Maple VS The Monster Development Department

by MiddleEarthThestral

A crossover with Miss Kuroitsu from the Monster Development Department. Kaede was just an ordinary girl living in a world of super heroes and super villains. She sometimes struggled to tell fantasy from reality and was plagued by an addiction to a VR MMO RPG. On the day before her interview with her dream company her life and and the fate of Tokyo would be changed forever!

4. Chapter 4 Syrupy Suffering

I'm alive! I'm making my slow way through continuing to write each of my stories. I had a lot going on in life and still do, but it's been good though. I even have some other stories I've been working on on the side for the last few months, but I'll not release any of those before I've updated Beltane or Spyaka. These chapters are all becoming a lot longer than I had originally planned, so not sure when I will finish writing and editing them, but I will try to make it soon! As always, let me know your thoughts and I hope you enjoy!

Chapter 4 Syrupy Suffering

She could not stay here.

She tried to get up. She could not stand. Not yet. The sword in her pauldron made her feel too unbalanced and she wobbled and fell making her stomach explode in agony. Several seconds passed. There was too much pain in her stomach.

With a great heave of effort she forced herself onto all fours. She would crawl.

Blader was in front of her. He was between her and the nearest ally. By some miracle, or more likely the good sense of the people of Tokyo to avoid getting involved in fights between supers, the area was abandoned. There were not even helicopters in the sky. They usually knew to stay away during fights with unknown monsters. Too many had been hit by stray attacks in the past. Better to let the Supers fight it out and clean up the mess afterwards.

Kaede started to crawl. It was awkward with the sword stuck in her pauldron.

Then in a flash of light the sword was just gone.

Looking to the side she saw Blader was no longer wearing his purple and gray armor. Instead there was just a young Japanese man in a buttoned up chef uniform for the nearby Alladin Bento which was just down the street. His hat was eschewed. His neck was leaking blood and blood stained his shirt sleeve and pants leg.

He was helpless. She could end it with a single bite.

He was helpless. He was just a young man, barely older than her. He looked so frail, so pale, so helpless.

One bite.

She was numb. She was in pain. Was this what it meant to be in shock?

One bite. He could well kill her next time. He now knew all her moves. He now knew that he would have to start the fight already in his second form for the additional armor to stop her hydras and the damage to pierce her defenses. Looking at her resistances, across the entire fight she had only gained 5% resistance to cutting and divine.

Blader had hurt Fluorite a mostly innocent girl, another hero at that, just for being different. Not for being blackmailed by Agastia into helping fight what people incorrectly assumed to be a rogue monster, a villain, but because she was born different from Blader.

One bite.

She could do it.

Maybe she even should do it.

It would be the smart move.

Kaede would not do it.

This was not pvp anymore. This was real. This was so painfully real.

Agastia was real. The cuts on her body were real. The armor that let her play at being Maple in real life was real and it was a curse.

Agastia had ruined her life without even knowing it, without even meaning to.

Agastia were still here, though they might have gone running at the sight of Blader. They still had not come up with a monster that could defeat Blader, so running was the smarter option.

Any monster on the planet could defeat Blader as he was now. He was utterly helpless.

She would have to move Blader before someone found them. Leaving him here, defenseless against Agastia in the middle of a battleground where they knew Blader was supposed to be fighting, was as good as taking the final bite out of him herself.

A notification appeared. Her armor was about to deactivate. Apparently, taking nearly enough damage to kill her was enough to finally get the armor to go away.

She checked the time to the next transformation.

24:59:56

24:59:55

And the number underneath until the suit would be usable again in an emergency was

6:13:11

She was helpless and she had just a little more than a day before she would be hiding and possibly even fighting again.

Looks like she also would not be able to participate in the New World Online Tokyo Exclusive Event tomorrow. Not if she was going to be transforming in the middle of it. The event was going to be pvp anyway. Looking at the bloody body in front of her, she did not think she could enjoy pvp ever again, or maybe she would.

Through the pain in her arm and chest and what felt like a bruise on her forehead, her blood was singing.

Looking at the wounds on Blader, she felt no regret. He was not dead and for what he had done to Fluorite, he deserved it. Kaede would not hold her own wounds against him, but she would not let him kill her either.

She would just have to get stronger then. There had to be some exploit to the system, some way of modifying her build. She had the compact. She raised it again and pointed it at Blader. A second form would come in handy. "Mirror, Rose Star One!" the light turned on. The light turned off. Kaede's best guess was that the mirror needed an ability to observe. Fluorite may have kept her hydra nature hidden, but it probably worked like a passive ability meaning it was always on while meanwhile all of Blader's abilities were just off.

That left either trying to hunt down other monsters and heroes to copy their powers or trying to improve her adaptive defense to better resist against cutting and divine.

That would have to come later. If Kaede stayed here, someone would see her. They would ask questions that might lead them to the answer that she was the Dark Shielder Maple.

She still had to move Blader.

Wincing through the pain she reached down. She expected Blader to be heavier, or maybe she was somehow stronger than she could ever remember being. She did not need to drag Blader. With a grunt of effort and a hissed prayer to the administrators when his limp arm bumped against the cut across her own arm, she lifted Blader up and carried him into an ally, his feet dragged behind. Thankfully he was not trailing any blood. His outfit was doing a decent job of stopping that.

Hopefully he would not die of blood loss or from the hydra poison in his veins. There was nothing she could do though.

She just had to get him into the alley. If she did that, then between him being found away from the main battle zone and his uniform belonging to a nearby bento store, everyone should assume he was just one of the many bystanders in Tokyo to get injured in the crossfire between heroes and monsters.

Once she judged he was a safe distance away, she let him drop and then kept walking, not looking back.

Thankfully her own blood had not left a trail, but her outfit for the interview had been mostly ruined. Hopefully nobody commented on that. Hopefully they just assumed it was cosplay or something.

Looking down, she could see that somehow her wounds had already stopped bleeding just from that short journey, but she was still really sore and they still hurt a lot.

What was happening to her?

Why was she no longer bleeding?

Why was she able to lift a grown man off the ground?

She was a skinny indoorsy gamer girl. She was not athletic like Risa. The most exercise she got outside of mandatory physical education was walking home from the train station.

What was happening to her?

Was this the armor?

Was this from the blood and flesh of Magia Zwert? She did remember feeling stronger after eating that. Was that the reason for her regeneration or was it something else?

Magia Zwert's blood… The Agastia woman with red hair with a lab coat had said her blood was part of the glowing green goo, the not jell-o. The Agastia woman had also said that she expected the mutations to take a few days before they became a problem, unless Maple had consumed enough of the glowy green stuff.

Kaede had drunk that stuff even though it was literally glowing green goo. What was wrong with her? This was not a game! That stuff would probably give her cancer or make her grow a third eye!

Right, it was literally carcinogenic. She had gained immunity to carcinogens. That was just while wearing the armor though, right. Would that extend to all the so-called jell-o she had eaten? Would that undo the massive amount of damage she must have already done to herself?

If that Agastia woman was to be believed, and the woman had not known Kaede could hear her at the time, the answer was probably no.

What had she done to her body?

Part of her did not want to know. The soreness was diminishing. She had somehow healed from a sword strike in the span of what? Five or ten minutes?

She had healed but would probably die of cancer as a three eyed three armed mutant.

Would she be forced to move into the sewer?

Would Risa visit?

Of course Risa would visit, but Kaede still wanted confirmation. She wanted to hear those words or maybe just be held. It would be nice if Risa could hold her. As the pain continued to fade, her body just felt cold and numb.

Her anger from the fight had given way to fear. Her rage was still there, but it was so far beneath the surface now. Now she was just Kaede or just a horrifying mutant Kaede. She had no armor. She could not go home covered in blood. She needed Risa.

She hated being a burden on Risa. She hoped Risa would not mind.

She could not go home, but she could take the train to Risa's and so long as she acted like everything was normal and told people she was cosplaying a zombie character from an anime, she should be fine. Her parents and Risa would be the only ones who would figure out the truth since they had seen her in her business attire before.

She headed to the train station making sure to come from a direction other than the one leading from the battle.

On the way, her stomach started to growl. She supposed that regeneration must have taken a lot out of her.

A Brother In Need

Helicopters flew overhead. They would ignore her. She was small potatoes compared to the real danger and the police knew not to mess with Agastia or any other villainous organization unless the organization really stepped out of line. It was not worth the resources of a fight that they were not certain to win against super powered opponents and monsters.

No, resources like helicopters were reserved for the so called real threats, threats like rogue monsters on a rampage, threats like the Dark Shielder Maple.

Kuroitsu was on the ground. She surveyed the wreckage of the fight between Blader and Maple. She hoped she did not get punished again since she was the one who accidentally lost the Dark Blader bracelet. On the plus side, this would provide so much useful data for future monster creation.

She corrected herself. Future magical girl creation. Monster development was on a season-long hiatus with their department being temporarily repurposed in the wake of the invasion to allow the company to continue to claim to be making progress towards world domination while also making budget cuts to help handle the cost of repairs to their evil bases and make some charitable contributions to rebuilding parts of Japan damaged in the fighting.

World domination was officially the goal of their making their own magical girls, but most people in the know within the evil organization knew that this project was really just them following the capricious whims of their supreme leader who had recently been binging the darker magical girl anime and Chief of Staff Absolute Zero Trismegistus had seen potential in the idea of having their own magical girls for marketing, forming new business partners, and helping the front companies expand into new markets.

They had even teamed up with JA to handle the merchandising side of the magical girl business and to form a magical girl team once they had more magical girls as part of a profit sharing venture. There had been tensions however when the rogue Agastia monster took a bite out of Magia Zwert. Thankfully JA had not discovered that Agastia used their discovery of the attack as an opportunity to steal some of Magia Zwert's patented magical girl gene sequence for their own magical girl program. A little corporate espionage between business partners was just expected when dealing with an evil villainous organization, especially when such actions were not explicitly forbidden by the terms of the contract between the partners. What did it say that Kuroitsu would not be surprised if JA tried a little corporate espionage against Agastia?

Probably not important.

Agastia had been developing their own magical girls on the side for months now with very little success. They had been hamstrung by budget cuts and the handful of remaining restrictions on human experimentation even if the latter were nothing compared to the outright taboo just a few months ago. How JA had made their own secret magical girl gene sequence was anyone's guess.

The budget cuts were due to trying to find funding for a new secret project that was only mostly being paid for by the JSDF, likely only one of several such projects in response to the invasion of Japan by an American monster making corporate giant intent on enslaving monster kind. Kuroitsu was not involved in that project which she only knew to be called Operation Kaiju.

Pretty unfortunate since she would love to make a giant monster though she had serious questions about how building a giant monster was supposed to work as the costs of building and maintaining a monster twenty five times as tall as their standard should be prohibitive even with government funding. There had to be some secret part of the secretive Operation Kaiju that she was missing.

Anyways, to meet their magical girl quota, Agastia were resorting to repurposing an old monster, Hydra into the second of the three magical girls specified by the JA contract and were about to host a tournament through one of their front companies to find an already skilled fighter to take the third spot. Supreme Leader Akashic was functionally a magical girl already, albeit an evil one, and so all she needed was a flight suit just like the other two and she would be ready to fulfill her dreams of playing a magical girl.

Kuroitsu suspected the entire magical girl project was also a plot by Trismegistus to keep their supreme leader from interfering in Operation Kaiju. Trismegistus never did anything for only one reason so even a plot to distract the boss would also involve expanding into new markets and making allies to aid in future expansion in the never ending struggle for world domination.

All of that was irrelevant to the real roadblock to magical girl development as the greatest obstacle of all, more so than the remaining restrictions on human experimentation, limited resources, and the program not actually being the focus of the company right now was probably that their monster developers had until recently been kept very busy trying to remove the Dark Blader suit from Kuroitsu's body.

She was really happy to finally be able to shower regularly again. She shivered. She loved monsters, but being trapped inside of one for months on end was not a fun experience at all.

The only thing that made the experience bearable had been Kenji. He was just a guy who worked part time in the local Bento shop, but when she had started talking to him months ago, Kuroitsu really felt like she had found a kindred soul. He was part of the only reason she was able to stay sane after being trapped inside the Dark Blader suit, even if Kenji somehow never seemed to recognize her while she was wearing the thing and acted like he had not seen her in months when she had shown up recently not wearing it.

Did that mean she liked Kenji, like liked him beyond just friendship or a professional relationship?

Probably best to think about that later. Going down that rabbit hole could distract her at a critical moment and there was a rogue monster still on the loose and her old rival Blader was skulking around here somewhere!

Bringing her mind back to the present she could see where Dark Shielder had made her stand based on the damage of Blader's cuts to the surrounding environment. She could tell where Blader had unleashed his Blader Crush where the cut was very long and left an impression of a cut even on the area behind the target and more worrying his Buster Blade attacks where the cut was deeper but across a smaller area.

Kneeling down she saw blood on the ground. Was it Bladers or Dark Shielders?

Dark Shielder should have been theoretically untouchable to Blader's normal strikes, so it was probably Bladers. That said all kinds of terrifying things about Dark Shielder who should not have even been able to fight. What kind of olympic body builder was running around in that suit?

Kuroitsu knew just how hard it was for a monster to win against Blader. She remembered when she sent her monster Bandersnatch against Blader. Blader had been losing that fight at first before unleashing his second form. She had never feared Blader before that.

A series of deeper gouges in the ground and the truck, deeper, wider, and longer than the impressions left by Blader Crush or Buster Blade. They matched what she saw of Blader's Master Blade attack that he had used in the fight with Bandersnatch.

Had Blader wounded Dark Shielder or had it been the other way around?

Where were Blader and Shielder?

There was a trail of blood leading into an alley. She took a sample.

Kuroitsu followed with Wolfy by her side. Hydra had been scared off by Blader which was understandable. The girl could take the day off so long as she was back tomorrow to practice for her part as a company magical girl. That girl's aim was still terrible.

The blood trail disappeared after a few meters.

There was a body at the end of the alley. Maple had claimed another victim.

The bento store uniform was painfully familiar to Kuroitsu.

It was Kenji.

The face of the corpse… no, not a corpse. His chest was rising.

How much time did he have?

"Wolfy," what should she have him do? Calling an ambulance could be bad. The news would talk about Agastia's rogue monster hurting yet another person, a person she maybe cared about and respected just a little.

An ambulance might not get there in time.

An ambulance and hospital might not be able to save him.

He was barely breathing. There were signs he had been bitten by Maple when she unveiled her new hydra power. The bites oozed pus. Any one of them might be lethal and there could easily be half a dozen.

"Wolfy, call Doctor Sadamaki. Tell him to send an unmarked van."

"Aren't we going to help this guy?"

"That's what the van's for."

"You're thinking about twisted human experiments again aren't you?"

"I'm thinking about saving Kenji's life." Those stem cells from Lady Camula mixed with stem cells cloned from Magia Zwert's blood to say nothing of the other parts of the super serum should give him the resilience and regenerative capabilities he would need to recover from this wound.

Best of all, this would not violate company policy against human experimentation, well probably. It would depend on what the doctor had to say and if the legal department okayed it.

They might have to get in touch with Kenji's legal guardian since he was not twenty yet. He had mentioned living with his older brother.

His older brother could probably forgive them for starting the life saving procedures early. Even better, Kuroitsu would get to see what happened when a normal ordinary human was given the super serum with its potent mix of monstrous super vampire stem cells, magical girl blood, and select other ingredients. This data would be invaluable for fine tuning their magical girl development program.

They would not have their first experimental subject for another week at the least, not until after the tournament. In the meantime, Kenji could serve as a prototype for their still rather experimental procedures. She would make sure to take good care of Kenji. She might even give him a few extra parts as a combination consolation prize and sorry you got hurt by our rogue monster.

Maybe he might even be impressed by her scientific and artistic genius!

She could imagine it now

"Miss Kuroitsu?" she turned to Wolfy, "You have this creepy smile on your face. Also, the van is here."

The two of them loaded the unconscious body of Kenji into the back of the van and then climbed into the back with him. The drive into the secret parking garage hidden inside the underground part of the employee parking garage was quick and uneventful and Kuroitsu used it to study the body. She was glad she decided to do this. From what she was seeing he might have died in the ambulance before even reaching the hospital.

Bringing Kenji into their lab was less uneventful.

"Kenji!" said the doctor rushing over to them. Even with his visor shaped glasses covering his face he looked panicked.

"You know Kenji?" She asked as she pulled out packets of antivenom and started setting them up, "What am I saying. Of course you know him since he works at the Bento shop nearby."

"He was injured in the fight?"

"By Maple, yeah."

The doctor froze. Kuroitsu could fancy she saw some combination of shock and fury in the man who tried to appear stoic. She had seen him lose his cool a hundred times from the stresses of their job, but she had never seen him like this. His hands were clenching and unclenching into fists then in an instant he flipped a table full of papers over spilling the tables contents across the floor "Rawwwrrrr!"

"Doctor!"

"What were you planning on doing to Kenji, Kuroitsu?"

"First making sure he doesn't die from the venom or bleed out and then putting him back together with a mix of vampire stem cells and magical girl blood. Should guarantee he lives and can recover without a scratch. It will all just be a bad memory."

"Good. I thought you were going to…"

"Going to turn him into a monster? You know that is against company policy."

"I'm very familiar with company policy. There are… exceptions… deliberate loopholes in the policy."

"Doctor?"

"He'll be at risk so long as this monster is at large."

"Then we just tell him to go on vacation or quit his job and have him rehired at a front company far away from our headquarters. Maple won't find him."

"You don't understand Kuroitsu. He's my little brother."

"That solves the contacting the legal guardian bit."

"It does, but it makes me think that Maple targeted him, that this wasn't random."

"Surely the suit's new host couldn't know."

"We modified that monster suit quite extensively. It's possible it picked something up. I don't believe in coincidences. The damage is too thorough for just a helpless pedestrian getting in the way of a fleeing monster and getting knocked aside. This was targeted, intentional, some kind of act of sadism or revenge, maybe as a message to us!"

Put in that light it made sense, but… how would the suit or host know about the connection between Kenji and the doctor. "Maple wasn't trying to hurt you. She was trying to hurt me. Maple saw me when I was trying to direct the monsters to capture her and… and the suit must have remembered that I knew Kenji at least somewhat well. I went to that Bento place dozens of times while wearing that suit."

The doctor looked at her. He did not look angry at her though, just broken. She had never seen him like this. "If you know my brother Kuroitsu so well, will you help me protect him?"

She looked at the still form of Kenji. It was hard to tell if the antivenom was helping or not. She hooked up the mixture with undead monster stem cells and magical girl blood. The transformed magical girls from JA were basically the ultimate universal donors so it was completely safe, and Lady Camula's cells could adapt to just about anything so long as they were not rejected by the recipient in which case they would just be rendered inert. Lady Camula's cells were actually the secret to how their blade filled Mummy became an idol in spite of being created without a voice. "And you're sure this won't violate company policy."

The doctor responded, "Just a month ago there would have been a lot of forms and such, but the rules were adjusted to make a magical girl sized opening and it's an opening that we can fit my brother through."

"We won't have to perform a sex change operation on him will we?" asked Wolfy in a mix of pity and horror.

"Thankfully no. Company policy and the law ensured that the change in the rules could not discriminate on the basis of sex or gender identity."

"Then let's get to work. I've got tons of ideas that I have been dying to try out!" said Kuroitsu.

The doctor grinned a feral smile. "We'll hold nothing back!"

"Isn't anyone going to ask what Kenji wants in terms of monstrous powers and features?" asked Wolfy.

"Oh it's fine. Better if he doesn't know until he needs them." said the Doctor, "Now where were those notes from Bandersnatch and Mummy?".

Powerless

Risa checked her phone for any news from Kaede. No news was bad news.

There was nothing from Kaede about either the interview or her transformation.

The only messages Risa had received were texts to the guild group chat. Kanade was apparently sick and would not be in either the event or coming to the after event get together.

Risa did not want to go anymore, but it would be too suspicious if both Sally and Maple were not there. Kaede not joining would already risk people making the connection between the Maple in the game and the Maple in real life. She knew the online forums were already speculating that Agastia created the Dark Shielder Maple using Kaede's Maple as inspiration. If Risa was there she could say that Kaede had a cold or something and that Risa had visited to look after her.

Hopefully Kaede could participate, but that would depend entirely on what the bracelet said.

There was something odd about Kanade's message though. He outright said he was not sure when he would be able to play with them again which implied this was more than just a simple cold. She really hoped he would be okay and that it was not anything too serious. He asked if his sister Yuko could join them instead and said she would tell him all about it afterwards.

Risa had thought for sure that Kanade was an only child, but she did not see a problem with going along with his request, especially if he was in the hospital with something, and maybe if everyone in the guild was focusing on Kanade's sister they would not ask too many questions about where Kaede was and what she was doing.

Finally she got a text from Kaede. '24:07:30'.

That would put Kaede's next transformation in the middle of tomorrow's event and would mean her best friend would most likely be transformed during the get together as well.

She got another text to the group chat from Kaede saying she would not be able to make it to the get together, because of her aunt.

Their friend Chrome asked if they could reschedule to Monday afternoon.

Kaede and Risa both voiced their support. Kanade said his sister would be fine with that and mentioned letting her play his character tomorrow so they could meet and get to know her then.

Kasumi said she was fine with the switch as well and that she already knew Yuko and that Yuko was apparently cool.

Kaede mentioned that she met someone at their aunt's workplace who seemed interested in joining their guild Maple Tree. Kaede thought they would be a good fit which Risa knew meant they were just as weird as the rest of their group.

At least something good came from this.

Kaede sent another message just to Risa. 'Outside your house. Want to talk.'

Risa had to wonder what had happened to Kaede. She had not seen anything on the news yet, but she also had not been checking. That was her mistake. Hopefully nothing news worthy had happened.

Risa went downstairs and opened her front door.

Kaede was standing by the street staring lifelessly down at her phone.

She was covered in a lot of blood.

Her nice clothing was torn in several places. At least some of that blood must have been hers.

Risa did not even realize she had moved before she found herself standing beside Kaede, her hands and eyes moving to check the other girl for injuries.

She did not find any, but she was not taking any chances.

There was something weird about the skin around some of the openings.

Her eyes found Kaedes as one of her hands explored the skin around her friend's neck in the area that should have been protected by her pauldron while her other hand was feeling an odd texture where it rested on Kaede's now exposed belly. Kaede's wet watery eyes were wide and her cheeks underneath two thick trails of tears were glowing red, maybe even literally glowing which was odd, but maybe Risa was probably just imagining things.

"Um hi." said Kaede.

"Are you okay?" asked Risa feeling the odd cartilage-like texture on Kaede's stomach.

Kaede's eyes darted down to the hand and back up again as her blush intensified, "If I turn into a sewer mutant would you come visit me?"

Sewer mutant? "Sorry what?"

Kaede's face fell and she looked away, "Never mind. I shouldn't have assumed…"

Risa used her hand that was not occupied examining the strange patch of skin to gently tilt Kaede's chin back towards her, "Of course I would visit you, but why would you be turning into a sewer mutant?"

"It's a long story."

"I'm used to that." Though usually this sort of thing happened in a video game and not in real life.

"Promise to not get angry."

"I could never get angry at you!" said Risa.

"I meant at Blader or Agastia."

"No promises. What happened? Wait, let's get inside first." Risa said as she noticed her elderly neighbor looking over her fence with a slight frown at the two.

The two made their way inside when Risa heard a growling noise. They both looked at Kaede's stomach. Had she always had that muscle definition? How did her indoorsy gamer friend get that. Risa tore her eyes away to look at Kaede's face. The other girl looked sheepish. "Kaede, are you in any immediate danger?"

"No. I made sure I wasn't being followed."

"Good. Let's get some food into you and then you can explain what's going on."

Thankfully Risa's parents were both out, so they made their way to the kitchen where Risa began making them both a quick early dinner.

Kaede moved towards the rice cooker to help out, before Risa stopped her and waved her towards the stairs, "You're covered in blood. Wash off a little first and change into some of my clothes. Not that you don't look good with a little skin showing through the tears in your clothing, but I'd rather not have to try and explain to my parents where all the blood on the walls and furniture came from."

"Right, sorry. Keep forgetting how things work in the real world."

Risa could only sigh in a mix of amusement and exasperation. It was kind of her fault for getting Kaede into New World Online, so she really only had herself to blame.

Kaede came down the stairs a few minutes later after changing into a t-shirt with a cute picture of a fox on it and a pair of tight blue jeans. On her wrist was the black and purple bracelet that had caused all this mess. Risa really liked the way her t-shirt and jeans looked on the other girl. For some reason she also just liked the idea that Kaede was wearing clothing that belonged to Risa. She was not sure why, but the idea just felt nice and warm and kind of stoked her pride, too.

Eh, Risa could worry about odd feelings later.

"So spill." Risa said as she handed Kaede a bowl of rice and curry.

Kaede opened her mouth to speak and then closed it again. This was a pretty bad sign as she usually had no problem talking about whatever strange god or demon she had found in some secret boss dungeon that had given to her unknowable and terrible power.

"Here." Kaede said as she tapped on the bracelet a few times until a menu appeared floating in the air, "I managed to figure this out on the way here after I got through the tutorial for Adaptive Defense."

"Adaptive Defense? That's the thing that makes your suit activate whenever you're in danger, right?" Risa asked as Kaede brought up some kind of list.

"Yeah, it also can make me immune to forms of damage if I'm exposed to them often enough." Kaede said as Risa squeezed up beside her so she could see the screen. Risa started reading through the list. It said 'Maple's Perks, Traits, and Inventory'.

"Please tell me that all those blood stains were not self inflicted." Risa skimmed the first entry about the cursed bracelet before starting on the second entry which was on 'Adaptive Defense'.

"They weren't."

"That just means you got into a fight,"

"I had to. He was going to hurt a girl." Risa looked up from where she was reading about Kaede being an 'Actual Magical Cannibal.'

"Who was going to hurt who?" asked Risa.

"Blader apparently has a thing against Hydras."

"Yeah, there was that Agastia monster that was a Hydra a few months back. Blader apparently kept killing her and she kept coming back."

"Well, I don't know if it's the same girl, but she's not a villain anymore. She's become a magical girl, Magia Fluorite, and she did not want to fight Blader at all. She made that very clear, and she was so scared, but Blader didn't care about any of that. He was going to kill her and he seemed in the mood to kill me, too, so I fought him so that Fluorite could escape."

Risa felt her heart skip a beat. Kaede had fought the Divine Swordsman Blader! No wonder she had looked so messed up, but at least she survived, somehow!

"That's very noble of you, but please don't go fighting someone like Blader unless you absolutely have to. He probably could have killed you if he was going all out."

"He…" Kaede did not seem able to speak or meet Risa's eyes.

She gathered her friend into a hug. "You're safe now and alive, and I'll do anything I can to help you stay safe."

"He was so close to killing me, and I… I had him… I almost… just keep reading." went back to the section on cannibalism. The bracelet was aware that Kaede was now 'Public Enemy Number One' which was probably even more true with this recent fight with Blader.

"Congratulations on getting the job." said Risa, "I would like to hear more about that later when we're done talking about the whole…uh, you know… fight with one of the most dangerous sentai heroes in all of Japan."

Risa had serious questions about Kaede getting the business card for the Great Leader Akashic, leader of Agastia and all its monstrous forces bent on world domination, but that could wait for later. Risa just chalked that up to just Kaede being Kaede.

Based on the description of 'Hydra Queen' it looked like Kaede had made a friend or found some kind of worshiper in the form of Agastia's Hydra monster. That honestly did not surprise Risa outside the fact that this had happened in the real world. Risa wondered if this was the person Kaede had said was interested in joining their guild Maple Tree.

Risa kept reading and stopped, "Mutant…" So that was why Kaede had asked about sewer mutants and Risa visiting.

Kaede was silently looking away while Risa leaned against Kaede so she could read from the screen hovering over Kaede's wrist.

Mutant-For some reason you decided it would be a good idea to eat toxic waste products. This by some miracle (Adaptive Defense) did not kill you. You now have an increasing number of cancerous growths throughout your body, but all of them are relatively benign and will never be terminal. This also comes with the benefit of rapid regeneration. There is a low chance that every time you heal from any injury you might develop an obvious mutation like a bony protrusions, a new eye, an extra limb, or a new organ possibly on the outside of your body, so probably avoid getting hurt when possible. There is a much higher chance of gaining a new ability, trait, or mutation when exposed to something strange or hazardous and you require less exposure to gain a new ability, trait, or mutation relating to a new stimulus. This includes detrimental traits. There is a non zero chance that your body will be able to survive past the point that a normal human would die, kept alive by the power of pain and horror in a 'please kill me now' sort of way.

Vampire Kin-By consuming the pluripotent cells of the Immortal Camula, no clue how that could have happened, you have gained a bonus to your passive regeneration and, like a mute monster girl gaining a voice to become an idol, your body can now slowly adapt and change in response to stimuli. You will now gain traits and mutations even faster! Continue drinking the blood of the innocent and you may even become a real vampire one day!

Mahou Shoujo Vampire-Through drinking the blood of a magical girl mixed with some cultured vampire cells found in some toxic sludge your body has gained the ability to digest the magical essence in magical girl blood. Consuming the blood will give you a boost to your strength, resilience, and regeneration until your body is finished digesting it. Congratulations you are some sort of vampire now. You are still a long way from being able to transform into a bat or hypnotize people, but keep drinking the blood of hopes and dreams, love and justice, and you will sparkle in no time!

Communion With Magical Girls-By separately and on different occasions consuming the body and blood, soul and divinity of a magical girl, and taking that girl's stuff before leaving her to die for her sins, you have on a spiritual level transformed yourself into a magical girl! Gain a feeling of righteous strength and anger whenever you fight for love and justice, and gain a fundamental understanding of what it means to be a magical girl. Better hope this is not one of those situations where a magical girl is powered by suffering and misery!

Not A Game Anymore!-After a traumatic brush with death you have come to realize this is not just a game, but your life now. Congratulations on self awareness! It certainly took you long enough! Gain a bonus to realizing you are not in a game and if you die here, you literally die in real life.

I Will Deal With You Later!-By sparing the life of the heroes on multiple occasions, but not before giving them a very good reason to hunt you down and try to kill you in the future, you have earned the Villainous Trait I Will Deal With You Later. Enjoy having all those heroes whose lives you ruined and then spared come after you again, this time probably after receiving some kind of bull crap power up!

There was another section devoted to listing the powers stored in the Magia Compact, but Risa decided she could read that later. She figured she had a rough idea of what happened. She still had questions about the mutations and vampirism, and she was pretty sure Lady Camula was one of the evil generals or something of Agastia, but that was not important.

"So after your interview, you met up with and befriended Hydra, saved her from Blader, Blader almost killed you, but you… you managed to beat the divine swordsman."

"And I spared his life, yeah. Was that the wrong thing to do? The suit certainly seems to think so." Kaede was looking at Risa with such wide and sad eyes.

"That bracelet was made by an evil organization bent on world domination. I'm not sure I trust its judgment. No, you did the right thing." Risa said. She did not want to make Kaede feel any worse than the girl already did. She did not want to admit that after reading the 'Not A Game Anymore!' part she was seriously considering killing Blader herself.

All Risa could do was wrap her arms around Kaede. Kaede was here. She was alive. She was not going anywhere. Blader could not hurt her here, hopefully…

And Risa was so powerless to do anything…

So utterly helpless, so useless while her friend was making brush after brush with death, people that according to the cursed evil bracelet would come back to fight her best friend again.

It was theorized on some online forums that Blader could evolve in response to problems, pulling out a new and even more overpowered form over and over again, with no upper limit, though nobody had ever seen anything beyond his second form which he had used only twice in Tokyo's history.

"You aren't bothered by me being a mutant vampire?"

"No, I'm not bothered by you being a mutant, a vampire, a magical girl, or a hydra queen, not that I know how you're supposed to be a hydra queen in real life."

Kaede smiled and then pulled away slightly, pulling her Magia Compact from her pocket. When had Risa started thinking of it as Kaede's Magia Compact?

Kaede held it aloft, "Hydra!" and four purple and red dragon heads attached to very long scaly necks emerged from Kaede's back. So she had copied Hydra's ability. "I found out how to rename the powers in the compact while I was waiting for the train. Risa, I would like for you to meet Chocolate, Caramel, Blueberry, and Strawberry."

Hopes And Dreams And Nightmares

Yuto glared at the girl's school uniform that his mother had laid out on his bed. His parents were way too happy at his predicament saying they always wanted a daughter and he was sure they were happier with him being this way. Was this why they had been supportive when he had told them that he wanted to become a magical girl as a part time job?

And they were now telling their friends about their daughter! He was not their daughter! He was still their son! He would never be their daughter!

And HQ had already worked something out with his school so that he could attend under the guise of his estranged and utterly fictional sister Yuko. They did not ask him what he wanted. They just handed him a bunch of girl's school uniforms and said it was coming out of his salary and his parents had already approved the whole mess and were now asking him to model the stupid dress for them! At least they were not forcing him to wear makeup with it… he hoped.

And President Mitsuru had mentioned modeling opportunities.

He really did not like President Mitsuru sometimes.

Reo was at least being supportive when she was not transformed. The transformation really screwed with the user's brain chemistry and he was stuck being transformed now.

The boffins from the labs even put warnings not to be transformed for more than six hours at a time and here he was approaching a full day.

He looked down and poked his new body parts in disgust.

They were still there. He was fine when it was just for a few hours a week either fighting villains or doing a commercial or public appearance or something, but this was too much.

He did not feel right, but he could live with his body not feeling right… right? He was alive after all. He could still hear that thing… swallowing part of his leg.

He did not want to be eaten! Surely being… changed was better? So why did he hate being trapped like this so much?

And he was definitely not alright with how everyone but Reo were treating him.

How was he going to face his classmates? He would have to pretend he was an almost complete stranger! He guessed he could live with that since none of them were very close or important to him, but what about his friends?

Reo was the only one who knew the truth, who was allowed to know the truth. The President threatened that if he told anyone outside his family and colleagues what had happened the president would ruin him and leave him trapped in this body, something that was actually somehow completely legal under the terms of his contract since this change could be classified as both enemy action and his own stupidity with losing the Magia Compact that he needed to transform back.

At least he could still fight. His body for all its problems was an enhanced fighting machine, harder, faster, stronger, and with inhuman reflexes. He had always wondered what would happen if he or Reo played NWO while transformed.

For a weapon and costume he could just pick up his old compact and transform the same as before… minus the part that he already had the experimental compact's twisted effects on his brain and would potentially be doubling that effect using the "safer and more reliable" compact that still left Reo an unstable mess whenever she was on it.

He almost felt like a guinea pig, but he was sure he heard the boffins mention something about actual human trials. If this was already the refined safer product, he was a little terrified at the thought of what an even more unrefined and experimental Magia Compact would do.

Were there proto magical girls out there whose lives were ruined by JA's experimentation on them?

He did not want to think about that. Better to focus on his partially ruined life.

If he ever got a chance for revenge against that Maple style monster!

Yeah, he recognized the name and the heavy armor build! How dare Agastia imitate his guildmate! Yeah sure NWO's Maple would totally be able to take the Divine Swordsman in a fight if she were real, but that was his friend they were copying!

He would kill that animal and eat it like it had eaten him!

He had to calm down. This was not him. This was his transformation talking.

Focus on good things.

He would finally be meeting his friends in person. That was a good thing. According to the group chat it looked like Maple would not be able to make it. Something about her aunt.

That was a shame since he thought Maple was pretty cool and she had a calming effect on Reo who could be a bit much even when she was not transformed.

Chrome asked if they could reschedule to Monday, presumably since both Maple and Yuto would not be able to make it. Yuto said his sister would be fine with that. He needed them to understand he was going to be out of commission for a while. He added that he would let his sister use his character in the pvp event tomorrow. It would be nice to blow off some of this aggression he was now feeling.

And they would never know that it was their friend with them. He would probably never get that compact back and he would be stuck lying to his friends for the rest of his life.

The only good thing he had outside of Reo and his duty to protect the city and it would always be a lie.

Focus on good things. That melancholy is just magical hormones in your brain or something. It is not you! Focus on good things.

Good things like asking his classmate Kaede about if she knows anyone named Mizuki.

That was something to look forward to on Monday along with getting to finally meet his online friends in person.

He was not afraid of anything bad happening from that. He was a magical girl and he had known all these people for a year already. He trusted them and even if his trust turned out to be misplaced he could fight.

Reo said she was fine with the shift in schedule and that she had met his 'sister' and that his 'sister' was cool. Yuto would also have his fellow magical girl and partner in justice right beside him. What could go wrong?

Maple said she could do Monday and that one of the people from her aunt's workplace was interested in joining. That was not too unusual since their guild became number one, but it sounded like this might even be a complete newbie. If Maple thought they were a good fit though, then Yuto would trust them and give them a chance. It was not like she was bringing on some kind of super villain right?

Although knowing Maple, she would do something like that.

Eh, Yuto was sure he would recognize a super villain if he saw one.

The more important thing was, would Kaede's maybe relative like him? Would she recognize him as the magical girl that she saved?

Would she be okay with him not being a girl?

All he could do was wait and see. At least nothing bad or weird would happen at the big pvp event, right?

And at least this event tomorrow would give him a chance to really let loose. Between almost dying, the mess with his parents, job, and school, and the transformation screwing with his brain he was looking forward to destroying everyone! And seriously, what could possibly go wrong with some mmo pvp event. It was not like the whole thing was secretly orchestrated by the Illuminati or Agastia right?

Maple's Perks, Traits, and Inventory

Dark Blader Bracelet (Shielder)-An experimental semi sentient monster developed by Agastia as a counter to the Divine Swordsman. This prototype was rushed into the field with more bugs than a Bethesda release. The most dangerous bug for your wellbeing is probably the part where you cannot take it off and will struggle to deactivate it. The Shielder configuration of the suit comes from one of the customization options introduced during the long string of patches as the development team struggled to remove the suit from its previous user/host. Your current configuration is maximum armor, a dangerous configuration equivalent to entombing yourself in metal. You will probably struggle to walk a block down the street without getting tired and don't even think about running. Your days of moving at a speed any faster than a quick walk are over!

Adaptive Defense-This perk allows your Dark Blader armor to very slowly develop resistances and even immunity to attacks if you are exposed to them long enough. DO NOT EXPOSE YOURSELF TO ENEMY ATTACKS JUST TO RAISE YOUR DEFENSE! This is not a game, and you will almost definitely be horribly injured or killed if you try. This perk also allows your armor to reactivate itself if it ever detects something it judges to be a sufficient threat. Did we mention that the Dark Blader Bracelet was also extremely buggy?

Prototype Magia Compact Mirror-Allows the copying of up to six observed abilities. Each copied ability is in some way inferior to the original, but the abilities can be used in conjunction with each other to create powerful combination attacks. Additionally, the compact has a limited battery that will take time to recharge using ambient mana. Summoning new objects and maintaining and repairing those objects when they are damaged will drain the battery faster. There is currently no way to choose what ability will be copied from a target, but a good rule of thumb would be that the compact will copy the target's most iconic ability.

Actual Magical Cannibal-You have eaten the flesh of at least one magical girl. There is no going back, but do you even want to? After consuming their preternatural meat you feel stronger and more healthy than ever. In just one bite your vitality is now beyond human, and any magical girl who hears of you will likely be some combination of disgusted and terrified. For obvious reasons, there are no studies on the side effects of an ordinary human committing such a forbidden act especially since no ordinary person has ever done this before, but there is a first time for everything. Good job, you got to be the first!

Public Enemy Number One-You are now the subject of a manhunt! Don't know what you did, but whatever it was, it must have been pretty unforgivable. Have fun!

You Got The Job!-It may not be official yet, but you basically got the job working for your dream company Armagadoon. You will be working as a test pilot for the new INSIDIOUS VR system. There is nothing suspicious about this at all or about the strangely dressed masked man who was interviewing you. Why did the interviewer with the villainous mask think having experience as a kaiju or piloting military vehicles was important? Obviously because Armagadoon is planning to release some top notch video games! Military contracts and the recent frenzy of research in the face of the invasion a few months ago? Just don't think about those things.

Great Leader Akashic's Business Card-The business card of your aunt's young friend who you have found to be strangely relatable. You both know what it is like to be stuck on a pedestal, isolated from those around you who fear you for your power. Perhaps this is the start of a very special friendship. At the very least you found a new friend to play games with when you are not enjoying your new life of crime.

Hydra Queen-Through a short series of accidents and misunderstandings the somewhat gullible Hydra, secret identity of the Magical girl Magia Fluorite now believes you to be her queen. This means she expects you to protect and look after her and her sisters, but she may now be willing to trust you and go along with your bad ideas mostly without question.

Mutant-For some reason you decided it would be a good idea to eat toxic waste products. This by some miracle (Adaptive Defense) did not kill you. You now have an increasing number of cancerous growths throughout your body, but all of them are relatively benign and will never be terminal. This also comes with the benefit of rapid regeneration. There is a low chance that every time you heal from any injury you might develop an obvious mutation like a bony protrusions, a new eye, an extra limb, or a new organ possibly on the outside of your body, so probably avoid getting hurt when possible. There is a much higher chance of gaining a new ability, trait, or mutation when exposed to something strange or hazardous and you require less exposure to gain a new ability, trait, or mutation relating to a new stimulus. This includes detrimental traits. There is a non zero chance that your body will be able to survive past the point that a normal human would die, kept alive by the power of pain and horror in a 'please kill me now' sort of way.

Vampire Kin-By consuming the pluripotent cells of the Immortal Camula, no clue how that could have happened, you have gained a bonus to your passive regeneration and, like a mute monster girl gaining a voice to become an idol, your body can now slowly adapt and change in response to stimuli. You will now gain traits and mutations even faster! Continue drinking the blood of the innocent you may even become a real vampire one day!

Mahou Shoujo Vampire-Through drinking the blood of a magical girl mixed with some cultured vampire cells found in some toxic sludge your body has gained the ability to digest the magical essence in magical girl blood. Consuming the blood will give you a boost to your strength, resilience, and regeneration until your body is finished digesting it. Congratulations you are some sort of vampire now. You are still a long way from being able to transform into a bat or hypnotize people, but keep drinking the blood of hopes and dreams, love and justice, and you will sparkle in no time!

Communion With Magical Girls-By separately and on different occasions consuming the body and blood, soul and divinity of a magical girl, and taking that girl's stuff before leaving her to die for her sins, you have on a spiritual level transformed yourself into a magical girl! Gain a feeling of righteous strength and anger whenever you fight for love and justice, and gain a fundamental understanding of what it means to be a magical girl. Better hope this is not one of those situations where a magical girl is powered by suffering and misery!

Not A Game Anymore!-After a traumatic brush with death you have come to realize this is not just a game, but your life now. Congratulations on self awareness! It certainly took you long enough! Gain a bonus to realizing you are not in a game and if you die here, you literally die in real life.

I Will Deal With You Later!-By sparing the life of the heroes on multiple occasions, but not before giving them a very good reason to hunt you down and try to kill you in the future, you have earned the Villainous Trait I Will Deal With You Later. Enjoy having all those heroes whose lives you ruined and then spared come after you again, this time probably after receiving some kind of bull crap power up!

Currently Saved Magia Compact Powers

Overarmor-(Rose Shell One)-Energy Drain Minimum (on summon and on taking damage)-Copied from the Dark Shielder Maple this power summons a suit of extremely dense, extremely heavy magical plate armor providing almost as much protection as the Dark Shielder Maple armor with a fraction of the mobility. This armor is so heavy that even a superhuman might need magical assistance to move around in it. Wearing this armor in addition to your regular suit of armor will turn you into a nearly indestructible statue.

Hydra-(Rose Heart One)-Energy Drain Low (on summon)-Copied from Magia Fluorite better known as the Agastia monster Hydra this power summons four heads each with a distinct personality and venomous bite able to offer assistance to the user. The heads do not regenerate when cut off instead needing to be resummoned. While the heads can function independently, this is not always a good thing. An unusual perk of having the ability to summon hydra heads is the ability to claim to be the Hydra Queen and not have people immediately dismiss the claimant as crazy.

Resistances

5% Cutting Resistance

5% Divine Resistance

100% Poison Resistance

100% Carcinogen Resistance

100 % Irritant Resistance

Timer

23:32:27