There are a lot that have come to annoy you over the years. The corporations, for fairly obvious reasons. There's sexy, seductive evil like what you embody, and then there's the soulless corpo filth that ravages the ecosystem, gouges their consumers, and overworks their underpaid workers just to increase their profit margins.

Like those meat sacks, you brainwashed when you took over your shell corporation! Idly, you wonder how many of them are still alive. If the state they're in can even be counted as 'being alive' considering you all but melted their worthless brains.

A lot of your fellow Dark Magical Girls are also irritating and terribly uncute. Like that one girl with the forgettable overly-long name, the one you spied on a week ago. What was her name again? Bitter-something-who-cares? That girl was so uncute. Dreadfully droll that one, you're going to have to scoop out her entire brain in order to get any use out of her as a disposable cumdump.

Admittedly, other Dark Magical Girls can sexy and fun—fun enough that you almost want to plan a road trip to show your loves your old stomping grounds. Goodness knows you ate up plenty of cute girls during your stint in New Vegas. It's a shame more of them didn't give you their bodies. You could have prepared so many new toys to give to your loves.

But then again, Cruor Hemis did burn down your base and slaughter all the pets and toys you'd already accumulated so maybe it's better that didn't happen. At least it was only her mind that was ugly, considering the adorable, scared little rabbit she left behind. The one who was an exact clone of that wretched Magical Girl in terms of physical appearance.

What was that frightened rabbit's name again? Valerie? There are probably more cute Magical Girls like that one littering the streets of New Vegas, practically begging for some kind, gentle Dark Magical Girl to come and molest them into submission to be her love-slaves.

Ah. Come to think of it, New Vegas could make for a fun date with Kaina at some point because of that. Ooh, the joys of taking your love to a new location in order to capture some entertaining new toys of her own to play with…!

What fun~!

But you're digressing again, because there's something that's grown to irritate you more than any of these things.

"…?" Maxine Steele, one of the girls who you came to this city specifically to corrupt, continues smiling at you. That – That wretched, uncute, horrible smile that barely covers up the sadness and pain and self-loathing that's practically radiating off of her sexy bod.

Self-loathing and sadness so palpable you can practically smell it. If you stuck out your tongue you could probably taste her dank feelings. So depressing, so unhappy.

Forget irritating. If there's one thing in the world you hate, it's when cute girls hate themselves. It's the most horrid, wretched thing in the world watching cute girls stew in feelings like loneliness and depression. It makes your heart hurt, it makes your palms sweaty, and it's all the worse because this is a girl you love; how could you make Max unhappy, why is Max unhappy, Max should be happy or else so who do you need to kill mutilate slaughter to make Max happy-

"I understand," your mouth says, even as you scream with rage on the inside and your heart smoulders like ten thousand collapsing stars because your love's unhappy. Why is your love unhappy? What do you need to do to make her happy? "Let's leave it at that."

"Yeah—Sure, sure," Max says, clearly distracted. This is good because it gives you the opportunity to calm the calamity within your mammaries and do some furious thinking of your own.

Max's reactions so far haven't been what you were expecting, just based on her public persona. Honestly, you were expecting her to laugh off your flirtations. It seemed like the sort of thing she'd do just based on the archival footage you've watched of her, over and over until your eyes grew dry. The Maxine Steele you've idealized and looked up to all this time has done far, far more depraved things in the past than what you tried suggesting to her.

The Maxine Steele of the past was renowned for going on drug-fueled binges. She was caught doing lines of cocaine off the stomachs of hookers at least fifteen times by the tabloids, and there was a particularly memorable video that you remember watching where she danced topless in a restaurant and then proceeded to have her way with every waitress in the restaurant.

On camera.

In broad daylight.

And yes, this was a video you used as masturbation fodder before you met your love in person, which is why it was particularly memorable, but that's beside the point.

The point is that Max's reactions are really weird, and you think it's because you've managed to strike a raw nerve somewhere, somehow, during this conversation. Self-loathing is an emotion you weren't expecting from Max, not at all. There's something there, something Max is ashamed of, something she's still ashamed of to this day.

… And it's got something to do with Kaina. She only started reacting this way when you brought up Kaina. Kaina. Kaina, Max's relationship with Kaina, Max's previous relationships… Wasn't there something in the news when Max made a Pact, something about how Infinity Princess saved Max's life by taking her to the hospital? And Kaina mentioned before that out of all the Magical Girls in the city, the one she's closest to is Max. Then there was that hospital incident, where you put on your sexy nurse outfit when Max and Kaina were visiting Mia, and Kaina's first instinct was to bury her face into your boobs.

… That was jealousy on Max's face when she saw that back then, wasn't it? Which means -

Oh. Oh...

is that what's going on here? You almost hope your suspicions are incorrect.

Unrequited love is just so terribly sad.

Goodness gracious, unrequited love is probably the single most un-cute thing in the entire world!

That's only one part of this equation though. If it was just unrequited love, Max wouldn't have reacted so violently when you brought up the idea of engaging in a tryst. A polygamous tryst at that. There's something else you're missing, something that's probably got something to do with Max's past…

But that can wait while you plan out your next line of attack.

You are Alice Takanashi, after all. Void Heart. Seductress of cute girls, lover of all things pretty but broken and strange.

And Max's got to be one of the more broken girls you've ever laid your eyes on. Almost as broken as Kaina was which is really saying something.

Most people wouldn't recognize that fact. Max is very good at lying to herself, very good at putting on the front that she's put herself back together properly.

But you're an even better liar than she is, and it's so blatantly obvious that Max isn't well it's not even funny.

Which is why you're going to fix her. You're going to gently, carefully gather up all her little pieces so you can make her beautiful again. Make her whole, make her feel loved instead of unworthy.

… And, okay, this is all so you can get in between Max's legs to prepare her for that torrid threesome with Kaina you've been fantasizing about in your dreams but you can totally kill two birds with one stone here! You can make Max beautiful by having sexy times with her!

You've just got to figure out how to phrase things, how to poke at these irritating complexes she's built up...

-

Max sighs as she watches Alice work, as she watches Alice's deft fingers weave wire and nudge circuitry in the guts of the mechanical squid the two CEOs are finally working on.

It's actually more irritating that Alice is so damnably competent as an engineer.

"The myomer strands could use replacing," Alice says, pursing her lips. "What compound did we wind up deciding to use for those? Was it the triple-strength polyacetylene mix I suggested, or the carbon nanotube composite?"

"I don't have the bacterial cultures for polyacetylene myomer," Max admits begrudgingly. "Always thought that mix was too fiddly anyways because you're relying on organic substrate."

"And forging carbon nanotubes from scratch is easier?" Alice arches an eyebrow, and Max shrugs.

"If we're thinking about mass production then, yeah, it's easier. You get fewer errors letting a nanoforge do its thing than you do if you're having to grow artificial muscle fiber from a vat. That saves on quality control, which saves on costs-"

"Which is important for mass-manufacture, yes, I know," Alice says. "But what about maintenance? Or the cost of replacement parts?"

Max blinks, taking a step back in surprise. "… You're talking about the costs from the consumer's side of things," she realizes.

"What, and you aren't?" Alice grumbles before going back to work.

… It'd really, really be easier for Max to handle things if Alice was a 100% duplicate of Yumeko, down to her greed and casual disregard for other people, including Max to a certain extent. Yumeko would never have thought about having her consumers save costs.

It'd also be easier if Alice weren't so damn sexy and lewd it's still making Max's heart twinge even after Alice's changed into a swimsuit that isn't putting her entire goddamn body on display. Shit, even after Alice's dropped the innuendos and flirting it's all Max can do not to stare at her chest or her ass.

… Which is super hypocritical considering Max just got up in Alice's face about being a lecher inviting Max over for a tryst, but hypocrisy's something Max has learned to damn well live with at this point.

Sweet science is proving to be Max's succor at this point. Ah yes, engineering. Building things for a change instead of utterly destroying them. Instead of being a fuck-up who can't do anything right, like confessing your frickin' feelings.

That's something Max can get behind. Any sort of distraction to take Max's mind away from the fact that the MGA's conscripting Kaina to go fight against some dumb, world-ending threat, Yumeko's corporation decided to try burning down half the city for some reason, at least the junior Magical Girls are all back, and Kaina's girlfriend might actually be super suspicious and she's definitely a pervert but-

But she makes Kaina happy in a way Max clearly hasn't been able to.

And really, who cares if she's a pervert as long as she isn't a Yumeko-styled pervert who'd – who'd take advantage of Kaina and force Kaina to do terrible, awful things.

No. Stop. Bad Max, stop being seduced, stop having these bad thoughts-

"- Jet engine manufacturers," Max blinks, realizing Alice has continued talking. "I think that's more your field, isn't it?"

"… What?" Max says, wincing as Alice slowly raises her head to look Max directly in the eyes.

"I was talking about variable nozzles for the jet-propulsion system we're installing for this prototype?" Alice replies.

"Oh, oh, right," Max blinks. That's a propeller-based system, though, isn't it? Props are far more efficient than using cyclic body deformations to generate propulsion, so I don't see why we'd need to use variable nozzles unless it's crucial to regulate thrust."

"The environment's a concern, especially when you remember that there are still thousands of sonar-guided mines littered around what used to be the major shipping lanes after the Resource Wars," Alice argues. "Compression-based jet propulsion wouldn't be picked up on sonar. Props would. It's why I wanted to go with a design based around biomimicry when I pitched my initial design to you."

"Besides biological engineering being your field of expertise?" Max asks, unimpressed. "Alice, at the scale we want a compression-based jet isn't going to be good enough. You and I both know that the relative efficiency of jet propulsion decreases as size and mass increase. We don't have to mimic nature entirely here."

"…" Alice grumbles, blushing a little. "Alright, fine, that would let us get away with putting a smaller reactor into the mantle cavity. Which makes more room for fun, additional features."

"Like?" Max asks, morbidly intrigued despite herself.

"Dunno! Active camo, maybe?" Alice shrugs, and Max just stares at the other girl.

"Active – Why does this mechanical squid need an active camouflage system?"

"Uh, to sneak up on any polluting weirdos and avoid mines? I thought this was supposed to be a monitoring thing as well?" Alice replies, and Max face-palms.

"No active camo, they're not supposed to be killbots Alice."

"Well, I never," Alice huffs and pouts, and, well…

That expression seriously makes Max's heart twinge.

"Seriously, just because the robot has camouflage doesn't mean it's some kind of nefarious, nasty killbot. Talk about putting labels on… Hey, hey. Are you even listening to me?"

"Uh – Uh, yeah. Yeah, definitely listening," Max shakes her head, pointedly tearing her gaze away from Alice's criminally pouty expression.

"Muuh…" Alice grouses, then lapses into silence—silence that Max forces herself to enjoy for a brief moment. It's a nice day to be at the pool—a nice day to try and get away for a bit—to pretend like Max can escape her responsibilities and just be a regular girl for a change. No MGA, no corporations, no city that's on fire in the background.

It's nice to play pretend, even if Max is acutely aware that none of this is real. This pool is artificial, the squid Max is working on is artificial, and even this professional facade Alice is putting up has to be artificial. Or maybe it was her flirting that was artificial?

God, who knows with this girl?!

"… I promised Kaina I'd try to be a Good Girl. That means something to me. I keep my promises, especially if my girlfriend tells me to make them. So believe me when I say that I didn't mean to hurt your feelings, flirting with you like I did," Alice says suddenly, startling Max out of her darker thoughts.

"Yeah? You already apologized for that?" Max replies. It was a very long, heart-felt apology as well. Surprisingly genuine. At least, Max thought it was genuine.

"I think it's worth clarifying – That's the only thing I'm truly sorry for. Please don't expect me to apologize for acting the way I do. This is just how I am," Alice shrugs. "You should know this by now after seeing me in that sexy nurse's outfit, or seeing my maids. Or just talking to me for more than five minutes. I'm lewd and I'm proud of it, I'm not going to pretend to be ashamed of who I am anymore..."