Monster Girl World Ch. 08

Chapter 8-Tanya the Terrible

The Ledian Institute of Magical Research was a well-known prestigious university and lab located in Cetra, Teutlandt. Here, humans and monsters all over the country come together to work on researching the practical uses of magic and magitech in every day society. Many individuals had made their name here having invented some new spell or created a new form of prosthetic for war veterans with severe injuries. The scientists and other intelligent knowledge seekers were known as magic technicians, and their goal was to ensure that the average person's life could be enhanced and preserved through the use of the natural forces that gave rise to magic.

To a common student of the institute, it's not odd to see the typical braniac who's obsessed with their work, trying to find the last equation to a formula that's theoretical at best, worthless at worst. The cocky bastards who think they're top dog because they created a new form of clean energy that requires a crystal the size of the freaking Taj Mahal. That arrogant vampire bitch who thinks that just because she discovered how to create ball lightning and turned it into a portable energy source. But there is a level beyond the obsessive theoreticians, the overachievers no one invites to parties and the egotistical assholes. That level is the Tanya level, occupied by one young woman, Tanya Braun.

Tanya was a gremlin who started working at the institute the previous year and she had quickly made a name for herself among her peers. She was a short woman, typical of her species, with long blonde hair tied into a high ponytail most of the time and big blue eyes that shined with determination. Her furry ears poked up from the top of her head and were always twitching from the loud noises of her office and lab. You would never see her without her green jumpsuit and goggles, even outside the lab.

Tanya had discovered a variety of breakthroughs throughout her career at the institute. Discovering that Dryads could just store nutrients into the roots on their legs and separate from trees to traverse as humans do, inventing a vaccine to prevent infection from matango spores, writing a book on creative insults to say to a vampire, creating a magical jewel for giants to change their size at will, creating a magitech wheelchair for sea monsters to use to move on land, those were just a few of the accomplishments she has under her belt.

The only downside to her is that she had a rather bad temper, a potty mouth, short patience for people who don't immediately get her vision, and her mean streak. Tanya also had a domineering attitude that rubbed people the wrong way and was more akin to a despotic queen than a dedicated scientist. For this reason, she earned herself the title, the Dictator. Not many magic technicians would like being called a dictator, but someone like Tanya would probably wear the moniker with pride.

However, for all her achievements, all her awards and expertise in the nature of humans and monsters, there was one thing Tanya could never truly understand, and it drove her mad with frustration. And a frustrated Tanya was a dangerous Tanya.

"Viktoria!"

Tanya's angry shout rang through her cluttered office as the gremlin trudged through it to reach her lab in the other room. Because of her extensive work and often chaotic experiments, Tanya was allowed to use the institute's attic as both her lab and office, due to the room it provided. It was convenient, as the woman had tons of books, papers, equipment and type writers (don't ask why she has multiple type writers, but some think it's because she breaks them in her typical rages).

Back to the young woman in question, Tanya was marching toward her lab in her usual get up, a cup of coffee in one hand and a clipboard in the other. She was calling for her assistant who was also a student at the institute.

"Viktoria, I swear, if you're using the tesla coils to power that fucking cotton candy machine..."

"I'm here, I'm here!" A well-endowed wurm burst through the door-as in actually burst, the door's in splinters now-and slithered over to Tanya with a large stack of papers in her hand. "Sorry, Professor, I got distracted counting the beakers again. They all look the same, it's hard to keep track."

Tanya felt her eyebrow twitch and reigned her already razor thin temper in. Viktoria Romanova was an odd student at the magical institute...in that she was from a species who were barely smarter than a newborn slime.

Viktoria was a wurm with a round cherub face, auburn hair and hazel brown eyes with red scaled claws for hands, scales around her ears and jawline, and a long, muscled red scaled serpentine lower half. The white lab coat she wore barely stayed buttoned around her large chest, and the fabric visibly strained every time she did a movement.

Now, you might be wondering why a wurm, a monster known for being simple minded and having an interest in nothing but sex, would be working at a high class magical institute as a gremlin's assistant. The answer to that mysterious universal question is that Viktoria...is an enigma. She originally worked as a janitor while her boyfriend attended as a student to one of the second year classes, but by chance Tanya had caught the girl messing around with one of her equations for a potion that would've allowed a mermaid to grow two legs for a limited time.

Now, Tanya didn't like anyone messing with her hard work, permission or not, and she would've skinned Viktoria on the spot and turned her into a pair of expensive boots, until she saw what the girl had done. Viktoria had solved a dead end she was having with the equation she was working on by just switching two numbers around and fixed the problem that had her stuck for a week. A simple answer that Tanya hadn't even thought of.

To make sure this wasn't some fluke, Tanya had Viktoria look at a few more equations she had on the backburner and to her surprise, the girl had solved them easily using the simplest answers one could think up. Of course, this was only when Viktoria herself was thinking about these things, and not when given a task to complete on her own. The bitch even suggested using copper for the tesla coils instead of any other kind of metal! It was genius!

And so Tanya snatched up the wurm and made the big dragon girl into her unofficial assistant, having her look over mathematical equations, formulas, and other problems that left her stumped to get her simple-minded input on how to solve them. Viktoria had made a name for herself in Tanya's lab, but the girl was still a wurm, and wurm's were known for being forces of nature when it came to basically everything, including sex.

"Where the hell were you? You know you're not supposed to be in my lab when I'm not within eye sight of you." Tanya growled.

"You said that? I thought you meant your office?" Viktoria blinked cutely.

"I said my office and lab. I fucking wrote it down on three chalkboards!" Tanya yelled.

"Oh, that's what those were. I thought those were formulas you were having problems with. No wonder I couldn't solve them!" The wurm giggled and bopped herself on the head. "Silly me!"

"Nyx give me strength..." Tanya ran a hand down her face and took a deep breath. "Look, did you clean the beakers and test tubes when you got here?"

"Yes."

"Did you make sure the floors and windows were clean?"

"Yup!"

"Did you clean the generators and make sure they were plugged in?"

"Already done!"

"Did you turn off the tesla coils after using them to power your cotton candy machine?"

"Yeah!" Viktoria blinked before Tanya's words finally registered. "Wait, what?"

A metal tray slammed into her face, courtesy of a well-practiced throw from Tanya that made the wurm clutch her nose painfully.

"Ow! Why did you do that, Ms. Braun?"

"I told you to stop using my lab equipment to power that stupid fucking cotton candy machine. The same cotton candy machine I told you to get rid of!" Tanya snarled.

"But it makes great cotton candy!" Viktoria whined and held a stick of the fluffy pink treat out to Tanya (where she pulled it from, Tanya would never know). "See, I even made one for you."

Tanya's teeth was audibly gnashing together in agitation at this point. She just got out of listening to the constant gripes of that annoying virgin Minerva (owl mage) who worked down in the admissions office, and then had to deal with that arrogant vampire bitch Drusilla who lorded her massive fun bags over Tanya every chance she got. Add in having to deal with that moronic Baphomet in the magitech department, and her morning was already shitty. She really didn't need Viktoria's bullshit this morning either.

"Professor Braun?"

Tanya's body seized up and she went ramrod straight as she slowly turned around to address her visitor. "Hello, Professor Quincy."

Professor Damian Quincy was another popular magic technician at the institute who was rather well-acquainted with the ladies, human and monster, whom he worked with. He was the tall, dark, and handsome man that noble ladies and middle class wives would fantasize about, with long black hair tied back in a long ponytail, piercing storm gray eyes, and a slender build that showed that he regularly exercised (an unspoken requirement when dealing with monsters, even on a professional level).

Damian was a technician who specialized in discovering new ways for the use of magitech. Having worked as a professor just two years before Tanya arrived, he was the top dog of his own division, devising ways to mine ore, oil, and create energy without damaging the environment. This stemmed from his own upbringing in a land where the elementals were a very prominent and powerful part of his home's lifestyle.

Tanya didn't really know him that well on a personal level, but on a professional level, she was well-aware of how famous he was for devising sustainable sources of energy, as well as magitech machines that could help people with physical disabilities. She also knew that he was somehow still single despite having nearly every monster egghead on campus clamoring for his cranium and his cock. Not even Drusilla the Vampire Bitch could seduce him. In fact, it seemed that the only woman Damien wanted to know more about was Tanya the Dictator herself.

"I see you're having a rough morning." Damien smiled down at the blushing gremlin.

"You could say that." Tanya said, glaring at Viktoria.

"Don't be too hard on her. She's just trying to do her best to please you." He held up two drinks for them. "Here's some pink lemonade for you, Viktoria."

"Thank you!" The girl smiled and took the glass of the sweet drink from him.

"And here's your cup of black coffee. I made it myself, since I know you're picky about how it's made."

"T-Thanks." Tanya cursed her red cheeks as she took the cup from him. Damn it, the bastard even knew how she liked her morning coffee!

"So, Professor, I hear that you're leaving for the Lagrange demon realm this afternoon." Damien said after taking a few minutes to watch the blonde gremlin slowly simmer down as coffee filled her little body. "What could you possibly want to do in that place?"

"I don't think that's any of your business, Professor Quincy." Tanya huffed cutely, making him chuckle.

"You're right, I'm sorry for asking. Don't want to spoil the surprise, after all." Damien said. "Say, would you like to go out for a drink tomorrow during lunch?"

Tanya nearly spat out her coffee at the question. Was he asking her out? "A drink?"

"Yes. I know you don't usually go out for lunch, but I was wondering that we can just spend some time outside and talk about...work?" He actually looked sheepish when he said that and even Viktoria was surprised at this.

"Um...I'll see if I'm open tomorrow...but don't get your hopes up!" She added, trying to maintain her image.

"Great! I'll leave you two ladies to your work. Have a nice day, Professor Braun."

Tanya just gave a shaky nod as the man left her office, allowing her to let out a breath of relief. Beside her, Viktoria gave a loud squeal and snatched up the gremlin into a hug.

"Professor, did he ask you out on a-"

"Don't fucking say it!" Tanya growled into the wurm's cleavage. "And let go of me!"

Yes, Tanya Braun was a highly intelligent scientist and magic technician, and she had solved many issues plaguing both humans and monsters in her strive to test the limits of science and magic. For all her achievements, however, there was one thing that eluded her sharp mind.

Love.

Tanya Braun, for the first time in her life, found herself in love with a man...and she hated it.

XXXXXX

Growing up, it became clear that Tanya was not like other girls, or even like other monsters. She had a one track mind when wanting something done, and strangely enough she wasn't all that interested in men or romance in general. Even monsters with single-minded obsessions in certain hobbies like lizardmen and hakutaku always had sex on their minds in some form. But Tanya cared only about one thing-her work.

It puzzled her mother and two sisters, of which she was the youngest, but Tanya didn't know what the problem was. She just wasn't up for things like romance and guys. All she cared about was making the next big discovery and solving another mystery that hadn't been solved in centuries. She took solace in science and magic, for they described odd natural phenomena in ways that couldn't be comprehended by the mortal mind. Love was too much of an enigma for her to really feel comfortable with, and she resolved to stay away from anything concerning it.

Tanya liked to explain how the natural world worked, and use those same rules to control it. Love was too random, too unpredictable to really understand or explain. Her teacher, Ms. Fritz (bless her soul), a Minerva, had taught her that love was one of those things that even magic couldn't fully imitate. It was an emotion that could make or break empires, unite or shatter families and warm even the coldest hearts. Still, having never experienced romance before, Tanya couldn't really get it at all.

Which was why she was so nervous around Professor Damien. He made her feel warm inside, made her feel like those stupid giggly centaur teenagers that pranced about talking about handsome princes. He was surrounded by hundreds of monsters every day, many a hundred times nicer than her, and yet he seemed to like hanging around her like they were old friends. He respected her skills, her determination, treated her like an equal, and he always seemed to enjoy watching her work, smiling that stupidly cute smile of his.

Yes, now she was calling his smile cute! What profound curse has fallen upon her?!

She needed to know what ailment or affliction had hit her in order to find the answer to this frustrating riddle. Perhaps if she concocted a potion of some kind she could see if that man had cursed her or something. Or if she was sick with a wasting disease of the mind. There was no conceivable way she could be in love!

Which was why she took an airship flight to the dense forests of Cascada north of Cetra, where a portal leading to an abandoned monster realm resided. It was a rarely traveled place created from the mingling energies of a dark matter and a Baphomet for reasons Tanya didn't know or care.

Monster realms were separate dimensions created by powerful monsters or born of massive amounts of demonic energy coming together that were connected to Eos through portals that were left in certain locations in the regions they were created. There is no tangible portal to speak of, but there are spatial distortions that are near undetectable to even the most magically adept humans. Only monsters can sense the difference in atmosphere, and for unwary humans waltzing into a monster realm unawares, they rarely notice what's changed until its too late.

Tanya and Viktoria entered the monster realm with little fanfare and entered a forest of blue and green colored trees that glowed like lanterns under a dark gray sky. Viktoria sighed a bit at the feel of demonic energy washing over her, but Tanya continued on without a care.

"This isn't a sightseeing trip, Viktoria, pay attention!" Tanya said, marching through the luminous forest.

"Sorry, Ms. Braun!" Viktoria quickly slithered after her boss, hefting the large carrier on her back. "What are we looking for, again?"

Deciding not to scold Viktoria for forgetting the list she claimed to have memorized before they left, Tanya decided to humor her. "We're here for a couple of ingredients to make a clear-mind potion, and no, you can't know what it's for."

"Drat." The wurm pouted.

"I'll go ahead and find the ingredients. You stay here and don't move a damn muscle until I get back, okay?" She ordered.

"Yes, Ms. Braun." Viktoria nodded and started setting up camp. She knew they were going to be here a while.

Tanya knew that it would be faster if they both looked, but she didn't want Viktoria coming to her every five seconds with the wrong ingredient, or completely missing the one's she actually needed. Better to just have her hang back and out of trouble.

XXXXXX

No matter what type of monster realm it is, they all shared the common trait of being infused with demonic energy. The plants the air, the water, even the soil. Tanya's planned potion needed was just a couple of things common in a monster realm.

Finding the water took literally two minutes as Tanya walked over to the nearest stream and scooped up a vial of glowing pink water that was blessed with the magical power of an undine. Tanya was thankful for not running into one, elementals were so annoying to talk to, seeing as they rarely conversed verbally.

The next thing on her list were a couple of herbs that could be used to brew herbal water, something to add a bit of flavor and infuse the potion with potent demonic energy to give it more kick. They were commonly found near trees, grown from the enriched soil that was more fertile than the grandest farms in central Europa.

The third and last ingredient was the hardest to find-an Ebon Rose. They were a special type of flower that was rarely found in most populated monster realms. Ebon roses were formed from pure demonic energy, a rose that looked like it was made from ruby and said to be the physical incarnation of love itself. Tanya hardly paid attention to the fanciful rumors of the rose's properties, but she knew that it held a special power that could determine what love sickness was screwing with her mind.

It took her a good thirty minutes looking for that dam flower. With this monster realm being relatively uninhabited, finding plants that were often farmed or harvested was a lot easier, but ebon roses weren't the easiest plants to find.

'Come on, where is it?' Tanya glanced at her little device she created just for his purpose. A dowsing device that tracks specific wavelengths of energy, spirit, demonic or completely uncommon. Her device had led her deeper into the forest, a bit farther from the portal than she would have liked, given that this monster realm was largely unexplored and unmapped. 'I don't want to stay here any longer than I'd have to.'

Thankfully, her locator led her into a small group of trees near a sparkling lake where she saw her target at the foot of a large tree. It was a rose, but its petals were crystalline and red, as if they were made of ruby, and it emitted a soft glow that lit up its little alcove in the dark forest. It looked beautiful, and upon seeing it for the first time, Tanya now knew why it inspired such awe and wonder.

"That's a damn good looking flower." Tanya muttered, then she grinned wickedly and brandished a pair of cutters. "Time to cut it up for science!"