to close.
In short, she was 'kiting' her, Kerrie believed the plan was.
Then they exchanged a few words as the distraction proved to be what Jackie needed to get a few solid hits in, followed by the white-haired girl stripping off her panties and revealing a massive pillar of meat to be jutting forth from between her legs.
And the rest… Was history.
Before anyone present could really do anything, Jackie's genitals were out, large penis pointing at the deceptively busty bug. Said bug, for that matter, didn't waste any time herself, licking her lips and grabbing for the offered appendage with almost obscene haste.
One thing led to another and before long, Jackie was panting, the ice-type girl (Kerrie did know what pok*mon was, thank you very much) melting as she was pressed back against a honey-oozing wall, member enveloped by the bulging, white flesh of the insect woman and still large enough her lips were wrapped around its head, all eight eyes (presumably, half of them were still hidden under white hair) gazing up at the display Jackie was making of herself.
She was drooling. Her tongue was visible where her mouth was refusing to close and a thin stream of saliva was visible to one corner of it, all the while Jackie made keening whining sounds, both hands grasping at the bug monster's luxurious hair- ineffectively, just there and touching it.
Kerrie could see the girl's eyes, how the pupils were dilating slightly, focused on the feminine creature lavishing attention upon her rigid penis. Speaking of, it looked quite unusual itself; there were patterns on it, and a structure at the base that wasn't present in the educational material her parents had gotten her at some point before the divorce.
Repress, repress, her mind immediately chanted to itself at the thought, obsess, obsess.
She had to focus on something else. Except the only thing to focus on was Jackie being engaged in sexual intercourse by the mature woman, something that was doubly reprehensible on account of her age and mental disabilities. However, Kerrie was very aware of her chances should she try to do anything Jackie didn't like and it seemed like she was enjoying herself very much at the moment.
"That penis looks suspiciously unnatural," she shared her suspicions with her teammates.
"I, uh, I guess?" Olivia hesitantly agreed. "I mean, i know she used to have a different one, but…"
"Et tu, Olivia?" Was she surrounded by perverts and criminals? Was this truly her life?!
"Dunno, it's big and feels good. What's it matter where it's, like, from?"
Kerrie chose to observe in silence, refusing to engage in speculation on the exact origins of Jackie's genitals with the others.
Meanwhile, the girl in question was shaking, panting, as though in great pain, her legs unstable as her hips twitched forwards and back a fractional amount, the head of her… endowment… licked over by a deeply blue tongue; Jackie let out a moan that made her seem even cuter and more innocent than she should have been, joints locking up and head rolling uncontrollably.
Her, uh, her ballsack tightened up, too, again clearly visible from where they were watching, and so Kerrie could clearly see how great amounts of some vile liquid entered the insectoid, monstrous woman's mouth, being swallowed like a favored drink.
Jackie was most demonstrably not in control anymore.
"Sooo good! I think we may just have an agreement," the white and blue monstergirl said, standing up and stroking Jackie's head. Kerrie was instantly jealous. "If you keep producing like that, anyway. I'll want some appropriate lighting for myself and my new brood, though~!"
Oh. Oh no. They were going to reproduce?! Jackie was too young to be a teenage mom! Was she even a teenager yet?!
"'Bviously," the girl muttered, raising a single, trembling fist into the air. "'m so sexy, I gotta catch 'em all."
Olivia folded her hands in apparent prayer. "Please don't make this a p*kemon thing. I don't think over a hundred different monsters will be easy to keep."
Your victory feast is most marvelous, as any feast in your honour is, by the virtue of its very nature, meant to be.
The pie is enormous, half your kitchen table's worth of diameter and, now, glazed with copious amounts of honey you are told has no particular peculiarities beyond being very nutritious, tasty and sweet, cut apart into big square pieces and distributed accordingly.
Yourself, the magical girl trio you invited, Mirasol (who rejoined you as you came back out of the hive), Chuckie herself as your housekeeper and the ICE TYPE queen you… Took in… are getting a piece each, mighty conglomerations of sweet dough and thin, possibly slightly mutagenic apple slices devoured with all due haste at their tastiness.
Naturally, you did not return home without your hard-earned loot. Which is why you are currently sitting in the throne you stole liberated, now placed inside your kitchen with a piece of paper reading 'For Jackie Only' taped to its side.
"Muh," you mumble, enjoying the sweetness in your mouth and feeling like it's coursing through your veins. It is a most pleasant feeling, you will admit. "Tasty victory."
"The honey is really good!" Chuckie exclaims, giving a respectful nod towards your ICE TYPE conquest.
"Aww, thank you, sweetie," she smiles in turn, pale hand reaching out to pat the monsterized girl's head. "I did my best to make it. Though it isn't as… stimulating as it could be."
Before the situation can develop further, however, Mirasol comes crashing back into the civilized space within your domain, your monkey daughter having been gone for a bit to deliver a part of your feast to Viridis. "Hey, hey! I found a treehouse inside the forest that came outta nowhere, anyone wanna take a look?"
Well, you are kind of horny and also kind of curious, so you suppose going through the forest couldn't hurt. "Muh," you thus nod.
"I'm going to regret going along with this, aren't I?" Kerrie complains, sighing and grabbing another plateful of enormous apple pie.
"Could be worse," Olivia shrugs, getting up. At least she's a good puppy and follows you around, huh?
As for Bubbles, she kept trying to ask about monsters that could fuck her, so you left her tied up and gagged off to the side. If she's good, she gets some pie later. Same with Anal Demon, you suppose, the leftovers have to go somewhere.
Viridis stood in a clearing amidst the Writhing Woods, artificial light emanating from far-off skyscrapers illuminating the area.
Opposite of herself, the humanoid insect stood in the twilight, pushing her mane of perfectly white, colorless hair into position behind her head. Her eyes were closed, knowing full well that they would not commence before they were both ready.
The nascent divine spirit of Growth took in the sight- and approved. Obviously a very good breeder, capable of both feeding large broods and keeping her studs well-fed and comfortable with her large, soft breasts and fluffy growths.
Wide hips, too, to give birth quickly and pleasurably. All in all, a quality female, perfectly suited to working with her prime stud.
The insect woman had been studying her too, and only now, both of their curiosities satisfied, did she begin to speak.
"This is a good place to breed."
"It is," the creator of the forest agreed.
"Jackie is a very tasty stud."
"How we first met, too," Viridis smiled, remembering those times in the elsewhere. "We can cooperate."
After all, how could she deny a fellow connoisseur of good breeding?
"You will find a place to nest and breed a fresh generation," she declared.
"Acceptable. I would prefer if they inherited Jackie's essence more strongly."
"Done. New plants will be introduced to let them gather nutrients."
It was high time she initiated that particular growth. Perhaps she would even be able to make it snow over a section of her forest… ?
Viridis shook the white insect's hand. "You shall be known from this day forward as 'Scleri'. Do not disappoint me."
"Likewise."
Now that important matters were done, they both relaxed, taking a seat on a quickly grown wooden stump.
"She's just so cute, though, when she twitches her little legs and moans like no tomorrow, isn't she?"
"And when you let her be on top, she gets all serious, but she still melts away to nothing the moment she puts it in," Viridis agreed.
"Oh, her expressions are just ab-so-lutely adorable."
"You should see her being bred while she's breeding, she becomes absolutely helpless…"
They talked deep into the night. There was a proverb, an expression for this kind of situation. Right, great minds thought alike.