Endgame, Part 5: Mortal Kombat

Behind the Scenes, Some Time Ago

Frances O’Connor sits in her trophy room, bored out of her skull. While she enjoys her job, hunting haughty hoes on her Harem Hotel spinoff series as the Host, there just hasn’t been enough challenge. She has hundreds of conquests here, warped for her twisted pleasure, but she can’t even remember a tenth of them. The hunts, the episodes, they all blend together. She barely even remembers which of her trophies was from her original season, the one where she became the ultimate predator of sorority girls everywhere.

So, when a random mermaid appears in her trophy room, shimmying before her throne, she is mildly amused. Finally, something different.

“Good evening, Frances. Remember me?”

“You were serving some canapés at that alternate me’s challenge, right? You got hotter since then.”

The mermaid looks offended. “Me, serve canapés? No! I’m Beckie Petersen. I was hosting that challenge.”

Frances is amused. Her smirk is wide, with bared teeth. Her laugh reverberates in the hall. “Weren’t you replaced? Twice over?”

Beckie sputters. “It was only once!”

“Oh, you aren’t caught up on your own season. That’s hilarious!” Frances bowls over at the thought, out of breath from laughter. When she can breathe again, she smirks and asks, “I assume you aren’t here to tell me jokes. What do you want?”

“I believe you expressed some interest in owning one of my contestants. Well, I am trying to give them away. All you have to do is pull your usual nonsense and then, when you claim her, you can do your thing.”

Frances thinks back to that challenge. There was a feisty girl, one that mouthed off. The idea of breaking that spirit is appealing. “I did want one of those girls. Now, why would you do that? And why should I help you?”

Beckie only answers the last question, but that was enough to convince the huntress. “She will be a challenge to conquer. She won’t just roll over like so many of the others in here. She has super strength and skills somewhat similar to your own. She has a chance to beat you. When was the last time that could happen?”

Something to break the monotony? I’m in.

Frances O’Connor, Now

Frances sits in her trophy room, less bored out of her skull than usual. She has a hunt tonight. A hunt against someone maybe worthy of a moment of her time. She watches her prey wander into her hunting ground. She bares her teeth in a big smile, lets out a little laugh. A wolf? Hilarious. Well, I have wolves of my own. If she’s a worthy challenge, she should certainly be able to handle a dozen of them, right?

“Start the music! Let’s watch this girl dance!”

Josie

With a rending of the first wolf’s throat, Josie bounds to the second, not quite dropping it. Then, the wolves surround Josie, with a few more prowling on the perimeter. When they start to snap and bite at her, a couple sink their teeth in, but Josie laughs it off. As long as she gets a really good hit on them, it seems like she can drop two wolves before they have a chance to all nip at her again. Some of the prowling wolves fill in the gaps and, while she does get yanked around, their little nips barely hurt.

Josie doesn’t quite drop a wolf with her next combo, much to her chagrin. That wolf limps a bit away, replaced by another too quickly for her to react. She left herself open, and the wolves took advantage. Some of those bites HURT. Now, Josie is mad. She needs to drop them all, NOW! You know what they say, the best defense is a good offense.

Claws covered in wolf gore, she starts shredding, manic with bloodlust. 9 wolves turn to 7. 7 wolves nip at her. Then 7 wolves turn to 5. 5 wolves biting is not so bad. 5 wolves turn to 3. 3 wolves biting at her is basically nothing. 3 wolves turn into the one injured one. The injured one tries to run away. But, Josie won’t let it. With a lunge, she lands into the wolf’s spine with a sickening crunch.

Josie waits a moment to see if that was it. It apparently wasn’t, as the weird music continues. Well, I guess I need to figure out what’s next.

Frances

Frances is cackling with glee. Finally, an opponent worthy of my attention! It’s been so long. Not since my season. Back when I was weak! Oh, I like this one. I’ll bend her into the perfect little attack dog after I win! Let’s go say “Hi.”

Josie

These woods seems to go on forever. As does that damned music.

And then, the woods stopped, at least a little. Before Josie lies a still lake, a few lights twinkling on the other side. A dock juts out over the water. With racks of canoes beside it, hung upside-down, as if waiting for campers to go rollicking on the lake. Not that Josie ever went to a camp with a lake. Not a lot of lakes in the desert.

Josie creeps ahead, catches her reflection in the water. She is covered in gore, mostly not her own. She sees the bite marks, of course, but battle wasn’t this visceral in the dungeon. Did I just **** a pack of big ass wolves? What kind of monster have I become, doing that with glee, even if the wolves were trying to tear me apart?

She bends over to wash the viscera off. Then the dock explodes into shrapnel. Josie dives, splinters of wood stabbing into her. The sensation of little teasing caresses flow through her where she’s pierced. Before she hits the water, it feels like her crotch catches fire as something stabs her in the kidney, hard. The water rushes over her; her crotch burns some more, with increasing intensity, as the wound in her flank continues to bleed. FUCK!

She starts to swim, paddling away from whatever threw that at her, towards the lights.

Harper

While it’s not the most impressive of feats to outmaneuver an Insta-Thot influencer in a battle of wits, Harper feels satisfied that she peacefully handled the situation and, in the process, at least ensured that whatever pact Kaelis made with the orcs will last long enough to break the siege. She turns to the situation at hand, checking the battlemap for the remaining girls for danger. Tina is still fiddling with magician equipment, which is mildly concerning, but not life threatening. Skye is still sulking about in the dark, not looking like she's blown her cover yet in whatever stealth mission she’s on. Scarlet is still conversing. And Josie is bleeding profusely as she is swimming away from shore. There is my next stop.

Harper finds herself in the woods. Josie is so far away. Harper starts to do what wizards do best: cheat. In this case, cheat at dashing. She starting the bladesong, getting herself up to 50 feet of walking speed, then starts dashing. Second round, she throws a Zephyr Strike into the mix, getting her up to 80 feet of walking speed for a minute, then dashes again. After that, Misty Step spam to get another 30 feet of movement with bonus actions. Even with the woods in the way, she’s dancing forward at 21.5 miles per hour. That is slightly slower than the average male Olympic sprinter. And she’s doing it at a sustained pace.

She hits the shoreline before Zephyr Strike drops. Josie is floundering, a pool of red water surrounding her side. Why is she still bleeding?

Harper can’t dance in the water and Zephyr Strike can’t help her swim faster, but she can still Misty Step. Only one more spurt of blood by the time Harper gets there. Her free base cast of Cure Wounds is enough to stop the bleeding. Thank Elistraee. Harper moves Josie, half delirious with blood loss, into a rescue swimmers position, and swims back towards shore.

“What happened?”

“I don’t know! One minute, I was having a minor existential crisis, the next, the dock blew up and something stabbed me!”

“And you decided to swim?”

“Yeah, away from whatever stabbed me!”

Harper sighs. She checks the battlemap. There, she sees Josie’s HP total at 29, after the Cure Wounds. She hands Josie a full heal potion. “Yeah, you were probably going to hit 0 HP in another couple of rounds. Don’t be dumb again.”

Party: -1 HP Potion (5 Remain)

Josie: HP back to max

Harper pulls out her spellbook, flipping to the special page she hasn’t used yet. Time for some Gift of the Protectors backup. She writes her own name in the book, then hands Josie the pen. “Sign your name. The book will give one of us a free ‘ignore dying’ trigger.”

Josie snarls a little as she signs, “And you didn’t think to share this magical ‘ignore dying’ thing before we hopped in?”

“I can only put 6 names in the book and there are seven of you. I didn’t know who would actually need it. I honestly thought no one would, at least until Beckie’s bit. Sorry.”

“Giving you some shit, old lady. It’s fine. I already have one of those ‘ignore dying’ things. And now you’re here. Let’s go find this mystery stabber.”

Frances

Huh. Blue girl is fast. Must be the me sitting on that throne back during the challenge; old Beckie mentioned something about the other me being able to help. She cleaned up nice. I don’t have anything to fear, even with the magic use. I mean, how many wizards bother to get radiant damage spells? Let’s go greet our new guest after softening them up first.

Josie

Josie is on high alert after nearly dying. So, she sees the 4 lacrosse helmet wearing Jace cosplayers from those Friday on the Ides movies, before they see them.

“Incoming.” she whisper-shouts.

“Loud or quiet?”

Josie arches an eyebrow. “You really need to ask?”

Harper has pulled this trick before, on Josie’s date yesterday. One breath, she is right by Josie’s side. The next, she is slicing into the nearest cosplayer. It explodes in a thunderous slash of gore, only for Harper to rush to the next nearest one and land two less impressive slashes, but that cosplayer is still reeling.

Josie pounces, claws out and bloodlust pouring off of her. Three slices is all it takes and Josie is covered in blood again. Before she has time to slip back into thinking about the consequences, the other two cosplayers lunge and slash. Josie winces as she takes a grazing hit.

Harper goes into her next combo. Two massive hits and cosplayer one is down. She summons some eldritch nonsense with the third hit, and the last cosplayer explodes into two meaty chunks. They are both drenched in foul smelling blood.

Josie pants, then turns around to see that the chunks of the first cosplayer is flying at her at a rapid pace. She rolls out of the way, just to feel something sharp stab her in the gut. Not again...

Frances

Frances jumps to place herself between her prey and her blue counterpart. All she has to do is wait until her prey bleeds out, and she wins. Not much the blue girl can do about it, unless she can get around Frances. And she can’t get around me.

She lets out her signature laugh, a mix of hyena and T-rex that she spent some of the BP she collected from her game’s prey to make her more intimidating. “Hey, other me. I’ve won. Just let me have this one.”

“Step aside. NOW. I’m not going to stand here and watch my love bleed out.”

“Make me, bitch.”

And the bitch starts her silly little combat dance, powering her blade up with thunder. Ha, thunder? Like I’m scared of loud noises. Oh, that actually hurt. The bitch adds some extra **** to her second hit. FUCK! That really hurt. The third hit involved her trying to knock Frances away, but the monster stays firm. Frances smirks, waiting for her healing factor to kick in.

When it doesn’t, Frances panics for just a half second. She’s got something to stop my regeneration? Shit. Gotta finish this quickly. She summons a rock, intending to knock the blue her out. Not only did the bitch dodge, she delivers a massive counterattack. A machete to the gut doesn’t stop her.

The burst of erotic damage from the machete and from feedback from her own spell doesn’t stop her either. Instead she growls, “Surrender.”

“Fuck you.”

Then, suddenly, she’s staring up at her own body, slumping to the ground. What? Wha... just... happ...

Harper

Harper is down on her knees, pumping a 9th Level Cure Wounds into Josie. Then, Eilistraee’s Grace drops from the bleeding wound she’s taken, and she drops a base level Cure Wounds on herself.

“You okay, Josie?”

Josie looks exhausted, but stumbles to her feet. “Yeah, old lady. You?”

“Pretty good, for just having killed myself. Another myself. Multiverse nonsense, am I right?”

“Yeah. Uh, you are taking the fact that we just killed a bunch of people waay to well, old lady.”

“Militia training. I’m sure I’m going to be a wreck once the mission’s done and everyone’s safe. Compartmentalizing until then. And, given the horror movie theme here, those guys may have just been dummies.”

Harper tries to convince herself of that as she walks towards the lights. Obviously, they are missing something. And they find that something when they get to the buildings. It looks like a summer camp from a cheesy 80s movie, like one would expect from the horror movie motif. The cabins are dark, empty. The counselor’s office, however, is lit up. Entering, they see dozens of women, locked up in BDSM getups, writhing as if they are being tortured. At the end of the hall, a throne with three balloons await. One says, “Stay Here and Win A Million Dollars,” a second, “Stay Here and Win a Trophy,” and the last, “Return to Other Me.”

“I guess you need to pop a balloon?”

Josie doesn’t even think. She just slashes the last one. “Not abandoning you, old lady.”

Then the room goes white.

Josie

The cat is here. As are all of dead Frances’s trophies. Harper notices and starts to talk with the cat. Something about a garden? Josie isn’t paying that much attention. She’s looking for someone in particular. Someone that Frances gave a bubble butt.

“Ms. Wulf, your alternate universe sister is among them. She’ll be safe. Unfortunately, you won’t be able to reach her. Not for a while. Not ever, maybe. Their minds are all too far gone right now. We’ll make sure she is taken care of. For now, let’s get the XP you two earned into Harper’s general pool and send her on her way. Then, we can discuss your exit.”

The cat’s word is law. All of the victims of other Francis are gone. At least we’ll be rid of her soon.

Harper: +20 XP (Killed 4 Level 8 Monsters, x0.333 penalty [overleveled], Killed 1 Level 15 monster, x0.625 penalty [overleveled], all rounded down at the end)

Josie: +24 XP (Killed 12 Level 1 Monsters, x0.05 penalty [overleveled], Killed 4 Level 8 Monsters, x0.4 penalty [overleveled], Killed 1 Level 15 monster, x0.75 penalty [overleveled], all rounded down at the end)

Josie: XP earned moved to general pool (Level Cap Reached)

Harper gives Josie a kiss, then disappears.

“One final bit of self-determined change, Ms. Wulf. What will it be?”

“Better claws?”

“Let’s figure something out.” The two start arguing. Eventually, they come to an agreement:

Orgasmic Rage – When Josie deals subsequent hits in a single turn while under the effects of bloodlust, she can apply her bloodlust damage multiple times. So, first hit gets regular bloodlust damage, second hit in a row deals double bloodlust, and so on. This effect is capped based on the number of sexual partners she had the previous night. So, if she did not have sex, her bloodlust damage does not apply, sex with one person will let her deal regular damage, sex with two people allows for double bloodlust damage, and so on. Her Mistress counts as two people for this transformation (Pack Enforcer – Exit Transformation)

“Great. Can I go back to the old lady now?”

“Patience. She’ll be busy with the others. Is my company that unwelcome, Ms. Wulf?” A screen with Harper back in the changed Media Room appears.

“Fine. I guess you’re okay. Can I at least get an ice pack and some snacks?” Josie kicks back, takes a seat, and tries her best not to think about what she just did. Please, everyone make it out of this thing alive.