Kyu's Multiversal Panty Raid
A Waifu Catalog fic starting in HuniePop.
Idly tapping the business card that Djinn in the elevator gave me against the bartop, I stare at my reflection in the mirror running along the back wall of the bar.
An hour into my new life and it still weirds me out more than a little; I remember thinking I looked like a baby every time I had to shave but wow does that not even hold a candle to seeing an actually-a-teenager staring back at me. Not to mention all the subtle little changes I can't quite put my finger on that somehow shift my face from being that of a normal person to something more like Hollywood's version of a normal person. Or maybe Hollywood's version of one of the popular kids? It's still me, still looks and feels like its identifiably my face, but it's also the face of someone who could believably be the main character of a anime-esque porn game and I can't help but wonder if something about the magic involved in getting me here is also papering over some serious uncanny valley and dysmorphia issues.
Okay, admittedly, I am totally fixating on unimportant little things to avoid having to think about my actual problems. Given those problems involve being pretty sure I died earlier today and then took a job offer while standing in the queue for whatever the afterlife normally holds, I think I can be forgiven for that.
A lot of the details are a bit fuzzier now, my memories bearing a closer resemblance to watching a highlight reel than to really remembering. But I do distinctly remember standing in line on The Pier; I remember The Ferryman asking me to wait; a Lawyer Lady in a fancy suit that I think was literally painted onto her; and then I remember standing in an elevator talking to a Djinn about how just buying a bunch of powers and companions and then skipping to the end of the journey doesn't make for much of an adventure.
The guy struck me as being way closer to Jafar than Robin Williams, but he made some good points.
Which is probably why he was the one they assigned to handle my onboarding come to think of it. Conquering the world always struck me as being a lot of work just to end up being stuck running the damn place. But gallivanting about the multiverse on a magical adventure of dubious morality with little to no supervision? Sign me the fuck up!
This of course wound up involving a lot of paperwork that I also barely remember aside from the fact that it was thankfully all digital, or whatever the magitech equivalent of digital is since I'm pretty sure the tablet I filled it out on being an iPad 666th gen is what the lawyer lady meant when she said something about feeble mortal minds using their imagination to pick stand ins they could comprehend or whatever.
"Hey."
But anyway, one of the few things that stuck with me from said paperwork was in the section after I'd signed up for the tutorial that made mention of worlds like Highschool DxD. It was just meant as a lead-in to explaining the company's Danger Rating system, but there was a line about how most people in my position tend to forget all about the dangers of a given setting because of things like boobs.
And then those dangers kill them. Obviously.
So I double and then triple checked that Hunie-Pop was Danger Rating 1 world. AKA the danger rating for worlds that are safer and easier to exist in than a real life modern society. Then I made sure the body I was about to get stuffed into was a customized teenaged copy of the male player character rather than the guy or gal themself so I won't be responsible for dealing with those… nympho-thingies in a few years. Sure, I lose out on the free pre-furnished local apartment, but I have my own personal pocket dimension to live in now so whatever.
Coin in my pocket allegedly holding my place in line for the ferry or not, I have no burning desire to end up back on that pier any time soon thank you very much.
All of which brings me here, fixating on the Djinn's business card as I knock back the watery dregs of the soda I ordered to justify my continued presence on this stool without getting carded because I'm still engaging in avoidant behaviors rather than facing facts. And doesn't it say something that my own recent death and its likely recurrence isn't the issue I'm avoiding?
"Hey! Dude."
On the one hand, the card is warm and I assume it's doing something since holding it makes my hand tingle in a way I now know to associate with magic.
Which should be entirely a good thing, I think. I chose to start my adventure in the world of HuniePop for a reason. Well, many reasons really, but the relevant one is that even, or perhaps that should be especially, with this thing working to subtly draw in those with an admittedly only vaguely defined 'adventurous spirit' for what is allegedly both better and worse, my absolute worst case scenario here ought to be that my 'adventure' fails successfully into 'lived out the rest of his potentially unlimited days in a porn game until he eventually found a way to die from too much snu-snu.'
My 10K per month stipend should be more than enough to retire at the ripe old age of now.
"Hel-lo… Is anybody home?"
On the other hand, having sat here for the better part of an hour, it occurs to me that just because stepping the 'door to adventure' resulted in me 'waking up' on this barstool, in a bar that looks exactly like the one from the first game, doesn't technically mean that this has to be the same bar that the first game started in. Or the right night. Did choosing to be a teenager again put me sometime before the first game? I don't know.
Either option would mean… that Kyu may not be coming.
There, I said it. Silently and only in the privacy of my own thoughts, but still.
"Fine then, fuckin' ignore me. See if I care. Oh, hey… cool phone. Do they even make this model yet?"
It's not an impossible problem to work around since I should still be able to finish most of the tutorial quest without her; I technically only need two random hookers to be able to manage almost all of it. I think even the 'commit a major crime without getting caught' requirement might be satisfied by that since this body is technically underage. That alone ought to get me enough credits to pay off almost all of the loan I had to take out to be able to afford the essentials for my earliest of all retirements
It's just…
It's incredibly disappointing. Kyu is the main reason I'm here.
Hmmm… Well, at the very least I should probably check my phone and make sure the local landmarks line up with what I remember about the game. Pretty sure there should be a beach and a local university at the very least.
Uh. Why is my pocket empty?
"Aww, why isn't it working?"
Where is my phone!?
Checking my other pocket, it's not empty but may as well be; Those coins The Ferryman gave me are obviously not my phone.
Coat pockets are both empty.
Do I have a shirt pocket? No, I- "Ow!" A sharp pain in my ear forces me out of my panic as I cover my ear while ducking and twisting my head to see what just hit me.
Kyu is right there, in all her pink-haired and pantless cover-art glory, waving my phone at me while floating backwards and shaking out one of her legs. "I think your phone is busted."
"Did you just kick me in the ear?"
"Duh. You were being dumb and ignoring me." She waves my phone at me again, somehow maintaining a steady grip on it with a single tiny hand despite it being almost as big as she is. "And your phone is busted. It's not doing The Thing." Apparently demonstrating her issue, she grabs the other side and…starts humping it?
Before I can give voice to the question of just why she's trying to have sex with my phone, she shifts it back off to the side and points at her exposed midriff.
"See? No new tattoo."
"Are you…" I take a moment to try and process. "Trying to stamp yourself?"
"Again, duh!" She buries her face in her hands with a sigh, my company phone vanishing the moment she lets go of it. A quick pat down confirms that it's now back in my pocket, as if it was never taken at all. Kyu either misses or decides to ignore my sigh of relief in favor of muttering to herself while shaking her head, "why are they always so confused...?"
Focusing on the little spark of magic in the back of my mind that ties me to my phone and will it to my hand. Taking advantage of Kyu's current melodramatics, I work my way opening the app for my pocket dimensional inventory and attempt to stash my phone there to avoid any further near heart attacks only to be stymied by the simple fact that said pocket space is currently only accessible via the phone I'm trying to vanish. I suppose I should just be glad there's an error code for "maybe you shouldn't do that, you utter muppet."
Dismissing the error message, I stare at the phone in my hand.
The soulbound magitech smartphone that I just summoned to my hand.
Oh. My. Fuck. I… am an idiot.
"Hey." Kyu yanks my attention back to the present as she spreads her finger and peeks out at me. "Dude, are you okay?" Lowering her hands, she floats a bit closer and peers at my face. "That was a neat trick and all but it kinda looks like it might've hurt."
"Just my pride." I sigh, slumping forward and lightly banging my head against the bar. "I just spent… however long it was in a blind panic trying to find my phone when I could have just," I toss the phone backwards over my shoulder and then resummon it into my hand, "magicked it back to myself the entire time."
"There. There." Kyu deadpans, dropping down to stand on the bar next to my head and slowly patting me on the shoulder twice. "But just so we're clear, you are the Contractor guy, aren't you?"
"Well, yes," I agree, abandoning my percussive self-maintenance and straightening back up. "But-"
"Then c'mon, stamp me already!" She floats up to hover just a few inches in front of my face and lifts up the bottom of her shirt, showing me even more of her belly. "We've got a whole multiverse to explore. Broads to bang. Soaking wet panties to collect!" Tilting backwards and spreading her legs wide enough to give me a clear view, she wiggles her own damp-panty-clad crotch at me for emphasis.
"And we can totally do that!'' I hurry to assure her, before my now once more teenaged-libido wrestles control of my brain away from me. That her panties look like the sheer pink ones I recall from the game art, little butterfly and all, the fact that they were mostly see-through even before they got wet and are now barely hiding anything at all does not help my ability to focus on anything else.
Although…
I don't recall her panties being backless in the game art. Or her wearing a buttplug, though the pink heart-shaped jewel on it definitely matches her aesthetic.
Actually, on the topic of things not lining up with the game, shouldn't she be human sized right now? And a brunette? I thought the size-changing thing was from that one fanfic.
And… Now that I'm thinking about it, it's weird that she knows about Contractors at all, isn't it? I mean, maybe the folks in Exploration and Tourism made an impression on Venus when they located the world? Or is it just that she's the local tutorial/exposition character?
"Excuse you!" Kyu flips back around and glares at me with her hands on her hips. Oh, whoops, I was definitely staring- "No frowning! My ass is amazing, thank you very much. "
Right. Why would Kyu care about even blatant ogling? "Agreed, your ass is all kinds of amazing. I just…" Have no idea how to ask if we're inside of someone else's Gamer fanfic– Especially when I can't remember the name off the top of my head– instead of her canon game right now. Whatever, it's not an actual problem so I'll deal with it later. "I don't use a physical stamp because I'm a ritualist."
"Ah... huh…" She nods slowly. "And what does that mean for those of us who don't speak nerd?"
"Hey now." Lifting up a finger to object, I realize I have no actual rebuttal for that and instead just wind up completing the Malcolm Reynolds meme. "Okay, fine. I totally chose Tantric Arts because I wanted to roleplay being a wizard. But I'll have you know, Miss Exposition-character-of-an-H-game, that we nerds are your people and you know it."
Kyu and I stare at each other for a moment before she sticks out her tongue and blows a raspberry at me. She holds it just long enough that I start to question if she can just keep going indefinitely before suddenly stopping with a clap of her hands. "So! Tantric Rituals then?" She floats in close just shy of the point where maintaining eye contact would force me to go crosseyed. "That means they're kinky rituals, right? They better be kinky. I'm going to be so very disappointed in you if they aren't."
"Ah, well…" I resist the urge to roll my eyes. "I hate to be the bearer of bad news, Kyu, but it turns out the Tantric Arts are actually fueled entirely by how boring and tame they are."
Kyu grins at me, pointedly clearing her throat. "Hmmm… funny… but let's leave the sarcasm to me, alright?" She quotes herself from the game in a semi-singsong voice.
"Yeah yeah," I shake my head and let my voice drop into mock-sadness for a moment, "everyone's a critic."
"Of course! How could you forget?"
I smile, but try to focus. "More seriously, but despite wanting to be a wizard I didn't really get a manual for it so much as a more warlock-y instinctive sense of what will or won't work. I don't think the rituals need to be kinky, but the ones that flit through my head when I point them at you always are."
"Awesome! So what do we need to do?"
"Make a quick supply run for some paint or chalk or whatever and then… find a hotel room?" I can't help the last bit turning into a question given that I'd been expecting to do this in my pocket dimension.
"Well chop chop mister." Not that Kyu seems to notice my confusion as she grabs my sleeve and starts tugging me out of my seat and towards the nearest exit.
I start to reach out to get the heavy looking door, but despite being less than a foot tall at the moment Kyu just barrels right through it like a linebacker, dragging us out into the night.
Where we slow to a stop as Kyu turns to peer down the road. She lets out a thoughtful hum then spins around to stare down the road in the other direction.
"Is something wrong?"
"I think the store might be closed. The hottie that works the register feels like she's asleep."
"Oh. That's fine. One of the bonus objectives for my Tutorial Quest is to commit a major crime without getting caught so we can just break in and…" I trail off at Kyu's sheepish expression. "You have no idea where the store is or how to find it without homing in on the girl that works there do you?"
The two of us stare at each other awkwardly for a moment before a solution occurs to me. "Okay, does your Hunie radar/tracking power happen to have a read on where uh… Aww, damn, I forget her name. Charlotte, maybe? The sarcastic goth chick; not the mega-bitch but the other one that's into BDSM and vampires and stuff?"
Kyu's head tilts to the side, eyes growing distant for a moment as she thinks about it. "Do you mean Lillian?"
"Uh… Maybe? That doesn't sound even close to Charlotte but I'm kind of a goldfish when it comes to names so…" I shrug helplessly.
"Well, if you're talking about Lillian, then she's in her dorm room right now."
"Oh, that's… no. I think the girl I'm looking for is a highschool dropout that lives with her parents."
"Yeah, but she's also from the second game which is a few years from now. Right now, she's still going to some fancy boarding school which is… This way!"