Battle Vixens! - 113

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Episode 113: Guess Who's Coming

After they returned from the city in Dr. Quinn's car, there was still time for Amory to make it to a couple of his afternoon classes. Actually, Marcus probably had classes he could've attended too, but he asked to be dropped off at the apartment complex instead, and not even the professor in the car raised any objections. He'd been through...a lot today.

Blake was probably skipping classes too; a two-monster day with a bonus and fusion piled on top was at least enough to noticeably tax him, and when they had no idea what was coming tomorrow, ensuring that he wasn't totally exhausted by then seemed like a wise choice. Anyway, Amory trusted his roommate to know how much he could skip and still do the necessary work to pass..under the assumption that things would eventually be normal enough for grades to be assigned in the first place, anyway.

What was Emma doing? All of their classes were in separate enough buildings that he couldn't be sure whether she'd come to her classes or not. It probably wasn't really his business anyway, although maybe after they were both done, he could ask her out to supper again or something? As far as he understood, their schedules at least had similar end-times...

As the students in Amory's last lab for the day sifted out into the hallway, many of them encountered a tall, wiry, older man in semi-casual clothes and paid him fairly little mind. He had a kind of well-kept, refined, yet hard-working look to him that suggested he could be a professor in another department, or even someone important visiting from a different university or something. He must've been waiting on their professor to come out and chat with him about a seminar the next day, or maybe the teacher in one of the neighboring classrooms. However—none of these guesses would actually be correct.

The man's face lit up when one particular student walked out. "Hey there, champ!" he said in a kind, softspoken sort of voice. "Working hard?"
"Dad!?" Amory hurried up to him, and was willingly picked up into a tight hug. "What're you doing here?"

"Well—" he set his son down. "—I was ordered to take a day off after pulling an all-nighter Saturday, so I thought I'd surprise you. You have any plans for dinner?"
"Nah, not really," he answered right away, fully expecting this exact question before it was even asked. This was far from the first time his father had shown up out of the blue to talk over a meal. Whatever half-formed thoughts there had been to make his own plans for supper hadn't been communicated with anyone yet, at least. But—thinking of that...
"Well, hey, it's a great opportunity for us to catch up in person, then! If you don't mind?"
"Do I ever?"

"Hahah," his father ruffled his hair. "C'mon, they opened a new place downtown I'm dying to try!"

Once his back was turned, Amory shuffled along behind him, quickly sneaking his phone out into his hand and sending two short texts, to his roommate:

dads here

tell emma

---

"Nah, I haven't seen him since this morning. He wasn't at practice today, or anywhere in the cafeteria at lunch. I looked all over! And, dude, he is not the kinda guy who just skips meals for no reason. Or, uh, classes either, yeah."
Thad crossed his arms. "...Huh. Well, I'll let'cha know if I hear from him. Hope he's not sick or somethin'."
"Yeah, me too! I was sitting right next to him!" Marcus's classmate ran off.

Thaddeus thought: If he was sick, he would've called or texted. If he was injured or something and in the hospital, then...his family would surely know. But it was too soon to get them involved. He'd tried his number and checked their apartment a couple of times already, but...he couldn't help the feeling that it'd be best to check just one more time. First, however, he had his own obligations to get to. So he started briskly off in the direction of the soccer field, listening in on the conversations around him.

"Uh-huh, Magus had it super rough today. Like, won the garbage lottery in the tristate area! I mean..if you don't count Void."

"Wait wait—who's Void?"
"The uh, deaf chick? That giant bird nightmare Light and Gemma had to fuse to take down?"
"Oh—yeah, yeah..."

"..and that thing just straight up punched through the shield and she went flying. Then that lady with the Stand caught her, and...that's the last time you can see her in any of the footage!"
"I mean, yeah, but there'd be a special report if she really died or somethin', right? Vixens kinda usually vanish into the aether as soon as the battle's done—I mean, look at Light!"

"—just like a magical girl, I saw it myself. She was all 'Binding thoooorns!' and this huge mess of vines went up and grabbed the monster and then like, Light and Gemma started wailing on it."

"So it really stung her in the chest after that?"
"I mean—maybe? I couldn't see it well from where I was, but she totally took a hit before teleporting—"

"Whoa, whoa—teleporting!?"
"Oh yeah, did I not mention that? She's got a teleport spell too! I think it's called 'instant transmission' or something."

"No way—you've been watching too much DBZ..."

Thad stopped in front of the field, mentally calculating the drive time between their town and the city. Placing the end time of the last class Marcus was seen in against the time of the day's first attack. Putting three and four together and not particularly liking how odd the result was...

He had practice to get through first, but he was going to check the apartment again the instant he was done. If Marcus was still not there, it was time to call his family.

---

Light bolted upright in the bed at the sound of her phone buzzing, looked back and forth around the bedroom briefly in a half-awake semi-panicked expectation of some sort of sneak attack, and then slowly slumped into a more relaxed posture before turning around to pick up the phone and glance at the messages that had caused the noise. Their contents caused her to sigh, turning around to sitting up on the side of the bed while rubbing the side of her head briefly. After this, she spoke the phrase to change back to human form, stood up and went to the living room to get a good amount of pacing space.

Blake then called Emma—using her regular number, rather than through the VI's app. She...was probably skipping classes this afternoon, right? Or, if not, she'd see the call and call back. Actually—was she still supposed to even be in classes at this point? How long had he been asleep, exactly? Whatever the case, she picked up after a few rings.

"Hello?"
"Uh..hey. We have—okay, no. I really hate to put it this way actually, but it's true: You might have a problem."

"Um.." She stammered uncertainly. "A p, a problem? What's wrong?"
"Sorry, it's..." he exhaled a sigh. "Not something wrong necessarily, but uh. Amory just told me his dad's here, and to let you know."
"Uh...okaaaay...?" Her tone of voice made it very obvious that she didn't comprehend how that could possibly be a problem.

So he hadn't told her about his father yet. That was..annoying, from Blake's current position, but understandable; they'd been on maybe two or three dates tops, even if one counted "meeting as fox-girls in dream space" as a date.

"No, look, there's a reason he wanted me to tell you that. Amory's dad is uh..hyper protective of his son. I mean extremely. When I got randomly picked to be his roommate freshman year he sat me down for like two hours and wanted to know every single thing about me: My family, my hobbies, what I was going to college for. He..talks in a really gentle, friendly way, but he can get this..paralyzing look sometimes, when he's asking things. It felt kinda like an interrogation."

"Uhhh..."
"And—he's probably here to surprise his son with dinner, and wants to have a chat with him. And he's gonna ask him something like whether he's dating anyone yet, and Amory can't lie to his dad. I mean—not about something like that, at least. He knows that, so he told me to tell you, probably knowing I'd know to also warn you. I mean—he's mellowed out since then, I think.."
"Y-you think?"
"Ever since that first, really long conversation, he's been cool with me. Look—it's.

"The number one thing Amory's dad wants to know is whether or not you're gonna hurt his son. Just be honest with him about yourself, make it clear that you don't want that, and he'll probably ease off. Maybe."

"Maybe? Probably maybe???" Emma's voice had been getting higher with each response, and she barely squeaked that last couple of words out.
"Uh—look. You'd..definitely have to meet him at some point if you were gonna keep dating Amory, right? I'm sure he would've warned you about this himself before then, if he had the chance. But—so—think of it as just, uh, getting it over with early."
"Y-yeah uhm..yeah..." she mumbled. "Aaah, I wish you hadn't told me, though! Now I'll worry about it until he shows up, and overthink everything!"
"Would you really rather have it be a complete surprise?"
"N-no..I just...! Mnnmnnngh..."

After a substantial pause, she asked: "W-what's he like, anyway?"

"Amory's dad? He's—really nice, kind, generous, softspoken. He pretty much only gets intense like that when it's about Amory. He works as a surgeon in a big hospital back at their hometown."

"That's uh..reassuriiinnng..." Blake guessed that she was imagining a very tall man in bloodstained scrubs brandishing a comically oversized surgical knife at her with a threatening glint in his eye.

"Look, you'll do fine. We've faced down giant shadow monsters together, right? What's one guy gonna do?"
"Y-yeah..heheh..." Her chuckle was more nervous than reassured. "Well um..th-thanks for telling me, anyway. Even if..I'm nottotallysure I wanted to hear it!"

"Yeah. You're welcome, sorry. Amory asked me to, so I'm sure he thinks this is best."

"M-mhm..."

"Well, I just woke up and I have a bunch of homework to catch up on still," Blake said. "So I'll see you later."

"O-okay. Bye!"

---

Rory stood up as soon as her husband's car came into the driveway, hurrying to pull the front door open for him and then tackle-hug-kiss him once he was inside. After that, still clinging on to him, she said, "Hey! You have a good trip?"
"Eehh..let's leave it at 'successful'. Nobody died, anyway," he said, gently ruffling her hair before setting her down. "I understand things went about as well on your end?"
"Yeah! We beat up a giant bird and rescued the girl inside!" She excitedly led the way into the living room. "But I couldn't think of a good quip for it when it really mattered! I had the perfect setup with Sesame Street and..pwffh, nothing!" She was grinning throughout this, being very obviously mock-upset.

"I think you must be doing pretty well if wordplay is the worst of your worries," Clark said.

"Uh, weelll.." She sort of wrung her hands a bit. "I went looking around, you know, between when I got here and now. I didn't really know where to look, I found some really old papers and magazines and stuff but nothing really useful. But then I thought, 'wait, why don't I check the contact list in my phone'? And—"

"Hold on," he put up a hand. "What were you looking for, exactly?"
"Oh! Right. Uh...my uh, to see if I could figure out some way to contact my parents."
"Right," he nodded. "And..you found something?"

"Mmhm." She got her phone off the coffee table in front of the couch. "It's—it says 'dad'. I think I, had that number put in like six phones ago, when I was um, before we met? I guess it's just migrated from one phone to another, and so I haven't called it in...years."
He gave her a concerned look for a moment. "I've never seen you so nervous before. This is what you were looking for, right? Some sort of lead, at least?"
"Y-yeah, but...what if it's not even his number anymore? What if he already died? Or, I said something awful last time we spoke, and now I don't remember it but he still hates me?"
"Well, at least you'll know more if you do call." He crossed his arms. "Isn't not knowing the worst thing? And science all about gathering evidence towards the right answers?"
"H-heheh, yeah. I just....I wasn't sure I could deal with it on my own, is all. So I was waiting for you to come back."

"I understand," her husband said, pulling himself around her in a brief hug before sitting on the couch and patting the seat next to him. "I'll be here for you whenever you need me."

She sat down. "Sorry. I-I guess I..was...I mean, I never felt, weak like this. Before I...died, right?"

"I can't speak to how you felt, but you never told me so," he said, shrugging. "I can't imagine that you really never were afraid or nervous or unhappy, now that I think of it. But, at the time, I never questioned it. You seemed invincible to me, and maybe I...acted in way that encouraged you to reinforce that image. If so...I'm sorry."

"You're sorry? What for?"

"It just seems to me like it'd be terribly lonely.." He shook his head. "Maybe I'm reading too much into this. But—either way, I don't care if you're not invincible. It's more important to me that you're honest. And that I get to be here to help you if you need it. Goodness knows you've been around to help me for a long time."

"Ah..h-heheh." Rory nodded, smiling slightly. "Well I uh..guess I'll give this a try, then," she said, gesturing upward with the phone in her hand before going to use it.

---

"I wanted to let you know—I'm sorry about last Thursday. You were right, of course—after I took some time to rest and cool my head, I realized that."
Amory was sitting across from his father at the restaurant, awaiting one specific question. Not that he wasn't paying attention to the rest of the conversation. He nodded. "It's okay. I think pretty much everyone has something very real to be afraid of these days."
"Yes...I panicked then because I got a look at some of the damage firsthand. Even though it isn't my main area of expertise, they needed help at the ER. One of those, things, had taken down a building...and one of those girls in our town had been badly injured while distracting it so the others could get people out. She pulled through, but...barely." He shook his head. "The first thing she wanted to know once she was conscious was..how soon she could rejoin her teammates. Continue the fight. I had to be very delicate in explaining to her that the kind of injuries she'd just survived took weeks to recover from, if you were lucky. I had to tell her what broken pieces of her I'd had to personally put back together for her to even begin to understand..."

He trailed off, leaning back again, a hard expression on his face softening. "Sorry. I shouldn't talk about that at dinner."
"It's okay," Amory said. Sometimes he just needed to let these things out, and there was perhaps no one better than his son to patiently listen when he did. Growing up in their house had steeled Amory pretty well against talk of injuries, internal organs, bleeding, and so on.

He shook his head lightly. "Anyway..I couldn't help but worry that you'd be just like that—if you were in a similar situation. That was what made me worry so much."

They were briefly interrupted by the waiter bringing drinks and asking for their food orders. His dad ordered three big appetizers for them both plus his own meal, and would've insisted Amory still order himself something if he didn't anticipate this and just order anyway. There were always to-go boxes to handle the inevitable leftovers, after all.

"..I really should get off of such heavy topics. No good for my blood pressure," he joked—Amory's father had one of the healthiest hearts known to humanity. "So...anything new with you? Finally, dating anyone?"
There it was.

---

"...Hello?"

"Hey uh..is this..." Rory mentally grasped for the name for a second; she only knew the first name from some recent research, rather than having actually remembered it yet. "Thatcher Quinn?"
"It is. Who..wait...Rory?"

"Um. Yes."

There was some noise on the other end like the phone being dropped or roughly set down, and then, distantly, his voice yelling, "Dear! Come quick, it's Rory!" A minute or so later, there was some more noise on the other end, and when he spoke again it was obviously on speakerphone. "It's been.." He was briefly interrupted by a cough. "Some years, hasn't it?"
"We've missed you," a woman's (her mother's) voice interjected.
"Errh...to what do we owe the pleasure?" he continued. It sounded perhaps a little sarcastic, but at the same time, Rory had the sense that he just wasn't sure what to say to move the conversation forward.

"Well uh. I dunno how much of the news you guys have been following, but—you, know about all the people who got superpowers to fight the monsters attacking the Earth...right?"

"Sure. We've been following your exploits closely ever since this whole mess started," he said.

"Then I guess um..you know about it already, sort of. It's just—

"I had a near-death experience. Well...actually, I did die, then came back. Or..arguably, I only cheated death? But, whatever, anyway—I lost my memory in the process, and a lot of it still hasn't come back. So I guess you could say I, really don't remember what I was angry about anymore."

"Hmmh. Can't say as I remember, either. I suppose that man's been a better husband to you than I expected, by all accounts." Him exclusively referring to Clark 'that man' did prick something in her memory a tiny bit, particularly a note of annoyance.

"He did, yeah. Saved my life, for one thing—basically chose bringing me back over unimaginable power. But uh." Arguing about this wasn't the point of the conversation, she reminded herself. "I just—wanted to talk to you..both of you again, before it was too late."
"Hey now, we're not that old," he said with a slight chuckle. Then, after a pause: "Ah—listen. It'd be great to catch up with you...with both of you over dinner, if you haven't eaten yet? We're only a half hour out from where you live now."

Rory paused, looking at Clark. He would have to drive them; she still wasn't sure she entirely remembered that particular skill set. He gave a quick affirmative shrug. "Um..sure. We'd love to, to come see you, then."

---

"Well, she asked me out, actually. And—we'd met before, during the study group thing last year. Her major's in English, and she needed some help getting through her science courses."

His dad looked happy, but...Amory still somehow suspected he was making an effort to. "How many dates have you been on so far?"

"Just a few. Emma's great, though. I can introduce you, if you want?"

"Sure," he nodded. "I'd like that. But what's she like?"
"Oh, uh—Emma's really smart and funny. Very cute! Though, she can be a little scatterbrained sometiems, and gets really nervous in unfamiliar social situatios. Like, she was terrified to even ask me out at first—never dated anyone before. Blake kinda noticed her around and 're-introduced' us."
"Blake?" He tilted his head a little. "He doesn't seem like the matchmaking type to me."

"Oh, he's totally not, and he wasn't. As far as I know, it was her idea—she wanted to ask me out in the first place. He just helped her be brave, a little bit."
"Ah. That makes more sense.

"Well, we shouldn't presume on Emma's time, should we? Perhaps you should call and ask if she's willing to talk for a few minutes," he said.

"Yeah, that's—probably a good idea. Hang on a minute..." Amory got out his phone and called, hoping Blake woke up from those texts and had had time to warn her by now. After a couple of rings, she picked up.

"Um—hello?"
"Hey, Emma, it's me. My uh, dad's in town and wanted to know if I could introduce you?"
"Well I uh..um." Going by how nervous her responses were...she probably had been told about him by now. Good. "S-sure?"

"Where do you want to meet up? The lounge area, or maybe just your place?"
"Uh—my apartment's fine," she said. "I uh—I n-need clean up a little, but there's not that much of a mess. D-did you both eat already, 'cause I have a um, there's a few things I could make if, if not?"
"We're, actually at a restaurant now," Amory said. She might've been hoping to impress his dad with something from Beryl's 'cooking spellbooks'..oh well.
"O-oh, okay. Well—I'll uh, I'll just get something for myself then. And then I'll bee....heeere."

"Okay. See you soon.

"She said we could meet in her apartment. I guess her roommate's out again," Amory said. "She's pretty close to graduating, and out pretty often—I think she's got family living nearby or something."

His father nodded, smiling gently. "I'll look forward to seeing her, then."

---

It is entirely by coincidence that a lot of characters in this story have...complicated relationships with their fathers, but once I noticed that was the case, I couldn't pass up on an opportunity to use it as a theme for this part of the story and kind explore them all at once. Anyway, this episode was largely held up by some severe writer's block when it came to Rory's father and how he would act/respond, which feels ridiculous to me in hindsight since he's supposed to be a quite minor character overall.

Vixen Society - Cycle 15

Vixen Society

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  Beginning / Before / After / Last

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Cycle 15

Between Ryker's help, Luca's energetic eagerness to please, and Vincent's magic, the move overall went quite swiftly. They had the keys to the catboy's apartment turned in by late afternoon, and while there was still a fair bit of unpacking and convincing-him-to-throw-things-away to do, the Kitsune felt as though Ryker had completely fulfilled his end of their bargain. This knowledge gave her slight urge to hold up her end as soon as possible, which was a bit odd, but it didn't really bother her. Rather, it joined with her preexisting eagerness to mess with him a little bit in the process.

"Soo..anything else you guys need moved? I mean, while I'm here and all?" he was saying, flexing an arm briefly.
"The truck's empty, isn't it?" Vincent said with a hint of a bite to her voice. "As far as I'm concerned, the job's done. So..why don't you come inside for a minute?" She gestured, and headed for the living room—deciding it would be wiser to do it indoors.

"Huh? Uh, sure." While following her inside (and with Luca coming in behind him), he said, "What's up?"
"Well, I did agree to do something for you in return, right?" she said, turning around as she came to a cardboard-box-laden couch. "Unless you want me to wait until next week sometime to give you a tail or whatever."
"Oh..! Yeah! Of course! Totally!" he said, each response more excited than the last one. "Yeah dude, I wasn't sure if you'd need to gather up energy first or something...but if you can do it now, man, lay it on me!"

"...Sure," the Kitsune said. To be honest, his way of speaking was starting to grate on her nerves; while she found Luca's energetic behavior cute, Ryker had quickly crossed over into just slightly annoying. Maybe that was part of her motivation to prank him..although at the same time, she didn't feel like she needed much motivation to do that in the first place.

"Just stand still in the middle of the room there," she gestured, wearing her best poker face—which was a remarkably good one, if she said so herself.

"'Kay."

Deciding to give this transformation a bit of flair, the Kitsune raised her hand in front of her, palm up, and blew at it as if to clear the dust off of something it was holding. The air from her lungs expanded out into a substantial gust on the way from her hand to the man standing in her living room, gaining a bunch of small black illusory particles to make it more visible (with a sort of 'smoke-like' look), and when it reached him it swirled around him as a miniature windstorm.

"Whoa—duude, awesome!" At least he was impressed by the special effects. But Ryker didn't seem to notice, at least at first, that his hair being picked up by the wind and drawn out steadily longer and longer around him. "Aah—w-whoa..!" He probably did notice the tingling and tugging as his ears rapidly covered themselves in fur and grew bigger and taller, quickly becoming a pair of huge, fluffy, triangular fox ears.

But since he was no doubt concentrating on that, he missed out on the wind near-imperceptibly abrading his skin, carrying away his facial and body hair and softening and smoothing the skin left behind. Indeed, he reached a hand up to feel the ear with a look of absolute delight on his face. "Aww ma~an, this is so cool!" His voice cracked slightly in his throat, the air starting to alter his voice as he breathed it in and exhaled it out.

Now that it was finished with his hair and skin, the wind started pushing in at Ryker's body, making it start to diminish in height and size in all sorts of ways. But he was busy twisting his head around behind him to watch as a slender, light brown tail sprouted from the base of his spine. His "Tail! Woooo!" came out in a slightly immature, boyish tone, the falsetto of the second word hitting a high note far too easily. And Ryker was too enamored by watching that tail grow steadily thicker and fluffier as it lengthened that he missed out on his limbs slimming, shoulders narrowing, waist trimming in..his whole body softening and shrinking steadily downward.

To be a little fair to the shrinking foxboy, these changes might have been more obvious to him if his shirt and pants weren't keeping up with his diminishing size, the pants even pulling a bit tighter—although their leggings were shortening much faster than the legs they were on. He reached out a small hand, running it down from the base of the new tail to its snowy-white tip, and let out a breathy "Mrrr~rrh" in a tone too high and too feminine to belong to any man—and that sound finally made him realize something was off.

"Uh—wh-wha..?" He brought the hand up to his face, turning forward, just as his height settled at an inch or so below Vincent's. "Whyy, uh..." The voice coming from his mouth was the same one as the brief chur before, a soft, high soprano. As the wind around him died down a bit, his hair fell down around him, framing a round, smooth, soft face and falling across his shoulders and down his back like a big cape made of soft, light-brown locks. "Wha, aaa~aahh..!" He had noticed all this just in time for the last and most drastic of changes to come, and the sensation of those interrupted his confused thoughts.

By now, Ryker's pants had become very tight and short, and his underwear had changed into a pair of tiny, tight boyshorts under those. That tightness showed off a rather small bulge at this point, which very quickly shrank to the point of vanishing entirely, drawing some very soft, girly sounds from his lips. "Aah, wwwaa~aaAAahhh...!" And once it was gone, the new girl rocked back and forth on her feet unsteadily with her hands on her thighs and her eyes closed, letting out a quiet "Mmnngh..." of embarrassment mixed with girlish pleasure as her hips and thighs quickly pushed out, settling into some generous womanly curves for a girl her size. Speaking of that, last of all the fox-girl's chest pushed forward into a pair of small breasts—drawing a cute, startled "Aa~ah!" from her lips—followed by a few more vulpine barks as the tiny bosom swelled out in a few brief bursts into some globes more than big enough to fill out her petite figure, matching her slim, smooth waist and wide hips.

A final weak "Rrfh" came out of Ryker as she slowly blinked her eyes open, revealing a new, bright golden color they had taken on while closed. She looked down at her drastically changed appearance, then up at Vincent, jumping slightly at suddenly having the Kitsune at near-eye-level to her, and even having to tilt her head slightly upward! "Wha, wha..why'd I, why am I a—chick!? A-and so tiny?!"

---

After dinner, Olivia went with her usual habit of going to watch TV for a while. It hadn't been difficult at all to transfer her service over to a new location, thankfully. Her big, vulpine ears could normally pick up rather distant sounds, but there wasn't actually very much she could hear from the bathroom. Thinking about it, she could feel some faint magic in the walls of the house that on further inspection amounted to a bit of sound damping. Given that a fellow Kitsune had been the previous owner of the place, they (or some even more previous owner) must have done that so that even animal ears wouldn't have to hear every single noise in the house. Of course, this also helped to provide some privacy with more than one person living in the place.

She could hear the sound of a hairdryer running around three-quarters of an hour later, and then a while after that, Angie's soft, high voice calling out was easily audible. “Oy, miss Olivia?”
“Yeah?”

“D'you think I could borrow somethin' of yours? I've only got the one outfit right now, and it'd be awful uncomfortable to sleep in that getup.”
“Oh, sure, no problem! And, if you want me to adjust it, lemme know!”

A few minutes later, the wolf-girl came into the room wearing one of her shirts—specifically an unchanged one that had fit her normally as a very overweight guy. On Angie, its collar had slid off on the right side far enough to show an entire shoulder and a bit of the neckline, and the hem was nearly down to her knees...at least in the front. Her tail was up and wagging, which lifted the entire shirt up in the back and made the lower third or so of the entire shirt flutter around a little bit. She was smiling brightly, and raised a hand to wave as Olivia noticed her. “Hey there~.”

“H-hi..” Olivia was..blushing again; that look was really cute on her little maid! But she said: “Um, d'you need that..changed? It's, pretty big on you.”
“Don't trouble yourself; it's comf'terble for sleepin' in, and won't trip me up none,” she said, walking closer. “Besides, 'least it's all intact.” Coming up to in front of and a little to one side of the chair, the wolf-girl turned to look at the TV..(un?)intentionally giving Olivia a view of most of her upper legs from the lifted shirt. “What're you up to? Just watchin' the tube?”
“Uh, yeah. It's, what I'm pretty used to doing to relax,” the Kitsune said, trying not to stare in that direction too much..although the motion of Angie's big, fluffy tail had a way of constantly drawing one's eye.

Thankfully(?), she turned back around pretty quickly. “Mind if I join ya, master?”
“Oh, n-not at all!” Olivia's face had to be completely flushed by now, and she was even tempted to hide it with some illusions..but somehow, she just wanted to stay honest with her older friend, even about this.

“A'right then.” Very much to her surprise, the wolf-girl elected not to go take a seat on a nearby couch, but instead to pounce right on top of her, then quickly turn around onto her side with most of her body on the Kitsune's lap, her head and lower legs on either armrest of the chair, and her tail likewise across Olivia's upper leg and the armrest..all rather tantalizingly close.
“Uuhhh...” The buff, super-powered seven-tailed Kitsune basically locked up completely at this point.

Angie tilted her head around to face Olivia. “Oh, sorry—you did say 'feel free to surprise me', didn't'cha?” she teased. “Heheh, I can get off if you don't like it~.”

“Um...n-no, I um..I'm d-definitely surprised...” She'd raised her arms up reflexively when the wolf-girl pounced at her, and now one was hovering close to the top of Angie's head..and the other was near the tip of her tail.

“Awwh, you can pet 'em if you wanna,” the wolf-girl invited, turning her head forward again. “I don't mind a bit. If anything, I'm sorta curious what it feels like.”
“Uh, r-really?”

“Certainly.”

Slowly, cautiously, Olivia placed her hand atop the small, adorable wolf-girl's head. She just went for stroking it through some of Angie's hair for now, while the other hand also very slowly made its way toward somewhere near the base of her tail. “Mm~mh..not bad,” the wolf-girl commented, followed by a soft, pleased “Rr~rfh~!” as the other hand landed on her tail and began to stroke gently down along its length. Then, emboldened a little by her little maid's approval, the Kitsune moved the other hand along to first pet one ear, then the other. The wolf-girl gently yipped and barked a few times at first, and then her voice settled into a soft, pleased murmur halfway between a canine and human sound. Her head sank down to lay her cheek entirely on the armrest, her body visibly and palpably relaxing under the bigger girl's touch.

Olivia soon found that...her tails wanted in on this, too. A couple of them curled forward, laying themselves across the small wolf-girl's side. Another one slid its way over to Angie's legs, twisting partway across them. As the remaining four made their way forward one by one, some of them somehow managed to curl under instead of over, and before long she was practically wrapped up in a thick blanket of Olivia's bright orange fur.

“Mrrfh...y'r tails?” she mumbled half-coherently.
“Mrr~rrh..I mean uh, y-yeah,” the Kitsune blushed again as a vulpine murr came out instead of speech at first. “S-sorry, they've kinda...rrr~rrh..got a mind of their own sometimes.”
“'S'all right...nice'n warm..mrrr~rrr...” Angie's hands reached out and took hold of the nearest tail, bringing it up to her face and briefly nuzzling it. After that, she fell asleep, still loosely hugging the tail like a child might a stuffed animal. It was...truly adorable, making it kind of hard to believe that she was very much the older one here.

Well—it seemed like Olivia was going to be stuck in this position for a while. At least she could use her magic to get the remote the wolf-girl had (probably accidentally) knocked over onto the floor, and even press the buttons without using her hands. So she settled for gently stroking Angie's ears, hair, and tail for a while, enjoying that (and the feeling of a soft, warm body between her tails) perhaps even more than what was on TV.

---

Dennis answered his phone with some reluctance—but better to have this conversation now than later, he guessed.

"Dennis! Den! Nis!"
"What?"

"I cannot believe you, man! Troy turned you into a hot dog girl?!"
"Uh—she's kinda going by Tory now," he corrected. "But. Yeah.."
"And you had her turn you back?!"

"Yyyyeah...it's a little weird suddenly being in a completely different body." He was glad the blush he was feeling as he thought about that night didn't carry over the phone. "And...things were going a little too fast for me, too."

"But it was like a curse thing, right? So she might not be able to turn you into a cute girl ever again!"

"Oh no, what a tragedy," Dennis deadpanned.

"Seriously though, she definitely can. Some..people Carter knows who apparently know about magic stuff said she's a witch, which I guess basically means she can make up and cast whatever spells she wants."

"Wha—seriously!?

"Uh-huh."
"So you're telling me, that Troy—"
"Tory."
"—Tory. Can just, turn other people into hot girls at will? Dog girls, fox girls, cat girls, wolf girls!?"
"Uh..probably. She might not be that into the cat girls, though..." This conversation was getting weird fast, but then, so was Dennis's life lately.

"You think she'd do me?!" Oh, so that's what this was about.

"I mean..probably," he said. "She's eager to mess around with her new powers, so if you just show up and volunteer, then—"
"Awesome, I am there! I'm on my way n—oh, wait, she's at work now, isn't she?"
"She might also appreciate a warning," Dennis said, facepalming with his free hand.
"Yeah, yeah, okay. Theeen I'm texting her now! And, I'll be on my way as soon as it's convenient for both of us! But man that sounds so much lamer!"

"You'd better be nice—she could probably turn you into a toad or something too," he pointed out before the other end hung up.

Well..this was something Tory was going to have to deal with. But knowing her...she was very likely to enjoy it, so it was fine. Probably.

---

"You kept saying you wanted a look 'just like mine'," Vincent said. "The only specific I could even get out of you was making your fur the same color as your hair, and I did that."

"I-I didn't mean this, though, dude!" she said, putting a hand on her chest in the process of trying to gesture at herself and jumping slightly at the unexpected feeling of a hand (her own) on part of a breast.

"Well, you should've been more specific," the Kitsune said, crossing her arms. "...Kidding!" she quickly added when Ryker looked like she was about to try. "I'm just playing a joke, seriously. Transforming someone is really easy for me, so I can just change whatever you don't like about that."
"O-oh...uh, I guess that's not as bad as uh..being stuck like this," the small fox-girl said, bringing up a hand to brush through her ridiculously long hair as she did so—maybe not quite consciously.
"So. What do you want changed?"

"I mean like—taller?" she said, moving the hand from her hair to above her head, holding the palm out as a horizontal line to communicate the idea of a height increase. "And my muscles! Like, do you have any idea how much working out I have to do to get as swole as I...was?" She hesitated and spoke the last word much quieter than the rest, looking down and running a hand across the flat, soft belly that used to sport some visible abs.

"So: Taller and stronger. Got it."

"Uh—!" Ryker was probably about to add something else (like maybe turning her back into a guy), but Vincent decided it would be more fun to just snap her fingers and do these first two things first. And, of course, it was. A poof of dark smoke around the small fox-girl accompanied the snap, which was just more visual flare to accompany the use of the Kitsune's magic.

"Wh-whoo~oo~oaa~aaa...!" Ryker began growing that very instant. Her body stretched up taller and taller—and not just that, of course, but her curves grew to match, too. Her hips grew wider, her thighs thicker, and—most of all—her breasts expanded another cup size or two, which made the still-present blush on the fox-girl's face brighten again to its peak. At the same time, Ryker's body gained back some of the muscle tone that becoming a girl had robbed her of, along with even more strength than she'd had before. While she was at it, Vincent went ahead and had the fox-girl's hair grow out to match her increasing height too, resulting in the cape of pretty, light brown hair reaching all the way down to her thighs despite how much farther that now was.

Her shorts kept pace with her growth, although they didn't get any longer, so now that her legs were longer, even more of them were visible. Her shirt didn't do as good of a job keeping up with the height and bust growth, resulting in them being pulled almost entirely off of the fox-girl's belly and showing off her new and improved abs for all to see. Finally, Ryker's voice deepened and matured along with her growth, settling into a spot slightly on the low end of an alto—still extremely feminine, of course. All of these changes took only a few seconds, and when they were over she was half a foot taller than she'd been as a boy.

"There, how's that?" Vincent said.

"Uhh..." Ryker took a moment to look at and feel her altered body, looking around the room to try to get over the disorientation of everything aroud her getting bigger-then-smaller again all in such quick succession. "It's uh..p-pretty sweet, I guess?" She was also trying to get used to the again-new tone of her voice, taking each word slowly.

"Oh, wait, you wanted to stay a guy, didn't you?" Vincent said, pretending to have not realized that before. "That can be arranged, too."
"Uhm, h-hold off on that for a sec!" Ryker said quickly, obviously fearing another finger-snap poof from the Kitsune.

Vincent crossed her arms. "Mmhmm?"
"Th-this is uh..pretty sweet, actually," she said, curling her huge, fluffy tail forward and running a hand across it. "I could totally get used to this. I-I mean, you know, if you don't mind?"
"No skin off my nose. If you're happy with that look, then I've rewarded you for helping us move like I promised, right?" Some small part of her wanted to confirm that the Deal had been fulfilled to everyone's satisfaction.

"Yeah, totally, dude!" she grinned, letting go of her tail seemingly just so it could start wagging. "Uh..there is um, one thing though. M-my shirt?"

"What, too small on you?"
The big foxgirl was looking down and tugging at the hem. "Uh, n-no, I mean—yeah sorta, but it was a, kinda a keepsake from a con, pretty hard to just buy another one like it, and..now it's blank?"

"Oh. Here." Reaching out her hand, Vincent poofed a perfect copy of the shirt's original appearance into it, holding it out to Ryker. "Good enough?" It would be somewhat difficult to explain in words, but just before using her magic to change his body and clothes, she'd made sure to store a temporary 'magical memory' of exactly how he'd looked in case he wanted to turn back and just have the foxy bits added to that look.

She smiled brightly, neither questioning her ability to make the shirt appear out of thin air nor seeming to care whether it was a 'copy' or the 'original', and quickly took it, spreading it out in front of her to look. "Yeah, dude, perfect! Thanks so much!" Satisfied it was the same, she dropped her hands to the sides, the shirt in her left hand.

"Anyway—I'm hungry after all that work, so Luca and I are going out to eat," Vincent declared. She continued over the catboy asking 'we are?' with a tone of happy anticipation at the thought. "You wanna join us?"
"Uh..s-sure." The big fox-girl looked down at her chest for a second once again. "Might need uh..a bra or something, to go walking around in public, though...y'know?"
"Here." On the principle of 'why not', Vincent poofed an appropriately-sized bra into her hand and held it out to Ryker. After all, she was still going to have the 'fun' of figuring out sizes and buying more later regardless, so it was convenient for everyone now without making things too easy on her in the long run.

Besides that, it had the obvious effect of making the tall fox-girl blush as she took it in her free hand. "Uh, t-thanks..."
"I can help if you need any help putting that on!" Luca offered, not seeming to remember that he was male at the moment—or maybe not caring. Vincent just giggled at Ryker's flustered reaction of quickly running for the nearest bathroom to get some privacy to at least try to figure it out on her own.

---

"Rrfh..."

Angie stirred with a soft bark some two and a half hours after falling asleep, then slowly woke up, turning her head to blink up at Olivia a couple of times. "Uh..h-hey," the Kitsune said. "You seemed, comfortable, so I didn't want to bug you."
"I surely was," the wolf-girl said. "Still, I gotta sleep in my own bed some—since I got one now. Think I'll get up bright 'n early, make us a good breakfast. You mind lettin' me loose?"
"Not at all," Olivia said, grinning. She'd thought of this a little while ago—it was kind of hard to figure out how best to untangle her tails and not drop her little maid off onto the floor, but it was much easier to just..teleport her. With a twitch of her will, Angie poofed off of her and a couple of feet away, now oriented like she was standing, with her feet toward the floor.

"Wah~!" she stumbled briefly from the abrupt shift of experienced gravity, but her tail helped her get her balance before falling over. "H-heh, that was a mite sudden, but it'll do," she nodded. "G'night, master~!" she waved cutely.
"Good night!" Olivia still wasn't used to being called that..or a lot of other things about how her older friend had changed...but she didn't quite dislike it, either.

The next morning, Angie (back in her maid outfit) served up a big, delicious breakfast as promised. Once they were sitting down and the fox-girl was enjoying it, she said, "Say—you don't have work today, do ya?"
"Mmnh..nope. I've got today off," Olivia said after swallowing. "I have work some Saturdays, but not all of them."

"Mmh. Think you could go 'head and take me 'shopping' for clothes this morning, then? Maybe we could pick up some groceries on the way back, if you can afford 'em. I'm awful eager to try out some more of my new recipes, but we're in dire need of some spices and plenty of other little stuff first."
"Well...sure. I didn't really have any plans," the Kitsune admitted.

Anyway, while they were out on the town, it might be a good opportunity to play a few tricks. With Angie's help, she felt like she could do even better than usual! The wolf-girl hadn't said anything about that part, but somehow...her grin turned just slightly more mischievous for a moment as she continued to enjoy her breakfast, and Olivia felt sure she was thinking about it too.

To make the two of them a little less conspicuous, Olivia turned some of her old clothes into a t-shirt and shorts that would fit Angie and had her wear those, and hid their animal traits from everyone else outside. After they got to the outdoor mall and started walking around, she found the wolf-girl looking around them with slightly wide eyes and lowered ears.
"Anything wrong?"

Angie's ears popped upright again as she turned to face her 'master'. "Mmh, not really. Just ain't used to everything 'round me seeming so big," she said. "I didn't feel too small at home since it's such a giant place anyhow, and you're so tall—but it's dawnin' on me just how tall everyone is now."
"I can protect you!" the Kitsune said at first, half-flexing an arm. She quickly dropped it, feeling a slight blush on her face as she offered an alternative: "Or, uh, I can make you taller if you want?"

"Think I like the first one much better~," the wolf-girl said with a big grin. "Won't do me much good to pick out clothes for a different body, after all. And I wanna keep this look for at least long enough to know whether I like it or not."
"Fair enough..."

---

In the interest of transparency, I want to mention that I've been experimenting with stable diffusion (more specifically anything v3, since that's what my graphics card and level of technical expertise allows me to use for now), and the images in this story part are some of the results (which were then upscaled using waifu2x). I think images generated this way have a lot of potential for creativity (and allowed me to do something I almost certainly otherwise couldn't here), but I also don't think they can completely replace actual drawn images for my purposes here. Hands tend to be messed up, but there are a lot of other problems that arise, especially if you try to include animal ears/tails. Successful results like these tend to come about only after a lot of trial and error, or I guess if you're particularly lucky.

I feel like I should acknowledge that images generated this way are essentially weighted averages of the hard work of thousands of actual artists, which are accessible to me only because of even more hard work by even more people (programmers, etc.), so I don't feel comfortable claiming such images as something I "made"; the most I can say is that I found them. But considering that I tend to use actually-drawn images in such a way that I would never feel right charging money for anything on this site anyway, I don't feel like using these is any worse.

Anyway, I strongly suspect this won't be the last time I use generated images. I'll make a note of it whenever I do, in case anyone cares.

Aetuornos Beta 3b-1

 First / Previous / Next / Latest

---

3b-1: Intellect & Wisdom / Alchemist's Approach

Remus finally made it back to his place around an hour and a half after Marcus quit barraging him with texts, feeling a little tired but accomplished, with some fast food in his stomach. He still really wanted to play tonight to take the edge off, and it seemed like a good idea to check on his friend, too. So once he changed out of his work clothes, he went to have a look at the pods.

"Huh..." He paused leaning over Marcus's seemingly-sleeping form, wondering just how aware he was of his real-world surroundings just now. Definitely, if Remus poked him, he'd 'wake up' immediately...and probably be very annoyed. But could he hear footsteps or people talking nearby? Maybe not. What had actually given Remus pause, at least a little bit, was how long Marcus's hair was. He could've sworn he made some comment about getting a haircut back on Monday..but maybe it had just been that he planned to; knowing Marcus, it was very believable that he simply forgot.

Regardless, he'd probably been in the game for over an hour, so 'Scylla' was no doubt off having her own adventures with someone else by now. Aranthra would have to scrounge around for party members of her own...but that was just fine with Remus. Figuring out tactics for working together with a wide variety of party member types was bound to be one of the big challenges of the game, and he was looking forward to it. With no further ado, he lay down in his pod and went back into the fantasy world.

Aranthra didn't find someone in the inn when she came downstairs, so she went outside to wander around Greenleaf for a bit. After a while, she turned a corner to find Jesse sitting on the stairs in front of a miscellaneous building (an NPC's house or something), staring pensively out into the distance.

"Hey. Jesse?" She sat up and turned to face the mage.
"Oh, hey there. You're on pretty late, eh?"
"Work got away from me. Scylla's already off having her own adventures."
"Mmh. Same thing for me. Wasn't too certain I wanted to play, but...couldn't think of much else to do with myself just now. But then...I didn't see anyone else in town, and was just about ready to give up. I suppose I may just have poor luck this week—the other day I only found one person, too."

"You check if any nobles are on yet?"

She shook her head. "Haven't been off in that direction, to be honest. Thought it'd be better to at least have someone else with me first."

"Well, then...c'mon." Aranthra gestured like she was casting a spell to get the sheep-girl up onto her feet. "We can look for someone to give us a quest, then. Right?"
"..Sure."

While they walked, the mage said, "It hasn't escaped me that something, well..seems to be bothering you a bit? I may not really be able to help, of course, but I'd be happy to listen. As an anonymous stranger on the internet and all."

"Heh. Well. Let's just say I've gone through a bit of a 'life change' recently." Jesse was quiet after this for a minute or two of the walk. It didn't feel awkward, so Ara let the silence be until she seemingly continued: "Say, what is it young folk do these days, anyway? Other than video games?"
"Heh, you're asking me? I'm a nerd; games, reading, and watching stuff are what I do. Not just electronic, either—like, board games, or DND, you know? I guess if you want the opinion of someone a little more 'normal', they'd say you go to a bar and watch sports on the big, loud TVs. Find a bunch of temporary friends to hang out and get drunk with. Or maybe go to the club to dance, or something.

"...Was that any help?"
"It's good to hear your opinion, at least," Jesse said, getting a small smile that at least seemed genuine. "I'll have to think about it. Once my own job's a little less busy, anyway."
"Hah, yeah."

---

Don't screw this up.

Annabel focused herself with this exact instruction time and time again. It was like her own personal magical incantation, and it seemed to work when coffee and energy drinks only made her body jittery and her magic erratic.

Chris is a friend from high school. And, despite all probabilities, he is now well connected. Do a good job on this, and he might just point one of his super-wealthy clients at you..!

She took a deep breath, focusing on the bracelet floating lightly in the space between her hands, carefully tuning and adjusting the magic she was pushing into it. Chris hadn't specified, but she thought he might appreciate a reasonably attractive form. Plus, maybe, a small mental nudge to help with his social anxiety issues. Nothing pushing the envelope toward "forbidden mental magic", of course, but..some help feeling confident if he wanted it? That seemed reasonable enough.

She worked with the enchantment for three entire hours straight, weaving her magic carefully around until it became the object's magic, driving out all traces of wild magic and any other slight imperfections she detected as she went. More talented and practiced mages, or people who specialized in enchantments, could practically snap their fingers to get a result like what she was going for, especially with a high-quality physical component like the accessory she'd used most of Chris's first half of the payment to buy for him. But what mattered in the end, after all, was the result. Someone more practiced would also be more careless, surely, and let some side effect slip in or wind up with an enchantment that faded on the order of years instead of centuries. Annabel was determined not to make those kinds of mistakes—not to get careless or sloppy in any way whatsoever.

When it was done, she let the bracelet float gently back down into her right hand and carefully set it down on the end table next to her, her hands shaking as she let out a long sigh. "Ffffhh...okay. No need to overdo it. I can make some final adjustments tomorrow morning before I ship it out, and still be on schedule."

A couple of deep breaths later, she let out a sigh of relief. "Managed to not to burn myself out, either. But after that, my body's tired and my mind's still wide awake. Guess it's a good thing I only need the latter to play, riiight?" She turned her head to the left to address this question to the cat sleeping on the armrest of the big, comfy chair she was sitting on, who in turn paid its human's human noises no mind. It objected to her getting up with a quiet meow, but she ran a hand down from the top of its head to its back as consolation. "Thaat's right, little kitty—tonight I get to find out what it's like in your shoes! Ehh, if only a little tiny bit, anyway. Heheh."

She was stable enough to walk, so she made her way to her office, where she'd shoved a bunch of things already in piles into an even bigger pile that threatened to topple onto her desk chair, all to make room for the pod. Actually, she'd already stowed a few more things into the pod itself since then, which she quickly dug out; then she swept her hand back and forth through its inside to make sure she hadn't missed something. "I oughta look up miniaturization spells...surely there's something like that for people to more easily pack their furniture and stuff for moving, right? Or does that run the risk of creating black holes or something...?"

After lying down and hitting start, she found herself falling. "Heh...Chris would hate this," she mumbled to herself, surveying the blank surroundings. "Aah..mmnh." She felt a gentle pressure across her body as the simulated transformation began to take effect. Her body grew a bit slimmer and shorter, her hair shortening and brightening from brown to blond. Then her bust expanded at least a cup size, maybe two, which came with a...kinda nice feeling that made her let out a quiet "Aa~ah" for a second until this part of the change subsided.

Finally—at least as far as bodily alterations went—her ears began to stretch themselves up and out past her hair, and a tail slowly, steadily pushed itself out from her lower back. "Mmhh—" This felt pretty nice too, in its own weird way; the growing fur was quite sensitive, and it gave her an urge to...purr. "Mrr~rrrrh.." No one was really watching at the moment anyway, so she let it out, despite how silly she felt. It had been her own decision to look like a catgirl in this game, after all, and these were only the natural consequences.

Once her body had finished changing, her clothes followed suit, turning into a short red skirt with a rather tall belt on it, a dark cape, gloves, and tall boots—and finally, as she landed into her 'personal property', her hair tying up into some ribbons while a hat settled down atop her head. She found herself in a mid-sized, very well-kept bedroom with a big queen-sized bed, standing in front of a full-size mirror.

"Well...I kinda look more like a witch than in real life," she mumbled to herself, picking at the skirt a little, watching her ears and tail twitch around. While her head-hair was now blond, all of the feline fur was a pure, snowy white, in a direct contrast to her pet back in the real world. After a moment, she turned around to go to...her office to pick up a notebook and a few other essentials. After that, it was off to the outdoor workshop where she'd find a pile of premade items—and eventually set her 'avatar' to work on making more from the materials she gathered/auto-farmed from now on.

As nobles went, her 'home' ingame was relatively modest, but she just about mentally salivated at the idea of having this much space to use all for herself and her business. Someday, Annabel thought to herself while she went out toward the workshop, taking out her notebook and a pencil to 'bookmark' a few recipes she found particularly useful so she could swiftly craft them mid-adventure if needed. Until then, enjoy the fantasy...

"...Hmn?"

The catgirl paused with her pencil in the air, her ears twitching and turning toward the direction of some footsteps. Sure enough, there were a couple of people walking her way. She put the book and pencil away to turn her attention toward the visitors/potential party members, waving. "Hello thee~ere!"

"Looks like she heard us comin'," the tall one with the horns said.
"Hey!" the other one, a very cute, short white-haired girl called, waving back. Going by her hat and the staff she was holding..definitely some sort of mage class. The other one seemed built enough to be a warrior or something, though there was no telling which kind without a little more info.

They both ran up (although the cute mage ran out of breath pretty quickly) to greet her. "Good morning...afternoon? Evening? I guess it's a matter of perspective," the tall one said while her companion caught her breath.

"Let's say 'day', and leave it at that," Annabel said with a bright grin. "Bell, resident alchemist, at your service." Everyone used the first half of her name in real life; she thought the second half fit this catgirl look much better. "Something I can do for you two?"

"Perhaps we could help you out instead?" the mage girl suggested. "That is—we're adventurers..relatively new to the area, looking for a noble to take a job from."

"Ah, I see. Well—you're in luck, in that case!" she said with a grin. "It just so happens I was on my way to prepare some things for a little journey. If you don't mind walking while we talk?" she gestured in the direction of the shack she'd been heading towards, and started that way. It was really something else to have other people coming to her for a job! Maybe most people would think that seeing such a situation as fantastical was silly, but it made her happy, so who cared?

"No issues with that," the tall one said. "I'm Jesse, a fighter. And Ara's a mage."
"Aranthra, please," the other one objected. "Pleasure to meet you, miss Bell."
"Awwh, Ara's way cuter, though. Heheh—likewise." She made her way into the workshop, beginning to pick out items. "If you can't tell, I'm an alchemist by trade. I can heal, I can hurt, I can buff and defend—all depending on what I'm kitted out with! At least, as long as my supplies last. But what I really want to do, is craft the most powerful potion in the world, which nobody of our generation has seen: The Eternity Draught." She was half reading off of a script the game had given her, and half improvising to make it sound more interesting. "It's said that tasting one drop of this potion could give one the power of a god, if only for a brief few instants. Although...I'm really not interested in drinking it myself, mind—I only wish to prove it can be done. Maybe offer it to some great hero in a time of need, and put him and the world in my debt forevermore afterward."

"How d'you know its effect if you've never seen it?" Jesse reasonably asked.

"Legends about that potion abound in academic circles, although it's only rumors," Bell answered. "But—in a recent ruin expedition, some adventurers found a largely-intact copy of a recipe purported to have been used by alchemists in the past to make that very potion. I can fill in the details quite easily, with my level of expertise—but the real issue is the ingredients. Many of them are incredibly rare and tricky to obtain, and some don't even exist in this world at all anymore—I'll have to make those myself from yet other rare ingredients."

"I'm going to assume procuring the ingredients is where the help of others comes in," Ara said. "Everything's a part of some big monster, or at least in someplace likely to be guarded by one."
"Youu got it! And, besides paying you for the help, maaayyybe I'll put your names in the footnotes of my research paper on the subject once I'm all done," Bell joked. "Anyway—going by you two's talents, I'm emphasizing healing, but I've still got a decent variety of other stuff in case things go south. Any objections?" The truth was she had room in her special "alchemist item" inventory even after taking everything premade that was related to healing, and there was no reason to let the rest of the space stay uselessly empty.

"Seems sound to me," Aranthra said.

"Sure," Jesse added.

"Very well, very well. And—I think the three of us make a solid enough party myself, but I'll hear you if you'd like to go looking for someone else anyway?"

Aranthra made a very adorable 'thinking' expression with an index finger on her cheek for a moment, then nodded. "If you've got healing covered, Jesse can be a decent enough tank. Right?"
"Sure," the sheep-girl nodded.

"Then—I think we could kill normal monsters no problem, a not-too-strong boss with some effort. I do, however, need to stop by a religious site to meditate and reorganize my spells. If that's all right?"
"No problem~," Bell said, making her way over in front of Ara with a bright grin. Since she'd shrunk some in the process of becoming a catgirl, she was really only slightly taller than the mage, which just made her want to reach her hand across and pat her on the head even more—but she resisted. "I've got a relatively easy ingredient in mind for today—so I actually know just where to look for it already—and we can stop by a place like that along the way. It's off to the north." Along with a load of other information about 'how to be an alchemist', her mind had been filled in with some basic geographical information...there was a monastery roughly in the northwesterly direction, not too much of a detour from their intended destination. If they found a genuine healer there after all, then, well...Bell still had enough attack and support items packed to make a meaningful contribution anyway. And she could always make more with the ingredients she'd grabbed plus whatever they found on the way!

As they made their way out of town in a triangle formation with Jess at the front, the catgirl thought on how she'd been acting toward the two of them. "By the way—er, I hope you don't find my way of talking too obnoxious. I swear I'm less pompous in real life..but really wanna play up the 'expert scholar' bit, ya know?"
"Oh, no problem, I get it," Ara said.

"You thought you were acting obnoxiously?" Jesse asked. "You seem friendly enough to me."

"Well, sure, but uh—ohh, I should just stay in character, huh?"
"Do what you want," the mage said. "The whole point is to have fun, right?"
"H-heheh, yeah. Ooh! Is that what I think it is over there?"

She was pointing at—and had just noticed—a small group of what appeared to be big wildcats made entirely out of ice, stalking around a short ways off. It was like they were very detailed ice sculptures, except that they were very clearly in motion. "Ice tigers! What're they doing way down here off the mountains?" Her 'ingame mind' had some lore info about various kinds of monsters, particularly ones that could drop important or especially useful ingredients for her alchemy.

"Interesting monster type.." Jesse commented. "Doesn't seem like they've noticed us. We could probably just slip by."
"But their cores!" Bell started excitedly, gesturing both her arms outward—then calmed herself down a bit. "That is, uh, I can make some really powerful ice bombs with the cores of monsters like those. Which might in turn come in super useful! And in such a warm climate, the ice tigers won't be as strong as they normally are..plus there's only four of them!"

The sheep-girl turned to the mage. "What do you think, Aranthra?"
"Hmm. They're a little too close to town for comfort, and any proper heroes ought to chase monsters away from civilization just on principle. And we need to shake out our tactics anyway."

"All right, it's settled, then!" Bell said excitedly, feeling her tail whip around especially fast behind her. "Now, I've got a couple of fire bombs, but not very many. And heavy impact damage should just shatter 'em good, too."

"Don't worry about the fire bombs—stick with something you've got a lot of," Aranthra said, quickly taking charge of their overall strategy. "I have a fireball spell. It does explode on impact, however, so, we'll need to go for a bait-and-run strategy." She addressed this to Jesse, who nodded, starting off in the direction of the beasts.
"On it."

Jesse ran out toward the monsters, and the two of them followed a little more slowly to keep some distance. Once she was close enough, she leapt into the air, yelling with a loud "Rraah!" to get their attention, and landed fist-first into the nearest ice tiger, sending it rolling sideways three or four times before it stopped and began trying to get back onto its feet. The frigid beasts had already noticed her running up—she wasn't particularly stealthy, after all—so the three that hadn't just been punched away moved to surround her.

Jesse backed up slowly to keep them from getting behind her while allowing them to gather into a group, listening to the sound of Aranthra already chanting her fireball spell. It seemed the two of them had worked together before, as the fighter seemed to know what the end of that spell sounded like—and used that to cue her diving away to one side, giving the mage a clear view to shoot an exploding fireball into the group, knocking them all backwards. A few chunks of ice broke off of them onto the ground, and a spray of water melted rapidly off of them as they were knocked a bit backwards.

The fourth ice tiger had recovered during this time, and took the opportunity to run at Jesse while she rolled from her dive and recovered to her feet. Seeing an opportunity to be helpful, Bell took out one of her regular, impact-type bombs, and tossed it right into the monster's front as it pounced at the sheep-girl, landing a solid, center-mass hit. The bomb exploded on impact, shattering some more ice off of the beast and sending it flying back, but the explosion was small enough that Jesse didn't get caught in it.

The three monsters hit by Aranthra's fireball got up, two of them starting toward their most recent source of pain. The other one drew its head back like a snake getting ready to bite, then thrust it forward. A roughly cone-shaped icicle around the size of a fist came out at speed, its sharp point forward, aimed straight at the mage. “Yeek!” Ara quickly dove aside to dodge it, landing awkwardly on her front and dropping her staff in the process.

“Uh, sorry—didn't know they could do that!” Bell said, quickly throwing another impact-bomb at one of the two headed their way. Jesse went and intercepted the other one, punching it square in the muzzle; it recoiled, shedding more ice, and twisted itself to pounce at her, which she smoothly ducked to one side of. The impact bomb hit its mark, knocking the other ice tiger back. All of this gave the mage time to reach out and get her staff, then use it to help pick herself back up onto her feet.

By now, the ice tiger that hadn't been caught in the fireball earlier had recovered, and it was headed Bell's way. The one that had spat an icicle at Ara was also running at her. Thinking quickly through her options, the alchemist decided to use one of her less-abundant items, tossing what looked like a small, light-blue rag onto the ground in front of herself and the mage. It landed, and a curtain in a similar color, only glowing and translucent, sprouted up from the spot. It was about four yards wide and two yards tall; it fluttered as though it was hanging from an invisible bunch of hooks just above it, but when the monsters tried to run through it to get to them, they simply bashed their muzzles into it as though it was a brick wall.

“Ara—the curtain's one-way!” she said quickly, pulling out another impact-bomb and tossing it out at the one she'd hit a moment ago, just as it was getting ready to pounce at Jesse. The sheep-girl had turned around to watch the one that had pounced past her, waiting for it to try again and then ducking, grabbing it by the haunches, and judo-throwing it along with its own momentum over at the curtain, which it slammed into and bounced off, landing with its back on the ground. It seemed she'd been listening.

“..Ow.” The fighter shook her hands like she'd just handled something straight out of the oven. “Very cold.”

Aranthra had also been listening, and was already channeling another fireball spell. The three currently-upright monsters were starting to move to either side to go around the wall, so Jesse ran in from her side (Bell's left) and kicked the nearest one under the muzzle, sending it tumbling back into one she'd just thrown. Bell threw an impact bomb to the right, into the path of the other two; it landed in front of them, not quite close enough to hit, but they recoiled briefly from the noise and obvious danger.

All of this work paid off as the mage now threw out a second fireball, and this time all four ice tigers were in its area of effect. The one that had just been prone was hit directly, and it fell apart and melted from the explosion. Two of the other three also fell apart from the explosion and heat, leaving just the one that hadn't been hit by the first fireball—now on the right side of the curtain, and looking very damaged all the same, with several cracks visible throughout its body. Jesse quickly ran up, jumped, and punched down into its center mass, finishing it off and shattering it along those fractures. With that, the three of them had taken down their first set of monsters.

Aranthra exhaled as if from exertion, putting away her staff. Bell went up to the curtain, placing her hand 'on it' and closing into a fist, which resulted in it shrinking back into its original, small-item form. “Well,” the mage said, “That went pretty well overall. Putting up that barrier right away might've been a good idea, though.”
“Well, it uh—each of these only has so much 'health', and I've only got three,” Bell said, putting it back into her inventory. “I just didn't see any better options right then.”
The mage nodded. “Four monsters was just a little too much for Jesse to keep the attention of. You're just not an aggro-drawing type like Scylla.”
The sheep-girl nodded, apparently knowing who that was. “We could really use a second close-up fighter, if anything. Keep the attention away from you two.”

“Hmm..” Aranthra got an adorable 'thinking' look yet again, and again the catgirl resisted patting her on the head. “As we continue on our way, you should probably gives us a quick run-down of any non-obvious effects your other items have, such as the curtain being one-way. Just so we won't be surprised if you need to pull one out.”

“Can do~,” Bell said cheerfully.

“And—I assume you have a lot of those small-AOE impact bombs?”
Bell nodded. “They're practically my 'basic attack', you could say.”
“If you have enough to spare, throwing out two or three at a time, or tossing them rapid-fire, could be a good move. Or using one to stun an enemy and set up for one of your 'better' bombs.”
“Good idea...oh, right—are you hurt at all?” she asked Jesse, remembering her role as 'healer'.

“Hmmh.” The fighter took a moment to look at her hands. “Don't seem to be. The cold from handling that one ice tiger was enough to sting, but my hands don't look or feel hurt now.”

“Yyyyeah, I should've mentioned they're cold enough to 'burn' bare skin.”

“By the way, lest we forget..” Aranthra gestured at the melting fragments left of their recent opponents, and the small piles of items they'd left behind. “There's loot to distribute. I guess you'll want the cores, if they left any?”

“Right! I can whip up some bombs right here on the field that'll help us a whole lot with our real target,” Bell said. “I don't think I have any use for most of the rest of what they can drop. Oh, but if you find any frigid furs, those can help make some great heat-resistant armor later on.”

Jesse had actually gone over to sort through the loot instead of just continuing to point at and talk about it. “Looks like mostly fangs and claws made of ice. This a core?” she held up a bright blue sphere.

“Yes!” Bell hurried over to get it.

“We got a second one, too.”

“Perfect~!”