Challenge 2, Part 4: Some Head to War

Mattie

Matilda tries her best to ignore the overwhelming presence of this so-called goddess, and not just because she hasn’t had a satisfying sexual encounter since well before being kidnapped by that Nogitsune. This realm is fascinating. How to the trees grow here without sunlight? How to the rocks glow without emitting heat? Why is this place so comfortably warm? I’d take my boots off if I wasn’t worried about stepping on some critter with my bare feet and get some sickness there’d be no cure for. I mean, the simple answer to all of that is probably magic; but the details, surely the details would add so much more.

“As interesting as your musings about how this realm could work are, Ms. McMatterson, we do has business to attend to. The results are in. A question: would you prefer to forget my true nature or just be unable to say it?”

Matilda’s eyes narrow. “Why?”

“Rules of the vile game. Contestants are not supposed to know who their season’s producer is.”

“So, your audience has decided to throw me in the arms of this Mistress, eh?”

“As I said, you will be happy to see her, to be with her, once you recognize who she is to you. It’s almost time for you to impress her. I’ll trade you your pokey-stick for this.”

What looks kind of like a toy sniper rifle appears at Matilda’s feet. Her shiv disappears. Matilda shoulders the rifle. Heavier than it looks.

“I know you just got through a challenge, but your first act in the harem is to participate in theirs. A brief primer in what you need to do.” The so-called goddess reaches out and touches Matilda in the forehead. A surge of knowledge bombards her, summarizing the use of the rifle and the goal of the challenge.

“When you say 100% accurate, do you mean it? Like, if I wish, I could shoot off a single eyelash and leave everything else completely intact?”

“I suppose so, but, to my recollection, no one has actually tried such a feat. Why do you ask?”

“Oh, you’ll find out. I’ll impress this Mistress and I’ll keep your secret so long as you don’t screw me. If you do, mutually assured destruction. The best way to develop trust where there is none, don’t you agree?”

The goddess giggles again, “I like your brazenness. Fine. Happy hunting, my little soldier girl.”

Aelene

Aelene finds herself in a reverie, but in a place she has never seen before. This is odd. Normally, the reverie is a time to commune with one’s ancestors, to absorb their wisdom. This reverie is a dark forest, barren of life. No squirrels, no birds, no cute little bunnies. Just an uneasy quiet. It’s almost as if, wherever I am, it’s artificial. Elvenoid made.

“Welcome, Princess Aelene. You are safe here.”

Aelene releases some tension she didn’t even knew she was holding onto. She looks down. She’s naked, unarmed. Her basically flat breasts bared. Her many battle scars exposed for whoever spoke to see.

“No need to hide yourself, Princess. You are quite beautiful.”

“I’m no Princess, whoever you are. I’m a weapon. A tool to be wielded by a just Queen. Nothing more. And I’m certainly not beautiful.”

“You call me a liar, little cousin?”

Now, I certainly know all of my cousins. All 2 of them. Neither of them sound this melodious. Aelene turns around and sees a goddess. Not one of hers, one of the drow’s. The one good goddess of the drow.

“Forgive me, dear lady. I did not mean to insult.”

The goddess giggles. “If I am not a liar, tell me true. Introduce yourself.”

“I am Aelenetheria, Knight-Commander of Nimlith Grove, elder daughter of Kaelisterie, 47th Queen of the Copse-Wood Throne. Did I die a coward’s ****? In my reverie?”

“You still live. Is that as much truth as I can get out of you for now? I’m here to make an offer. A chance of a lifetime. A chance to make those stories you read come true. A chance to be that lovely noblewoman that meets and falls in love with the beautiful heroine from another world sent to save your land. We’re just doing it in a different order than you’d expect.”

“Um... a different order?”

“Yes. First the beautiful heroine meets most of the lovely ladies, forming a harem. Then, she breaks the, how did you phrase it, chains of limited potential. Then, she meets the talented noblewoman, that’s you. After that, they slay the Demon Queen. Finally, she arrives in your world.”

“As much as I would like to enjoy the oddly paced fantasy, dear lady, I cannot. The reality is that my people are in danger and I must lead our defense.”

“What if I gave you a tool to ensure your people are protected while you are away?”

Mattie

Matilda is crouched behind her safehouse desk. The cult managed to breech the safehouse’s outer perimeter and damaged the anti-dimensional breach equipment. That’s what let the Nogitsune bastard snag her for his sick fucking game. That’s what let her back, armed with this silly rifle so she can play a different one. Hopefully, she can turn this game into something that will save at least some of her men. A cultist breaches the analysis room in the safehouse. Matilda can smell the rank odor radiating off of what was once a man, now merely an extension of Gorglonoth, the Hive Graft. A relatively minor minion of the “big guy” the planet is used to imprison, but a minion trying to break out it’s boss none-the-less. The Hive Graft’s shtick is to convince the weak willed to offer their bodies to house parts of it. When they take the first graft, they become living extensions of it’s will, mindless destroyers of all that is good. They don’t feel sorrow. They don’t feel pain. They only feel the urge to make more of themselves grafted parts. And one of them is crushing the skull of Kozlowski. Mattie grabs her Sig Sauer M18, her Mark II Combat Knife, and her favorite civilian gun (a Taurus Judge revolver she nicknamed Dredd, prepped with a full cylinder of self-defense .410 shotgun shells). Stuffing both pistols into her belt, she grips the knife as she sneaks up on the cultist. With a single well-placed stab to the base of the spinal cord, the cultist drops. Not fast enough to save him. Gotta get going. Gotta set up my shot. Gotta make it count.

Aelene

Aelene feels surprisingly refreshed after falling into reverie in the uncomfortable command center chair. This thing the goddess called a rifle is perched on the chair beside her. She explained how it works with a tinge of intense disgust in her voice, so, even though she has never seen such a weapon before, she understands how it works, more or less. It’s like a streamlined heavy crossbow. Not her favorite type of weapon. She’s trained for strength, not accuracy.

Even with the singular shot, she’s not quite sure what to do with it. If this rifle thing had hundreds of shots, she could simply hand it off to one of her best archers and watch her rain terror down on the gnoll horde, turning them into whatever most amused her. A single shot won’t do much to tens of thousands of them.

“Ma’am, another squadron of those elf-eating hyenas on the ramparts!”

Pocketing the rifle in her inventory, she sallies forth. She needs time to think. What better time to do that than when you risk your life to slay a few of the foe?

Mattie

Mattie stalks the halls, looking for the best way to target what she actually wants to hit. The system will definitely let her hit one of the cultist, but she needs pinpoint accuracy. She needs a bigger target. Ok, find the boss, the one with the most grafted on. Hopefully that will get me a big enough piece to hit?

Another cultist bursts in, this time through a boarded up window. It lunges at her, knocking the captain to the floor. She feels a couple of snaps as the ground hits back hard. It squeezes down on her neck, only to get a point blank shot to the face with Dredd. Gotta love that self-defense ammo. Not standard issue, but it can mess an unarmored target up real bad. The way those discs tumble through someone...

She slowly, unsteadily gets back on her feet. Wind knocked out of you. A couple of bruised ribs. Walk it off.

Aelene

3 of the 5 soldiers that Aelene assisted in stopping the gnolls actually survived. One of them looks ecstatic as she finally earned enough XP to hit Level 2. The gnolls will win due to this being a battle of attrition. Our soldiers are few, theirs are overwhelming. They can lose 10 soldiers for every one we lose and still be ahead. We need a way to kill them without risking the life of our soldiers.

The beginnings of a plan starts to form. Not a full plan yet, just the beginnings of one. She lifts one of the fallen to help this patrol report in. At least these two will get a proper burial. A luxury in this siege.

The sergeant is surprised to see Aelene carry a fallen soldier to her. “Knight-Commander, did this lot fuck up?”

“No, sergeant. They fought admirably. I wish to help honor the fallen. Can you do me a favor? Gather the grievously injured, the elderly without family, and those with more bravery than most. I think I have a plan to stop the gnolls for good. It will be a suicide mission of a sort, but it should save the gate. Send a runner for me when you are done.”

The sergeant gives her commander an odd look. “Aye, ma’am. Will do.”

Mattie

So many of them.

Mattie found her way to the roof. A sniper’s nest. The sniper in question already crumpled on the ground below. Not her specialty (that would be small arms and field analysis), but she’s done enough rifle range time to make a shot at this distance, especially given the magic of the scope. Still, she hesitates.

All of my men are dead. Every last one I found. Dead. We were completely overwhelmed. Satellite intel vastly underestimated how bad this cell got. If I don’t stop them now, they may be able to get enough of Gorglonoth grafted onto humans to reestablish the weave. Wake up the big guy. I have one shot. One shot to delay the inevitable one more time. Gotta make it count.

She looks down the sights. Searching for the perfect target. Hoping she finds it before she gets caught.

Aelene

After another couple of sorties with the enemy, Aelene reaches the field hospital, being told that her potential volunteers have gathered there. A what a ragtag group of potential volunteers they are. Several non-commissioned officers that look ready to retire, a few spry young recruits barely out of basic. Most of them gravely injured: missing limbs, eyes, one missing a lower jaw. Aelene is starting to regret who she asked for.

“Knight-Commander, you said you have a plan?”

“By divine intervention, I have been given access to one instance of an extremely powerful spell. While I am not a caster, I guess it is of 9th level? I wish to use this spell to permanently shore up the defenses of the gate. I need volunteers to cast the spell upon. Please be aware, if you volunteer, you will be permanently stationed here. You will not have home or hearth. You will not have love or family. You will only have duty here. It is a hard ask. So, who wishes to sacrifice much to save many?”

The jawless luchtoni private raises her hand, then scratches something down. Her handwriting is appalling and her grammar bad, but the sentiment of the note is appreciated. She knows that she will die soon, as there is not a healer in the entire Queendom that can restore a missing jaw; not much of a sacrifice to offer her life at this point.

Another luchtoni private, this one a male missing both legs, asks, “What good could I be?”

“I need souls, that’s all. You limbs will be restored by the spell.”

“Fuck it. No bitch wants a cripple. I’m in.”

After several minutes, she has no more volunteers. Two is not enough.

A rare hoppalong soldier that was barely paying attention (having to devote time to masturbating while lacking an arm) shows his competence with a rather insightful question, “May we see this spell? By whose intervention did you receive it?”

Aelene summons the rifle thing from her inventory. “The spell is in the form of a projectile in this strange weapon.” That gets attention from some of the other potential recruits. Aelene is bombarded with questions about the gun, which she attempts to answer. A few more volunteer, mostly from the beastkin soldiers; not enough to make the plan work, but getting closer.

The hoppalong, genitals finally stimulated to the point of cumming, points out, “You never told us you gave you the weapon.”

“Eilistraee, The Lady of the Dance.”

At mention of the lady, every drow soldier in the room stands and sings in one accord, “<If the Lady wills it.>” That is enough to work.

“Thank you all. Please, help the injured volunteers get to the wall. We need to do this there to make it work.”

Mattie

Matilda finds her target. The head of the cult cell literally has a several foot long tentacle instead of a head. The tentacle undulates and the other cultists start to head towards the safe house. Guess they figured out someone is still alive? Doesn’t matter.

The targeting system in the gun registers the tentacle as a valid target (and not just the cultist in general). She mentally accepts the target, then starts to form the transformation. She hears a door slam open behind her. Out of time. She fires. The projectile flies true. She hears a couple of cultists hit the floor behind her. She stands to examine the carnage she wroth. The cultists have collapsed, anaphylaxis already starting to set in. She checks to make sure her plan worked. The human skin around their grafts have already broken out into a severe rash. Their breathing and pulse weak, then stopped. She smugly smiles as she turns around to observe the small mob of dead or dying cultists. I did some good here. Too bad I got her too late. And then she is gone.

Aelene

Her volunteers are arranged in a line on the wall, stripped of any salvageable clothes or gear. They won’t need them. The weapon feels awkward in her hands, but she shoulders it like the goddess told her to. She selects her volunteers and forms the transformation. A singular set of changes, huh. She makes her decisions, drawing on her studies of monsters as a noble child aspiring to serve with her blade. Satisfied with her work, she fires. The projectile shatters out of the gun, and a shard of it hits each of her volunteers.

Then the volunteers start to change. Missing body parts grow back. Breasts and asses grow, filling out nicely. The males feel their genitals suddenly invert. The beastkin troops change into elves. Soon, a line of nude elven female troops in prime physical states is before her.

The troops start to sink into the wall. A few panic, but most are in such orgasmic ecstasy that they don’t even notice until their noses embed in the mithrilwood wall. Fully sunk into the wall, Aelene worries. Did the spell not work? Did I just killed them all for nothing?

Another patrol of gnolls hops over the ramparts right by Aelene. The rifle, little better than a club at this point, does not survive the first swing she makes against a gnoll’s hyena-like face. She pops out his double-bladed scimitar as the gnoll stabs her in the shoulder. Then, salvation grows out of the wall. A mithrilwood golem, shaped in the form of a beautiful elven woman slashes the gnoll in two. More golems arise, each striking down a heinous hyena, then sinks back in.

It worked! It really worked! The wall itself will protect my people in a way it couldn’t before! Now, to meet my beautiful heroine. With that, the Knight-Commander finally gets to relax.

Prudence

Prudence finds herself in her boss’s office, rifle in hand. For the first time ever, she is happy to be here.

“<You know what, boss? I think I just got a better offer. So, fuck you!>”

Prudence fires. As promised, the shot rings true, despite the fact that Prudence did not even bother to shoulder it. And Bob? Bob starts to swell.

“<What did you do. It hurts.>”

“<Oh, I turned you into basically an overloading nuclear reactor. In about 2 minutes, every bit of energy in you is going to convert to radiant damage and you are going to explode. You’ll take the building, and everyone inside it, with you. Bye, boss. I’m taking my client list and going independent. See you never.>”

Prudence takes off, flying through an open window into the fetid air of Minauros. She counts the seconds as she flies, dashing as far away from her former office as she can. She feels the explosion, hoping whatever Harem Hotel camera that has been following her got the angle right. Cool kids don’t look back at explosions.