Becoming Monsters 1: Ch. 30

"Say ah, Goldilocks, the porridge is just right." Honoka put her finger in, holding her breath until she cheered at the blue box letting her know that Miaka was collected. Without wasting a second, the Ymirian found the right allocation menu open and immediately she put Eve's regeneration to work with twenty-five free points of Health on top of that.

Miaka's reaction was immediate, her whole body trembling. Even as the women watched, flesh slowly formed and closed around the wounds. The owl woman was hours away from being stable, but her injuries might no longer be fatal and Honoka slumped when she realized her mad plan was working.

"Alright, still have things to do," Honoka said, straightening and bringing the bowl to Quinn and Dolly. "I know this is gross and insensitive to what you've been through, but this is literally the least offensive or invasive way to get this done. What do you say, are you in or out?"

Dolly stared at the bowl as if it was filled with spiders, but after a couple of quick breaths, the girl tugged on her chains and hung her head. "If Quinn wasn't here telling me otherwise, I'd say you were just as bad as the people raping me. I don't like this but I don't see an alternative. That said, thank you for saving me. I don't know you but I know Quinn. Let's do this before I lose my nerve." The cheetaur's voice was deep and rough, with not nearly as thick a Southern accent as Quinn.

The otter beastkin did the honors this time and dabbed only the tiniest sliver of spunk on the tip of her claw, flicking it along Dolly's tongue. When the tongue got inside her mouth, another blue box appeared and they were in business.

"Quinn, I'm going to allocate Dolly out of those chains. I need you to burn my girlchowder with fire: no telling what these guildies will do with it if they find out what it is." Honoka already pulled up the right menu to allocation. "Then strip because I wouldn't feel right allocating myself; you get to become double furry in a second."

Bless her heart, Quinn did precisely as ordered. The lovely beastkin used one hand to burn the bowl in the corner of slime with black brimstone while the other wiggled out of her shorts, belt and panties. Honoka didn't waste any time and moved the allocation slider to 100%.

Trying to make sure nothing went wrong, Honoka focused on Dolly. It seemed like this crazy idea might work as the rear legs collapsed in on themselves and sucked into the large cat body, moving further and further in until the front paws shifted to half their size and formed into feet. There was almost a problem for a moment, the cheetaur still chained to the floor and hanging from her arms. Her shrinking body stretched, but then her hands shrunk enough to slip loose. With a tumble, a tan, stacked and toned teenager fell into the waiting arms of Honoka, who eased Dolly's feet out of the rings and guided her onto the straw. She possessed brown hair and green eyes as a human, her features a bit rounded and soft. If Quinn in human form was the head cheerleader, this girl was a debutante who spent a lot of time doing free weights at the beach.

"Whoa, extra pair of legs, extra pair of legs!"

Quinn grew wide-eyed and scared, the hybrid mix making her appear like a giant version of herself but stretched out behind with the quadruped body, only with the body lower to the ground and thicker, stubby legs. Her black fur gained yellow spots and her thick tail grew twice as long. She couldn't entirely control everything and was about to fall when Banda reached out a hand and steadied her balance. Quinn forgot about the size difference, her bikini bra torn off breasts that seemed about the same size as Banda's, wobbling orbs hypnotic and looking juicy enough to eat.

"I'm human," Dolly said on the straw, studying over herself in wonder. Glancing at the struggling Quinn, she giggled and got up to pet the soft black fur. "Maybe we can work something out...later."

"Got it. Can you two stay comfortable for a moment?" Honoka reached into her belt to grab her only mana potion, chugging the bitter taste and worried when her stomach rebelled. "Pad, how we doing?"

"Um...they've stopped. They're also demanding Honoka see their boss."

This wasn't part of the plan. The plan was for Padmava to acid through the ceiling and break into one of the cells above, then burrow sideways to make it back to the exit hallway or keep going up until they located a better position. Quinn would take the last mana potion in the fanny-pack and cover their tracks with Infernal flames and exploding bugs to distract the people here. It sounded like something that would only work in a bad heist movie, but considering all their other options, it wasn't like Honoka had anything better. Now that Miaka was collected, might even be able to keep going until they hit the roof and then everyone would fly over the magma lake. But Honoka needed a loud and distracted force; an alert group of guards wasn't going to let them escape.

Huddling down next to ottertaur Quinn, Banda, human Dolly and Miaka, Honoka attempted to sit but instead collapsed when her injured leg insisted she rest for a moment. Wincing, she tried to radiate confidence.

"New plan."

********************

When the barrier dropped, Honoka found herself the center of attention. Between fifty and sixty human men and women pointed various forms of death at her, modern and magical. The guards they faced earlier were likely bottom feeders, lowest level possible doing grunt work, literally caught with their pants down. These were older and far more deadly looking. In front of them stood an aging Latino with silver in his hair and a gun and sword at his hip, his arms at parade rest.

"Honoka Jefferson?" he asked, his voice a bit gravely but with the kind of air that expected orders to be followed.

"Dick Face?" Honoka replied, nodding towards the older man and trying her best to imitate the confident tone.

He smiled slightly, looking at her and the closed door behind her. "Would you ask your friends to join us?"

"In a bit, there are some things to discuss first." Hefting both shields she borrowed from Padmava, Honoka tipped them downward and placed her hands over them as if preparing to activate both. "I take it you have some living witnesses who saw what these puppies can do?"

A few of the guards flinched, one girl looked like she was about to fling the blue fireball in her hand at Honoka. With only a look, Dick Face got his people under control. "You can't kill us all, they have a narrow attack vector."

"Which is why I'm pointing them at the floor with an angle."

Gotta give Dick Face credit, his eyebrows rose and he quickly held up a hand to signal his people to back up and lower their weapons. "You intend to hit the foundation, maybe punch a hole directly into the lake. As we are currently under the magma level, we'd be flooded. The molten metal contains zero silica in the mix, its flow rate is similar to water. No one here would survive, including you and your friends."

"I don't know if you've done your homework, but I'm not mentally stable. I've already survived multiple suicide attempts. Mutually assured destruction is just one step up from there."

"What do you want?"

"To never known anything about you or have anyone I know or knew affected by your brand of evil, but I'm willing to negotiate. Ben Franklin once said that for any compromise to work, both sides must lose. I have the impression your boss wants me alive for some reason. Whatever. You can either let my family go, allow me to confirm they left unharmed and get me in the bargain, or we all die together, right here, right now."

The standoff went silent, Dick Face contemplating the options. He must not relish the deal because he looked like he ate a lemon when he nodded and told his people to stand down.

"Lollipop!" Honoka said, not moving from her position, though her eyes twitched from the constant headache at this point. Behind her, the door opened and Banda came out holding Miaka, the Japanese owl looking better than twenty minutes ago but she still had a protracted road to recovery. The rest of the group followed, the long body of a naga the last, holding a weak Aruna in her arms.

Honoka kept one shield pointed in the same angle but shifted her weight to hand one over to Quinn. "These things are loud, any funny business and one going off means two holes flooding this place from opposite sides."

"Understood." Flicking his head, Señor Face got the attention of one of his people. "Sanders, take most of the men and guide them out, then radio me. Afterward, supplement the rest of the guard posts in case of a second attack."

A guy with a gun, Sanders, saluted and gathered forty of the guards to encircle the girls - overkill, but these girls did just kill half their guild - leading Honoka's family away. Those women looked back, hesitating, but they also trusted their wife. The last Honoka saw of them was before the rest of the soldiers closed ranks. Honoka hefted her shield as they marched in the opposite direction.

"Not going to take away my weapons?" Honoka asked, feeling silence might be a mistake. She needed information. She still limped, but a quick bandage from earlier helped her move at a slow but measured pace.

"Do you want me to?" Honoka shook her head. The man continued to talk as they walked. "The hard part is over, your family was never the objective. And once you see the Boss, you'll realize how much your weapons won't matter."

That was disconcerting, Honoka bowing her head while they walked in silence for a bit. "Any reason he wants to see me, specifically?"

Dick Face studied Honoka oddly for a few seconds, then he let out a genuine chuckle. "I don't believe it, you don't know you're a Herald. Haha!" They continued to walk as if this was a casual stroll. "I guess I won't ruin it for the Boss, but yes, he wants to see you very much."

More information, but also many more questions. Honoka couldn't work out the information she needed and they went back to silence while she thought through her next attack. "This place is huge, any idea when we'll arrive?"

"The throne room isn't far. I wouldn't rush this if I were you."

At least twenty minutes of silence as they walked the bony structured halls. Any other day, Honoka would have marveled at the detail in the gothic style architecture, but she was a woman on a mission. She had a plan, sorta. The quiet eventually ended when a dozen skeletons shambled their direction. In the middle of them, a tall woman wearing robes and a golden mask imperially strode forward.

"Not this again," Dick Face muttered almost too low for Honoka to catch.

"I will not be forced to do this thing you ask, Cortez," the woman behind the mask said, her voice hollow and lifeless but filled with the tone of an aristocrat. "A slave I might be to your Contract, but even you cannot force me to murder helpless captives and harvest their bodies for your horde. I will not do it. You might as well kill me."

"Finally growing a backbone, Baroness?" Dick said as he pulled out his gun and toyed with it, causing the woman to flinch. "Little late, considering how many people you've already killed."

"Never once!" the woman screamed, her skeletons behind her rattling their teeth in agitation. "Never once have I killed without being attacked first!"

"Your hypocrisy is unending, but I don't care. I'll deal with you when I'm done here." And he just walked forward, directly towards the woman and her skeletons. A force took hold of them all, parting them like water flowing around the keel of a boat, none of them touching a hair on the man's head. They likewise moved away from the soldiers that surrounded Honoka and the group again marched on their way, leaving the masked woman to beat her fists against a wall.

A few hundred feet more and Honoka spoke up again, desperate to uncover information. "That is how you make the undead? You have someone under a Binding Contract?"

"The Lich is useful but irritating, though it looks like I'll need to utilize a heavier hand to keep her in line. However, you shouldn't be worrying about her; we've arrived."

The aperture before the group loomed daunting, a great maw leading into the darkness. The first of many magnificently detailed statues, each over twenty feet (6 m) tall, showed various Races in poses of agony. As the light eventually got swallowed by the black, for all Honoka knew this chamber continued into Lovecraftian insanity forever.

Honoka decided sass was her only defense. "You need a guy with an organ over here. Every time someone sees the hallway, he'd hit a diminished chord and cackle madly."

One of the guards chuckled, but Cortez silenced his man with a withering look. Apparently, the time for talking was over and Honoka felt a gun barrel in her back, urging her to move forward.