Kinktober 30: And So It Is Halloween...

The US army general with cropped grey hair who wore more stars and stripes on his uniform than green, paced back and forth through the sterile room of undisclosed location, in which an unsettling silence lingered. Like all high-ranking generals, he had earned his position by constantly demonstrating his calibre as a soldier and commander. And since soldiers are seldom known for excelling in their field with their natural disposition towards bureaucratic rigour, Hugo Pendleton had achieved his ultimate title as commandant of the MJ-Initiative through his obliviousness of when his ambitions became a liability, just like all four-star generals. On his stern mature face, a pair of deep furrows were inscribed, and surrounding his thin, dry mouth as a testament to his long experience of fashioning the same disapproving scowl which at that moment adorned his expression.

Eight people were confined to the room with him, as they would remain until the issue at hand had been settled. Two of them were from his own staff. Two more were high-ranking CIA agents. Three of them were researchers; experts at matters for which no one uninvolved believe or wish expertise was required. One of them just so happened to be the greatest threat to national security of the century.

Everything about the twenty-two year old grad-school student that made her fit in with her usual circles, made her stand out in this crowd. Her colourful attire consisted of the cutest low-cut lavender jumper she wore comfortably over her trim frame, and a pair of dark jeans that fit tightly against her slender yet curvy legs. Her long, chestnut-coloured hair framed her bubbly face without obscuring it, and cascaded down her back. Although her eyes were grey, they were not void of life or wonder.

All of this contrasted with the men and women around her, who sported neat haircuts and pressed black suits, except those who wore army uniforms.

“All right, this time it wasn’t my fault.” As the young woman unceremoniously broke the silence, all eyes locked on to her.

The general rested his hands on the table in front of where the woman sat and looked her square in the eye with a frustrated glare, “You say that every time, Carlyle. And yet we find ourselves going back to this room time and time again. And time and time again, it’s you we find sitting in that chair.”

“Okay, yeah… All those other times… I’d say no one was to blame really.” The young woman crossed her ankles to keep them from fidgeting too much, “But this time someone else is to blame. Yesterday was just going to be another night when I tested one of my inventions, and everything was going swimmingly. This time there wasn’t gonna be any giant ant invasion. No galaxies turning into ice cream. Nothing… Which by the way happens all the time in my lab. You just only ever get a call about me when a flesh-eating virus becomes sentient, just saying. But now… This time someone did screw up… And it wasn’t me!”

The general pinched the ridge of his nose and shook his head, “ Carlyle… How can there possibly be someone else on God’s green Earth who can screw up, and we’d end up with… ”

BANG BANG BANG!

Everyone’s eyes fell on the blast doors at the far side of the room, behind which the specimens were contained.

“...With that? “

“That’s… Quite the story to tell, Hugo.” The young woman brushed her long, chestnut coloured hair to the side so it hung behind her back, “And it’s not a short story either.”

“I’m perfectly fine with that, Carlyle.” The general loaded his words with what little strained patience he could muster, “No one in this room is going anywhere until this entire matter has been settled. I don’t care that today is Halloween.” His gaze swept the room across the men and women inside, who could only look back stoically in silence.

“Oh. Well, in that case…” The woman cleared her throat, “It all started yesterday night, at a warehouse magazine in Charleston Virginia where I set up my experiment to test my Craminizer.”

“Craminizer?” One of the researchers raised an eyebrow.

“Craminizer, yes.” The girl confirmed, “Ever found yourself the night before a big exam, but oh no! You ended up doing something else entirely instead of studying! So what do you do? Do you accept that you won’t be passing this particular test, try and make the best of the situation and learn from your mistake until next time? Of course not! You load yourself up with coffee and redbull, pull an all-nighter, and cram the entire course into your head overnight! That’s why it’s called ‘cramming’! That’s a shortcut for sure… But I say if you’re taking a shortcut to success, then at least take a properly short shortcut! That’s what my Craminizer is! All you gotta do is put on the helmet and download your homework into your brain. What would’ve taken one night… And what could have taken three weeks… All is done in fifteen minutes tops! Then you’ve got the entire rest of the evening for yourself, which you can spend doing whatever you’ve done to procrastinate.”

One of the researchers chuckles condescendingly, “Hang on here… Are you saying that you can download digital information into a non-digital brain?”

“What I’m saying, good sir, is that prodding around in your brain changes how the brain works, and there should be some way to prod around your brain that puts it in the same state it would be in if you had done your homework… And who says that a computer couldn’t know which way to prod to achieve that?”

“But why would the computer know how to do that?” The same researcher interjected, “I mean… I presume you have no idea, do you? Then you wouldn’t be able to even begin programming the computer.”

“Yeah! Cause I’ve got no deep learning algorithm that could figure something like that out for me in my head! Which is why I programmed an AI for my Craminizer that scans the homework, scans the brain in question, and uses the information to assemble a Neurological Personality Matrix, or NPM, compatible with the cerebral framework of the crammer!”

“That… Is certainly an interesting idea,” The now intrigued researcher conceded, “But the brain is a complex structure, and the limitations of modern deep learning algorithms are not well-known. With so many unknown variables, an experiment based on the perimeters described could turn very ugly very quickly, no matter how much you have prepared.”

“Of course!” The young woman tried, and failed, to suppress a smile, “I may be a mad scientist, but I’m not an idiot! I wouldn’t try something this murky out on myself… Which is why I recruited a pair of test-subjects to do it instead!”

The general slipped a pair of files on the table, each with the photo of a different young, attractive woman with long blonde hair, “Carmen Stafford and Jeanne Conley. Both freshman students of Virginia U. Aged 19 and 20 respectively. They were going to pick Biology as their major according to our reports.

The woman glared up at the general, “Hey! If you’re gonna show off how to do your homework without the Craminizer it’s gonna end up bad for business!”

“But can you confirm these were in fact the subjects in question?” General Pendleton asked.

“Oh, yes! And they were perfect for my study as well! Young. Exceptional health. And, as it happened, they had been preoccupied with some photoshoots for some cosplay event, and so forgot to study for their exam on taxonomic classification tomorrow, and would do anything… Anything possible to pass it. So me and my lab assistant Ed Decker strapped them up to the Craminizer, double and triple checked the equipment, made extra sure that they knew what they signed up for, and then got ready to get the party started! My job was to keep an eye on the specialised equipment and monitor their EEG readings, and Ed had but one simple job… Dragging the folder on my laptop labelled Taxonomy into the AI dropbox, and launching the system. Now Ed…. I like Ed. He’s a bit of a nerd, and apart from me he’s a bit awkward around girls, but he’s got a good sense of humour, and he knows his way around computers. Honestly he’d be pretty cute if he carried himself with just a smidge more confidence. I make it a point to get him to come out of his shell more, but he’s not exactly a party animal. But whenever I tell him ‘Hey, you wanna go do science?’ he pretty much flies off his gaming chair and follows me around like a puppy. Seems to me like a neat compromise, right?”

“Carlyle!” The general’s joyless smile told the young woman that his patience was straining, “Get to the point. Please.”

“Ah, right… So I asked if the girls were ready… I asked Ed if he was ready… And then I pulled the lever, and the lights started flickering! Tesla coils were buzzing, gauges were going haywire… The whole shebang! You can’t get more mad science than that! I flicked some of the switches and told Ed to pull the folder into the program, and after a second or two of clicking he told me the deed was done! So I held down a button and pulled another lever, causing sparks to fly off the machine! Nothing went wrong, exactly, but when you do mad science, half of the job is dramatic effect! Appropriately enough, that’s when I heard Ed saying ‘Allison… You better come see this’ in precisely the kind of tone you don’t wanna hear when you’re mad sciencing. I faced him, and asked what’s up… Hoping that if this turned out to be a problem, then a problem of moderate levels of excitement. Turns out the folder he dropped into the AI wasn’t the Taxonomy folder. Yup. Turns out the computer nerd couldn’t do the one job on the computer. I was somewhat dazed as you can imagine. I was doing some good mad science, when an actual problem sprung at my face all of a sudden. I asked him what folder he had dropped. Turns out it was the one labelled ‘Taxes.’”

“And what, Carlyle, was in the folder labelled Taxes?” The general asked.

“...Who’re you? The IRS?”

“Carlyle!”

“Wait… Hold on…” One of the agents said, “Are you telling me that… That not just men, but also women have a Taxes folder?”

The female agent next to him scoffed, “Of course we do. How are we supposed to organise our annual income otherwise?”

The general raised both his arms in the air in the opposite direction, and stopped them suddenly in their tracks as if a conductor for a concert signalled silence, “The point is… What we are dealing with here are no feral taxonomists going rampant. I presume you aborted the experiment as soon as possible.”

“The thing about that is… At that point the Craminizer was already working full speed. I had no idea at all what would happen if we terminated the process before the NPM had been completely installed, so I decided to let it finish up. The experiment didn’t exactly hinge on which folder we used to create the NPM, so presumably they were just as safe as if the experiment had gone without a hitch. Still, I couldn’t just leave them be like that, at least not without a simple medical checkup, so I went to the storeroom and got the first aid kit… When I heard Ed screaming from the magazine. When I came back, they were all over him. And the girls were in… That condition.”

One of the agents, having observed an eerie silence from the blast doors for some time, snuck closer to the blast doors to peek through the slot. He saw nothing. He leaned in to look closer so as to catch a glimpse… When the face of a monster girl popped up from the other side of the slot, pushing her tongue against the glass while banging on the reinforced tungsten alloy with a roar.

She was a woman with a voluptuous yet toned body in an overly fancy and elaborate black, yet also revealing, strapless dress that emphasised her enormous breasts. On her long, wild golden hair rested a golden crown with a mushroom cap in the centre.

“Relax,” Allison said, “It’s just a costume. You gotta remember it’s cosplayers we’re dealing with here.”

“Cosplayers?” The general shrieked incredulously, “What kind of cosplayers can tear a hole through a magazine wall as if it was made of papier mache?”

“Very convincing cosplayers?” Allison shrugged, “Look… Whatever happened to them must have unlocked their latent strength, removed the natural limiters of power that the human body can exert. Life imitates art, after all. As far as they’re concerned, they are the actual princess Bowsette and princess Boosette.”

“So that’s the situation, everyone.” The general paced back and forth, “That leaves us with one important question remaining; what are we supposed to do about all this?”

Allison shrugged, “Don’t think we need to do anything, really. The NPM should disappear with time, so sooner or later they should revert back to how they were before. That’s how cramming works after all.”

“Well, Carlyle, you will have to excuse me if I don’t believe that until I have seen it.” The general said, “As it is now, however, we are left with little recourse. We will stand by and watch the development, with the understanding that it is at least possible for their condition to regress with time. All we have to do is to make sure they remain within the confines of that cell for the duration. With that said this meeting is…”

“Sir… ” One of the soldiers accompanying the general said from behind him, “The captives have escaped.”

The general’s face was drained of colour as he turned to face the soldier, “...show us the feed. Now!”

The male agent pulled his laptop up and connected to the camera inside the cell. The recording showed the green-scale feed of the Bowsette and Boosette cosplayers prowling around the cell like wild animals. The feed was cut by an instance of static, and when it resumed the girls were missing. The only thing left was the torn out air duct lying on the floor like a pile of scrap.

“...Shit. We got ourselves a breach.” The general paced around nervously, “Sound the alarm. By now these ladies could be absolutely anywhere.”

“Gimme my cell phone.” Allison asked, and was promptly handed the cellphone she had to surrender before she entered this room, “I’ve got a feeling where they might be going.”

Normally Ed wouldn’t consider dressing himself up as a knight, or go to a party full of music, dance and social people doing socialising. He ended up being the wallflower that he was, just as he knew he would. That was, however, where Allison would have tried taking him hadn’t she vanished after the experiment went awry. Because of him.

In the end he was jumped by this pair of beautiful women in fancy yet revealing dresses, who called him their prisoner and princess as they molested him. Of course Allison had tried to stop them, but they simply pushed her away with little effort. One of them even tossed a metal barrel through a wall.

Fortunately the people Allison called in came soon after, before they could do unspeakable things to him, and locked them into a windowless van. It must have been some kind of police, but a special police for crazy situations like these. He wondered why Allison just happened to have their number, and why she acted so familiar with them. Of course Allison would act familiar with anyone, but these policemen seemed like the type who wouldn’t stand for informalities unless on the job unless it was warranted.

Ed had been made to sign a paper saying that he would not tell anyone about anything he saw that night. The last thing he saw of Allison was of the policemen taking her in on a helicopter, and they disappeared without a trace.

Allison wasn’t someone who would hold a grudge, but this time Ed screwed up enough to land her in this kind of mess. She also hadn’t responded to any of his texts, which made him worried about the kind of chewing out Allison would give him when she was done with whatever it was that she was going through. He was even more worried this was the last time he would see her.

That’s why he had gone out of his way to go to the Halloween party. He knew how happy it made her when he stepped out of his comfort zone and everyday routine to put himself out there. Besides, there was every possibility in the world that Allison was going to be there.

It turned out to be a mistake. Allison wasn’t there, nor was anyone else he knew. All he could think about was how little he wanted to be at a loud and energetic place like that, so he left early.

The streets themselves were like a party at this time of night during Halloween, so he stepped up his loner game by taking a detour through some dark alleyways. No one could be seen for miles. It was the one place where he could remain alone.

Two consecutive waves of vibrations were felt in Ed’s pocket. He slipped his hand past the silver-painted cardboard he had used as part of his knight costume, and pulled out his cell phone.

It was a text from Allison.

After twenty-six hours of worrying she had finally reached out to him. By now he had sent her six texts, and was considering sending a seventh. The fact she hadn’t replied was in and of itself worthy of concern, but they were yet to talk about the experiment. Was she in trouble? Was he in trouble?

He had waited all day for a reply from her, but now he was too nervous to open it. He closed his eyes, his thumb hovering over the text notification, and pressed it. When he opened his eyes, he saw a simple line:

Hey! Whazzup! If you find urself in a pickle, make sure to run this!

Followed by a winking smiley face. A sound file was attached to the text.

Now he had even more questions than before. Ed wanted to play the file so bad, but she did tell him to play it if he was in danger. Of course, she didn’t say anything about playing it when he wasn’t in danger, so he figured that was all right.

He took a minute to weigh his options. If it turned out he could play it, but didn’t; then he broke no instructions, and he simply would live his life as if the sound file never existed. If it turned out he couldn’t play it, but did; then he would have screwed up. Again. Ed needed to show that Allison could trust him, and part of that was showing that he wouldn’t do anything reckless.

As that matter was settled, Ed found himself tackled by two blurs, one black and one white, and pinned him to the ground.

“Why hello there, princess~!” The wicked playfulness in the voice from above him was all too familiar, “Thought you could run away that easily, hmm? But of course, it’s utterly useless! Now you are in my power now, and there is nothing you can do about it! Uhuhuhu~!”

Looking up at my assailant, I saw a beautiful busty woman looking down at me with the triumphant smile of a predator beholding her prey.

“Ah? C-carmen…?” Ed tried to shove the cosplayer off him, but in this state she could overpower him easily, “ Stop this right now, Carmen! You don’t know what you’re doing!”

“You keep calling me that name. Carmen. But there is only Bowsette here, and the loot of her conquest of course! Were you hoping that I would have forgotten about my precious princess! No such luck, I’m afraid! You’re mine now! And mine alone!”

“And m-mine of course, too… R-right?” The shriller voice of a ghostly pale woman with long white hair and the same revealing princess dress as ‘Bowsette’, only white.

‘Bowsette’ growled, “As you may recall, what we agreed on was that you could share him with me if you could get past…”

“AIEEEEEEEH!” Boosette shrieked as she saw Ed looking in her direction, wrapping her flustered face in her gloved hands and closing her eyes, “D-d-don’t s-s-stare at me… Like th-that~”

“...If you could get past that.”

While they were bickering about what nasty things they were going to do to him, he grabbed his phone to call the police. The text message app was on as he opened the phone, and the sound file was a click away.

“Hey!” Bowsette said as she reached her hand towards Ed’s phone, “No playing with your phone while we are having our way with you!”

Before she could grab the phone, Ed pressed play.

DUH DUNN-DUH! DUH-DUH DUNN-DUDUD-DUH!

“Ack!!”

“Eeeeh!” The two cosplayers both jumped off and away from him as the familiar eight-bit star power-up jingle from Super Mario was playing. Ed could hardly believe that Allison would come up with something like this, and that it actually worked.

Wait, did that mean she knew he would encounter the cosplayers?

Ed spent no time pondering that. He was busy running for his life. Eventually the jingle ended, and the cosplayers dashed after him.

“Ahh, th-th-that wasn’t really n-nice!” ‘Boosette’ said, as she was nearest to him.

“Grrr, when I get my claws on you, you’re gonna regret that!” ‘Bowsette’ growled.

With every step they were getting nearer until he could pretty much feel their panting on his neck. Any moment they would catch him, and drag him away so they could have their way with him.

“Hey, Ed!” The voice coming from behind the corner was familiar, “Turn around and face them!”

That instance his chest felt light with joy over hearing who that was. Ed stopped in his tracks, turned around and saw Boosette’s face becoming red as a tomato and warped with nervous fluster as she stopped in her tracks. ‘Bowsette’ bumped into her immediately after, and they fell on top of each other in a pile on the ground.

“...Allison?” Ed said between exasperated breaths, and indeed from behind the corner Allison arrived, carrying a fire extinguisher.

“That’s my name! Don’t wear it out!” Allison chuckled as her eyes fell on the two monster girls on the ground, “Now, hold on! This will only take a second!”

Allison sprayed the costumed women with a white foam that hardened around them, rendering them immobile no matter how much they struggled. Ed looked down at the women unable to escape their gooey prison, and back to Allison as his shocked and horrified expression transformed into a relieved smile.

“Allison! You… How…?”

“Happy Halloween, sir Ed! I take it I arrived in a timely fashion!”

“I thought… I thought you hated my guts after I screwed up!” Ed sounded like his voice was going to break into a cry at any moment.

Allison laughed, “You’re kidding me! I finally got to tell those snarky pencil pushers at the MJ-Initiative that just cause something happens that’s bizarre beyond the realms of the wildest dreamers, doesn’t mean it’s my fault!”

“Ah, I’m glad I could… Wait, what do you mean the MJ-Initiative?”

“Oh, my lips are sealed on that. Sorry. It’s one of those ‘if I told you I’d have to kill you’ cases. On second thought, forget I said anything about MJ-Initiative, all right?”

“All right… Wait, what was it I was supposed to forget again?”

“Ah! Nice one, buddy!” Allison laughed and patted Ed on the shoulder, before she looked back down on the cosplayers now trying to chew their way out of the congealed foam, “Now, the people you forgot about was gonna leave these girls safely contained until the NPM ran out on its own… but I guess any second they’re in that state is a second where someone’s in trouble. Guess we really can’t leave them like that, huh? So I’ve come up with an alternative.”

After dragging the trapped women back into the magazine, Allison and Ed strapped them back into the Craminizer and plugged the laptop into the machine.

“So here’s the deal,” Allison explained as she pulled out a USB-stick, “ The problem’s not so much that they aren’t themselves. I mean, yeah, that’s kind of a problem. Really messed up, actually. But it’s also a problem that eventually solves itself. The more urgent issue I think is that the particular NPMs we gave them are messing everything up wherever they go. That’s why we gotta replace them with another, safer NPM that we’ll install now.” Allison inserted the USB-stick into the computer.

“But do you really think it’s a good idea to run the Craminizer again? That’s what got us into this mess to begin with.” Ed pointed out.

“Hey, practice is perfect, am I right? Besides, don’t you want another chance to prove to everyone that you can click and drag a folder?”

Ed sighed, looking at the trapped women in the pile of foam, growling like animals as they try to escape their restraint, “I… Suppose it would be kind of nasty of us if we never ended up installing their homework like we promised.”

“Oh, yeah, there’s that. Definitely. We sure are gonna include their homework in our NPM. But is that really gonna be enough to overwrite the NPM we installed earlier? Are they just gonna end up dangerous monster girls, who happen to know their KPCOFGS? That’s why I downloaded four-hundred hours of soothing ASMR sound into this stick, which we now are gonna cram in their heads.”

Ed gave Allison a quizzical look, “Where… Where did you get four hundred hours of ASMR?”

“Oh, you know… If I told you I’d have to kill you…”

“Allison… What exactly do you think will happen if you give them four-hundred hours of ASMR in their head?”

“I think the better question is: Will what’s gonna happen be worse than what’s going on right now? I mean, what kind of murderous psychopath has nothing but pleasant, soothing noises in their head? Look, we don’t have all night over here. Let’s do this!”

Allison activated the Craminizer, ran everything smoothly, and once again Ed’s showtime arrived. He double and triple checked the folder, and dragged it into the AI program.

“Did you do it?” Allison asked, “Did you get it right?”

“The one called Jumbo Sized ASMR, right?” Ed asked.

“Yeah! That’s the one!”

“Oh yeah. I got it.”

Allison exhaled a giddy laugh, “Oh! Finally we’re getting somewhere!”

The machines sparked and creaked, just like Allison had designed them to do, until they wound down and stopped. Both of the monstrous princesses lay limp in their foamy prison, until Allison pulled out a dripper and squeezed out a single conspicuous drop on the foam, which melted away instantly. The cosplayers fell on the floor, ****.

“Are… Are they all right?” Ed asked.

Allison placed two fingers on their throats, “They’re breathing for sure, and their pulse is normal. But I guess we’ll have to wait and see. I’m gonna be sleeping here tonight, just in case.”

“Yeah… Me too. If that’s all right for you.”

“Sure thing! It’ll be a Halloween slumber party! This is gonna be great!”

“Yeah… Besides, this was all kind of my fault, right?”

“Hey! Don’t beat yourself up about it, Ed!” Allison said, “You did all right. Just one thing to keep in mind… When you send me a buncha text messages like that… Sure, it’s nice to know I’m being wanted, but I’ll just be less likely to read what you’ve written if there’s that much to read, than if you just send me once. I’ve got enough trouble reading anything that’s too long to fit on the backside of a stamp.”

Ed chuckled, “Yeah… Sorry about that. I’ll keep that in mind. Happy Halloween, Allison.”

“Happy Halloween, Ed.”

“And now we’re just waiting for results, Hugo!” Allison told the general over her zoom call, her laptop resting on her stomach as she made herself comfortable on the futon on the floor.

“Very good, Carlyle.” The general’s relief was discernible in his voice, “I suppose you are reliable enough when it is truly needed.”

“Oh, for sure!” Allison said, “What counts is whether or not you put your act together at least when you’re **** enough to prevent total catastrophe at the very last moment. By the way, those ASMR audios sure came in handy! How did you get them at such short notice?”

“Carlyle… you do know with people like you running around, people like me require all the help they can get just to fall asleep?”

“Well, yeah. I don’t exactly enjoy the bureaucracy supreme experience either, but the MJ-Initiative is there for a reason. By the way, this futon’s gonna be hell to sleep on. Mind if I use your ASMR library for just tonight?”

“Go nuts. I’ve got nothing to hide in there.”

Allison clicked on the folder, and after scrolling through the library her expression turned to one of confusion and concern, “Uh… Hugo? Not to be like that or anything, but there’s an awful lot of Yandere ASMR roleplays on this playlist..:”

Ed kicked back and threw himself on the couch deep in the magazine, wrapping himself in the blankets and sighing deeply. The past two days had been exhausting, and at that moment Ed wanted nothing more than to drift asleep and rest into the night.

His eyes opened when he realised deep panting came from behind the couch…

“Ara ara~!”