HNSSX 14
Previous arc: Arc 1 a Lesson in Sleep Management is over. Now for Arc 2: Re:Percussions~
Kitsu: I'mma try this style of writing to see if people like it. Let me know in the comments.
Pyro Hawk: So, just remember whilst reading this that every line of Bakuda's rants needs to be read in a thick Boston accent. Okay? (Reminder: edit out this comment once the accent re-write is done)
Lung interlude 01:
Honey and plum juice sweetened Jasmine Dragon iced tea was a favorite of Ryuudo Kenta. Fruity, refreshing, and very light on wasteful sugars, it never failed to put a smile on his face. Even when he was forced to go through the many reports of his subordinates via his daily emails.
With the refreshing night air blowing over his shirtless chest from his open window, and the soothing sounds of his favorite songs sung by his Vtuber cousin playing in the background — a playlist he'd commissioned the young boy for to help pay for his college tuition — he was relaxed and ready for another long night of balancing the books of his multi-cultural international organization.
Every Monday night, he would don his metal mask and work on such things while pondering how he could further preserve the history and cultures of his people, especially in these desperate times of need. With Kyushu's ground being unstable and unusable even after many Parahumans did their best to restore the land that was once there, and many other Asian cities lost under the waves, Lung had decided to do his best to support all people who identified as Asian worldwide, regardless of their original nationality or actual ethnicity.
If you could speak one or more Asian languages, and you practiced Asian culture? You were Asian. If you didn't and you paid a small donation to keep Asian culture thriving because you enjoyed what it had to offer? You were an honorary Asian.
That was all that mattered to the dragon. And if anyone felt the need to argue the point?
Well, he was a dragon. They would inevitably realize that their argument was invalid, whether they wanted to or not.
" Oh? What's this?" Kenta asked himself as he looked over the emergency emails sent to him over their secure network. Inari chat as a program was extremely helpful for various things, and this was one of the better uses for it.
After a few moments of reading the email, he turned to his most loyal friend. One who had been slowly regaining pieces of himself ever since the Onmyoji had begun giving him soul healing talismans. " Bakuda is causing trouble again, old friend." Lung muttered quietly, knowing he would be heard just fine. " We might need to remind her why we do not want her to set off the bombs until we can be sure the Onmyoji and her family will be safe."
" Of course, Lord Lung. I will remind her promptly." His Oni-masked friend nodded slowly, before swapping his Bakuda made grenades for a set of standard ones made by the US military for use against Parahumans. This proved to be a very prudent action, when the first set of bombs went off across the city, causing him to reflexively launch the set of special grenades out the window.
The explosive force of those grenades was absolutely pitiful, yet they had the strange effect of turning the front few feet of the building near the explosion into sand. Unfortunately, this had the side effect of causing a very angry Karasu-tengu with a half-destroyed gourd in hand to fly up to their level for a word with them.
Lung was already beginning to escalate, and they could see it, but it was still slow, as he did not feel much danger in the situation. "Watch where you're throwing your magic sand bombs assholes! You ruined a perfectly good drink!"
Most would see this as an insult, or a potential threat. Lung, however, saw this as an opportunity. "I have many more barrels of Sake for the taking in a nearby warehouse to replace your drink. However, with my current dilemma, I will be unable to access them until the one called Bakuda is suitably punished for setting off the bombs she planted around the city, and attempting to murder my most loyal subordinate."
" Huh. Well fuck then, what the hell are we wasting time here for! Lead the parade to the alcohol and We'll capture her for you while we get good and drunk!" He claimed with a bright, toothy grin as he puffed out his feathered chest in pride. Good. They would need the help of many to get this situation dealt with.
"Very well. Follow me." Lung nodded, making his way towards the window of his fortieth floor office, and leaping out towards the ground. He had done this enough times to know he would be just fine when he reached the ground, so he felt no fear in such an action.
Upon reaching the ground, his body toughened, and scales began to form. Landing with a thud, the pavement cracked lightly beneath his feet, and with only a single look around at the various Oni of the night parade, Lung knew exactly what he needed to do. His voice carried far, reaching the ears of a thousand demons in but a moment despite not raising his volume in the slightest. And when he spoke, he knew they would follow. For he was a dragon, and he had sake. "If you wish for sake, follow me."
"Woo! The Dragon-kin has booze! Less fuckin' goooo~" The apparent leader claimed as he made his way to his warehouse half a block away. He knew he would need to make haste, because he could actively smell Bakuda's lingering scent in the area.
One of his men called out to him from the side, holding his professional camera up as he was carried by a female Kijin to record their wild night off shenanigans. "Boss! It's just like you said! Oni are real! The legends came back!" The man looked very happy to be held by a big-tittied magical ogre woman, and he was happy that young Shouta had found his type.
Lung nodded at him with a lighthearted wink, before fishing for his keys to the warehouse door. For his sake, he pretended not to hear the disbelieving words of his peers claiming that they had never known that the Kabedon was real, despite him having successfully done so himself twice before to people that tried to seduce him for a laugh.
It would only take a moment to open it, but his senses were screaming that it would be dangerous to open it normally, so instead, he began to ramp up, and used his draconically enhanced strength to open the bay door instead.
He never left it locked for a reason after all. No one could open it from the outside but him in this city. Dragons were strong, and he was very much a dragon in all that mattered.
So when the entire warehouse began to go off, with all the alcohol burning and becoming water to power a hydrogen bomb, the Kijin were quick to stop the esoteric effects at play by sheer force of spite, while the Oni rushed in to save the sake.
"No! The Booze must be saved!" One of them cried, trying to save the high quality alcohol from the machine to no avail. Unfortunately, the bomb sputtered to a stop, evaporating all the alcohol and water into nothing but fresh — if vaguely piss smelling — air.
The infuriated look of the Oni in the warehouse as they realized that the bomb tinker had ruined their alcohol was palpable. And then Lung decided to throw a few canisters of a particular mixture of polystyrene, gasoline, and benzene on the raging bonfire.
"It seems Bakuda's private stash went untouched." Lung swept his hands over to a metal lock box with a heavy tinker tech lock and massive boat anchor chains covering it. This he knew was to make it more frustrating for him when he opened it even though it was likely utter piss water locked within . That was the kind of underhanded trick she loved to play in some attempt to show her superiority over people she considered inferior.
Dragon or not, Lung was most definitely her intellectual superior in every way, but that's not what mattered here at the moment. "If you wish, you can have what you can find that she hasn't yet destroyed or drank, but I must go stop her before she ruins the rest of the alcohol in town."
Of course, he stepped back and left them to open the locked box. As he left the building, he heard one of them hollering about the stash and let out a small smile.
"Rotwein eh? This looks alright! It's even in a fancy juice box!" One called out to his friend, patting him on the back with a grin. "And Radler huh? I wonder if it makes music if I shake it?" As he passed the strange can to his friend, lung's smile only widened behind his mask.
A second passed. And then two.
" Where is that bitch?!" The enraged Oni roared as loud as one might expect from an angry demon ogre. Hell, it was even spoken in proper Japanese rather than broken Engrish.
Bulking up from sheer vitriol over the shitty alcohol, the Oni all ran out of the warehouse, tossing aside everything in their way as the Kijin shook their heads and the Tengu and various other spirits flying around simultaneously face palmed.
"Follow the explosions." Lung growled behind his rapidly changing face. And then he grew.
~~~~
Izanami/Taylor Hebert: Tamamo mode Canon omake. Coil Timeline A.
When Taylor had decided to let Ran sleep at home, and had her mother keep the dumb fox happy and asleep, she never expected that she would be on the receiving end of several Bakuda bombs in a row. Nor did she expect to have somehow earned the ire of someone she had never heard of, who seemed to have donated all her limited brain cells to a squad of orange cat furries in ninja outfits to keep them from going crazy somehow.
Seriously, those cats talked more sense than she did, and they could only say "Uwu~"!
"You and your stupid fox are stealing my show." The bomb tinker muttered aloud, pacing back and forth while she launched a grenade in her general direction. This prompted the ninja cats to follow suit.
Izanami paused. Ran would do that wouldn't she. A mild panic set in and she immediately sent a ping with her power to check if her fox was nearby, walking just out of the path of a barrage of bombs as she did her best to look for any hidden cameras.
"It was supposed to be me. All of this was supposed to show how great I am." The mad tinker scratched at her arms like some sort of junkie and reflexively blew up a passing sedan. "And now look at me! Reduced to a mere mad bomber by the masses because they can't see my grand designs for what they are, nor divine my true goal—"
Seeing that there were none, Izanami snorted, causing yet another grenade to sail past her head. At this point, she wasn't sure whether to laugh or just cry, especially with how stupid this all was. "Sorry, just had to check to make sure Ran wasn't actually filming us right now, because that's totally something she'd do."
"Obviously! And it's all your fault!" Bakuda yelled back at her, tossing a grenade that seemed to melt the air around it as it passed. The damage caused by this fight was going to force her into paperwork hell again.
Oh god. The paperwork.
Yeah no. She was done playing with the bomb girl. "Well then boom-booms. You have my full, undivided attention ." Izanami drew on Ran a little to give her the most terrifying of predatory grins she could, cocking her head just so for maximum effect.
With a lick of her teeth, she continued, watching with a leer as Bakuda began to quiver in her boots. "Pray tell me," She got right in Bakuda's personal space, moving the gun away from her with casual ease as she channeled the combined fear of the entirety of Brockton Bay at that very moment into pure, distilled curses to crush any will that the mad bomb tinker might have had until it became a singularity of despair. "Was it worth your effort?"
Bakuda pissed herself on the spot and began to cry. "D-don't! I have a bomb that will destroy the city if my heart so much as stops for a second!" She claimed in desperation.
" Oh?" Izanami grinned at her prey. "You do realize that there are many ways to keep a heart going long after it leaves the body, correct?" Just a little push more and Taylor figured she could take her in without a single extra casualty.
And then Bakuda exploded. Metaphorically at least. " Fuck you. If I'm going down, the city goes down with me! " With that said, she detonated her remaining bombs and herself, and nearly a quarter of the city simply ceased to exist.
Taylor had never been more glad that Ran had forced her to make so many Substitution dolls in her life.
~~~~
Thomas Calvert/Coil Interlude 03: A game of Yu-Gi-Oh aka Timeline B
' Timeline A was a bust.' Coil thought to himself as he sipped his delicious caramel Frappuccino at the local Starbucks on the other side of Captain Hill. 'And timeline B was only marginally better.' He mused to himself, a light grimace hidden behind his premium quality refillable mug.
He was glad to the fox was asleep at the moment, because dealing with her tiny foxes dropping from the roof to unveil a rice paper scroll with the words that's all folks would most likely give away his Parahuman status immediately.
Yes, he knew the fox was asleep when she didn't respond to his PHO messages within a few minutes of him and them, despite usually always doing so for anyone who bothered to try. It didn't matter to her who they were, if they weren't someone she had already blocked, she would respond as soon as she was able to.
Still, there was a reason he kept to mostly safe activities in his timelines when he was at the PRT building after all. She had only started messing with him in such a way after he tried to bribe her with drug laced dog biscuits, but that was besides the point.
Back to the topic at hand. In his main timeline, the blast had taken him out when he tried to drive his car to the highway and leave the city. He was fairly sure that sending Uber and Leet the tip of where their new favorite collaboration partner was currently doing their best to remain amongst the living was probably the only reason the city hadn't been blown up in this timeline, in fact, and he was quite proud of that small bit of manipulation.
He may not care for the lives of the people himself, as he didn't truly have the capacity for such things. But he was still intellectually aware that these were people that could be used to build his empire, and wasting your own resources for no gain was rather stupid.
Hmm. He would need to split the Timelines again just in case.
~~Timeline A~~
Draining the last of his drink, he tossed it into the trash, causing it to light on fire immediately for unknown reasons. That timeline ended seconds later with the sounds of many, many people screaming and the scent of burnt human flesh.
~~Timeline B~~
He looked at his mug, put it back on the table, and walked out as calmly as he could. And then stopped in front of his car to reset.
Thankfully, nothing had happened in this timeline, so he decided to split it once more.
~~Timeline A~~
He walked to his car, checked it for bombs with his special tinkertech device he'd appropriated from Kid-Win that worked rather well at finding anything that could be activated from another location, and ran on watch batteries. Suffice to say, he did not get in his car, and instead gave it a wide berth, making his way left down the sidewalk.
His power seemed to be growing with his stress, and he was sure that if given a chance, he might be able to add a third timeline to his list to activate later. Maybe the fox would help him second trigger? She seemed to be rather good at that.
Unfortunately, in his distraction, he came face to face with Uber and Leet, which meant that Bakuda likely wasn't far behind.
~~Timeline B~~
Right. That was Ji Han's workshop. The Starbucks was only a front to help fund and advertise his creations to the locals and he just had to pick that one to go to.
As he moved down the right side of the sidewalk, he called up the only man who could truly save him now. The man, the myth, the goddamned Aussie. With only a moment of deliberation, he pulled out his credit card, and began to dial on his personal phone.
Once the operator picked up, he began to speak in a clear and careful tone, to ensure no misunderstandings were made. "Hello, I am Thomas Calvert. I'm requesting pickup by Cat from my location, to be dropped off in California."
"Right then mate! Just punch in your credit card number and I'll send 'im your way!" The cheerful Australian operator exclaimed with an audible grin. His account would definitely be drained to the last coin, but as long as he was alive, he could claim it as an emergency expense with the PRT through Cauldron, and it wouldn't be too hard to work off that debt in the long run.
After his card was accepted by the operator, a new voice chimed in, and he knew he was saved. For now at least. "Thanks for the cash mate! I'm on my way." The Schrödinger's Aussie claimed over the line, right before he found himself on a boat near the coastline somewhere, in the middle of a music set.
"Take a good hard look at the — mother fucker how'd you get on my boat?"
Well, this was awkward. He forgot to specify which California he meant. This would be a while.
~~~~
Leet interlude 01: Tinker vs Tinker
The day had started out so well. Lung, a well known man of culture and patron of the fine arts of content creation and streaming was looking to sponsor them on a contractual basis for their good work in advertising his special services in the sex industry.
Who would have thought that swapping the GTA idea for a Bayonetta BDSM would be so profitable? He sure as hell didn't.
But when he was on route to the production site to meet up with the crew, the new tinker buddy he was gonna be working with got attacked! This was absolutely annoying as shit!
"Those fuckers couldn't fucking let us have it hah?" Leet growled in his giant black and yellow power armor from the Aliens movie parody stream. They just kept coming at him, not even pausing for a moment as he smashed in the face of yet another samurai pizza cat knockoff with a grenade launcher being tossed at him by Uber. "I mean, look at the fuckers, there are way too many of them in the way! And they're all goddamn furries!"
Uber nodded at them, and picked up the home-run bat he'd dropped a moment before and smacked yet another bomb right back at the Bakuda. Which considering that it was definitely a grenade made up on the spot specifically to counter Uber's bullshit and his home-run bat, well, it exploded on fucking contact.
With peanut gas. Everyone knew Uber and Leet were allergic to peanuts.
Fucking bullshit! He refused to die to something so goddamn lame. "Aaaargh! My fugggkkk." And there went his ability to breath, and his fucking left lung. Thankfully, their partner arrived just in time.
"Let's get you to the second lab." The most beautiful gynoid Leet had ever seen said to him, picking him up with a casual ease while a second picked up his friend and carried him with them. Or what was left of Uber at least after that chemical nightmare of a bomb.
It looked like it wasn't just peanut butter in there after all. "We can rebuild him, we have the technology." She claimed as she pulled him into a mobile base, and began to fucking extract his brain.
And then he had an idea. A glorious, fucking incredible idea that would require them to have whatever replacement bodies they could get first to have the time to pull it off, but that he could then use whenever he wanted on literally anything.
He couldn't wait to get to work.
~~~~
"What are you making?" Automata asked Leet with great interest, leaning over his new body with her beautifully crafted gynoid body pressing into his now feminine frame while he worked on his friend. He was almost finished, honestly, and only needed to tap the wisdom cube to his friend's chest to complete the process.
"I am upgrading Uber so that he'll be able to keep up with me once I upgrade myself with these." Leet positively giggled in delight, before casually dropping the cube into his friend's chest before the gynoid tinker could respond.
A sound not unlike a certain Song about German naval warfare from the band the neo-nazis had kidnapped a while back played in the background as his friend began to rise from the operating table. This wasn't what he expected at all.
White hair tied up by German themed hair clips with a red streak in her bangs. German symbols on every inch of fabric she was wearing — Or what little she had on. Even her massive fuckoff cannons had German symbols on them, like something fresh out of the war against the Nazis — and on the wrong side at that!
He was so fucked up from accidentally Nazifying his friend that he didn't even have time to curse about it. That changed in an instant when he face palmed with the hand holding his own wisdom cube, and the world began to flash red white and blue.
"Oh my fucking god . Can this day just end?" Was the only thing he could say as his friend began to look him up and down with somewhat of a smirk on her face. Seriously, what the fuck.
Uber took that moment to speak up in a heavy German accent, and positively moan in his direction. "Mmmn~ Nice tits." She then seemed to flip a mental switch, her body changing colorations slightly to become blonde haired with blue eyes and her attire swapping to something more fit for high society. As in, completely decked out in the latest fashion from Hugo Boss.
He looked down at what could only be described as the best floatation devices known to man , and sighed. At least this day couldn't get any worse?
"Well at least we managed to get a lot of donations for our collaborative streaming efforts." Automata said with a smile. Wait, what the shit?
"Can I go curl up and die in a corner now? Please?" He asked them with a horrified look on his now very female face. With a few pokes and squeezes, he noticed his body was had even gone soft. He wanted his abs back damn it! He worked hard for those!
Automata chuckled. "Sure thing bunny girl~" She said to him, modulating her voice on a way that would have driven most men crazy with lust. Hell, if it wasn't for the content of her words, he would have also been pretty happy to hear her tone.
"Bunny girl?" He wheeled around to look at the full length mirror beside his chair, and goddamn it . He looked like some sort of plug in hybrid robot bunny girl. With war crime guns.
In the background of the room, Uber finally took a moment to check the chat for them, and cringed. "Maybe we should turn the camera off before he goes off." Uber whispered to the white haired and blue eyed gynoid in the room with them, giving a nod to the offending item.
Well they were a bit too late for that one. "Goddamn the money better be worth it." He groaned as he shut down the stream with a sigh.
This was why he stuck to video game memes, honestly. It was so much less stressful. Maybe he could retire?
… Nah, the PRT would break into his home and recruit him at gunpoint if he tried. Better to just keep going and see where the fuck this ends up.
~~~~
Authors Note:
Pyro Hawk: So yeah, one of the reasons why Ran's been so eccentric the last few chapters is because not even Tinker Coffee could help with that sleep deprivation anymore. But we've wrapped up that arc (which I didn't even know was a thing, damnit Kitsu, even if it does explain some of the teasing you were doing) so going forwards she'll be more Kitsu and less sleep deprivation. Actually, how do you tell the difference?
Anyway, this Arc is going to be all about Bakuda and the shenanigans caused by her debut getting delayed for months thanks to the chaos caused by a certain Fox. And it's even going to have minimal fox interventions. Though this is mostly due to said Fox demonstrating that you can in fact sleep through 'the end of the world'.
Kitsu and I have also had a chat about a few things that cleared up some misunderstandings and caused some adjustments to the story going forwards. It shouldn't affect anything you fine folk have seen, even in the background, but it happened and we'll find out how true that proves in time. Admittedly, it's most likely just consisting of more vigorously application of the Bonk Hammer whenever the Good Idea Fairy pops out of my skull, so the story stops growing and growing and growing but hey! What can you do?
On the other hand, so far with this story we've usually only noticed she visited two chapters afterwards when we connect two thoughts and go " wait a minute..." so that'll be fun to sort out!
Kitsu: So it's less that I don't want the story to grow, and more I need something different to work on so I don't get burnt out on this one due to working on it literally every week. I'm perfectly fine with this being a fucking chonker. The problem is I will get burnt out if I have to write the same story every week for months on end without taking time to work on a different project to break that up for a bit.
It gets especially bad if someone decides to argue about my story, powerscale my stuff, or straight up say this is how it works, this is who would win, or the ever infamous it doesn't work like that. As if they were actively a part of the team trying to get this story put out there. Which they aren't.
If they had joined me in writing and offered help for the story, that would be one thing. I love collaboration. But some of my old stuff was positively filled with people who didn't know how to enjoy a story for what it is, and let the authors have fun.
Which is why I'm glad that the majority of you make it so fucking worth the pain. I mean it. I may get angry at people. I may be an asshole, yeah. But I honestly enjoy posting my stuff for you now, and not just for myself and my own enjoyment.
Y'all are based, keep feeding my Foxxo more questions, maybe ask more questions to other characters, and enjoy the journey I plan to take you on as best as I can offer to you.
Pyro Hawk: Yeah, that's more or less the misunderstandings. Namely that I didn't really get how Kitsu's Muse worked as my Muse is a lot more " If you get started, then you can keep progressing week after week. Good luck starting though!" which has a rather different impact if you put down a story to 'work on it later'. There's some discussion about slowing the rate of work on this story in order to work in parallel on a different one that we've discussed (which would benefit from collaborators a lot as it's intended to be a bit of a kitchen sink episodic plot) to aid those burn out concerns.
As for the happenings in this chapter, most of these have been planned for quite a while and the others have gradually built up over the last couple of months. Except for Lung running into the Night Parade. That was basically a case of "So, Doomslayer just punched a hole between planes which has got to be flooding Earth Bet with even more Magic than Taylor is. Earth Bet, who's spiritual scene is absolutely soaked in misery, despair, terror and bloodshed. Then Bakuda just decided to go dynamite fishing in that sea immediately afterwards. Some Shit is gonna happen, isn't it?"
Fortunately so far, it just appears to be a bunch of demons and spirits getting exceedingly angry at a certain easily hated individual. Sure wouldn't want to be them in a bit! As for Uber and Leet getting 'Shipgirl'd', Automata the 'Gynoid' Tinker (not exactly...) and all that stuff, well. That was basically going "So what if we kitchen sink the Empowerment methods of the setting?" and running with it. Needless to say, you haven't seen the last of them even if we include the one that's been foreshadowed rather than occurred.
Also, they're all references to stuff so it's totally not my fault how often 'is female' results from them. You can blame all you horny fucks infesting the internet for that. Oh, or the Anime Watchers. Some of this stuff sort of predates the Internet I suppose.
Such as what Ran's been doing to him. But then, it's Coil. Why do I need to explain bad things happening to him? Or at least, annoying. Hence his 'misfortune due to momentary idiocy' this chapter. Though I don't think we're planning on genderbending him at least. Actually, are we even going to kill him off compared to 'merely' constantly annoying him?
Kitsu: Probably not, honestly. He always gets killed off, so I think being a bit different for as long as possible will keep the story fresh. I mean, he is definitely a useful plot device after all.
That being said, I know this sucks, but I had to set up a so I can afford to both get art for my stories, and actually eat proper meals at the same time. Especially since no one seems to like my Ko-fi that much, even if that is a more donation based setup rather than a subscription based one.
I hate that, and it sucks I have to ask y'all for money to keep myself afloat, but I would really appreciate the help so I can continue to work on improving my skills as an author without life getting in the way, and become a fully fledged published author one day with lots of fluffy original stories for people to enjoy both in eBooks and real paperbacks!
The biggest reason I haven't published one already is because the one that is almost ready needs art before I can finish it with Hakon. And I don't want to force my collaborators to pay for the art by themselves if I can help it.
I'm also opening up commissions in the future, but you'll need to join my discord to get in on that. Check my profile for the link!
(For those of you reading on FFN, check my story on Questionable Questing for the links shown in the chapter, because I don't think they actually work in FFN at all.)
Pyro Hawk: Huh, didn't know about that almost ready to publish book. Definitely curious about that, even if right now I'm not able to help right now. Hopefully others are though.