Pact Magic (R,F)

“Don’t laugh. You owe me for making me wear this.” Felicia said as she stepped out of the Trident Cottage.

Dick was waiting for her outside, as she’d requested he do after lunch. “Don’t worry, I won’t…” He trailed off, stupefied by what she was wearing. She had on a pink dress, cut to show as much cleavage as he could imagine. She had on a gold necklace that drew attention further to her bust

“What? Aren’t you supposed to be good at public speaking for your job and all?”

The jab helped him refocus. “In my defense, none of the journalists that I talk to ever dress like that.”

“You told me to wear this.” She complained.

“No, I didn’t.” Dick insisted.

“Of course you did. It was right before you got your TF. Are you trying to tell me you don’t remember that conversation?”

He stared at her again, this time with a growing level of incredulousness. “Felicia, are you trying to gaslight me right now?”

“What’s gaslighting?” She asked innocently, batting her eyelashes at him.

“I know you know what that means. You’re a lot of things, but you’re not stupid.”

The blonde raised an eyebrow and walked away from the door. She glared up at him and crossed her arms, which only brought her breasts closer to spilling out. “I’m ‘a lot of things’? Like what?”

“You’re stubborn and confusing and-” And this is why Stella thought I needed Window Pain Test. “-and smart.” He tried to pivot.

“Smart?”

“Yeah. You’re pretty smart, even if it feels like half your plans are pointless.” Shit.

Undeterred by his stepping into another verbal quagmire, Felicia took his hand and started walking. When he didn’t immediately follow, she pulled on his arm until he went along with it. She started leading him across the plaza and down the trail into the forest.

“Where are we going?” Dick asked.

“Our first stop for the day is the arcade. Afterwards I think we’ll negotiate my new spells over dinner, and depending on how I’m feeling you might get a surprise later.”

“You made an arcade? How much did that cost?”

Felicia looked a little embarrassed at the question. “I ended up spending most of my BP today, between the three I needed for the arcade, the two I spent for dinner, and the point this dress cost.” She pulled him to the left as they wound through the forest. “Based on the directions Luna gave me after I gave her my points to spend, it should be right about…here.” She said, as she finally stopped pulling him along.

He’d expected something like Rave and Busters, or some other basic arcade. But Felicia had made something very specific.

The sign on the front of the brick building had a green lizard in a top hat and bow tie waving at them. It had a wide smile and humanoid teeth. It also had cleavage and a corset he was sure the original didn’t have, but as he looked at the sign for Lizzy Lasagna’s, he wasn’t sure what to focus on.

“You really made the arcade from the FNaL games?”

“Yeah, you know I love those.”

“Why’s Lizzy so…busty?”

Felicia scratched her head. “I’m not sure. Luna bought it this morning. I asked her to visit the tower while I was with Maeve, so I guess she decided to prank us. Hopefully this was her only change from my directions. Now come on.”

She let go of his hand to head in. There was a rusty gate in front of the door, which the blonde slid open, the lock in the gate unsecured. She ignored the crack in the glass door as she opened it wide for him to go in first.

It was dark in the arcade, though the blinking lights of the machines gave them enough to see. The middle of the main room was taken up by the stage like in the games and the movie, with three animatronic robots as the “band”. Lizzy, the green lizard they’d seen on the sign, was in the center as the vocalist (the robot thankfully had its normal sexless appearance). The Peter the Panda animatronic was holding a guitar, and Polly the Parrot was on the keyboard. The drumset where Wally the Wolf would be seated was empty, just like in the game. In the game Wally sprinted at you with his katana, so…hopefully Felicia and Luna didn't make the place that realistic.

His date made him jump a little when she took his hand again.

“You good?”

“Y-yeah. I’m fine, it’s just weird seeing these things in real life.”

“It’s not too much, is it?” She asked. He could hear the concern in her voice.

“No, I can get used to them.”

“Good. I was thinking about asking. Aside from what you shared with me last week, is there anything else I should be careful talking about with you?”

“No, you don’t have to worry about me that much.”

Felicia grinned hearing that, looking around the machines to the left and right. “Then what do you think of a little bet? If I win, then I can come up with one of my spells all by myself. If you win, you get to have your way with me and fuck me as hard as you want.”

For a moment, he was tempted to point out that she would probably ask him to do something with her tonight. But then the greater temptation in his penchant for gambling won out. “You’re on.”

“Great. Best of five games, three rounds of each game. You can pick the first machine.”

Richard looked around, trying to decide what he had the best shot at. He saw something that looked like beer pong and pointed towards it. The two of them walked over and read over the rules:

“Ok, so we’ve got fifty ping-pong balls to make fifteen shots. Most cups wins; if we both hit all the cups then we go by how many balls we have left. Ready?” Felicia suggested.

“Ready.”

“Three, two, one. Go.”

He tried to tune out the sounds of the arcade and the animatronic band around him. He just tried to toss one after another, sinking one with his right hand and picking up the next ball with his left. He missed a few, but it didn’t take long to finish. Then he watched as Felicia finished up hers.

“Ok,” she started. “I think I had a pretty good start, I have thirteen left so- I lost.” She finished, as she looked over at the glowing screen on his side displaying Twenty-Nine Remaining. “Ok, let’s go again.”

The second time didn’t go much better for her. “I was locked in that time. I was so much better. How the fuck did you get down to eighteen shots?”

Dick shrugged. “Aubrey and I were together for three years of undergrad, I picked up a bit of experience with drinking games.”

“Of all the shitty luck.” She muttered. “Fine. I’m taking you down in skeeball next.” She said, dragging him to the lanes they’d passed on their way in.

He was at least able to make it close, but Felicia managed to tie it. He looked around the arcade for something that he could beat her at. As her dress and when she’d crossed her arms slipped back into his mind, an idea came to him. He pointed over, and Felicia’s blood curdled as she realized what he’d chosen.

”Dance Dance Revelation?”

“What, you can’t do it?” He asked.

“I didn’t say that.” She quickly said.

“Great, so let’s do it.” He started leading her towards the machines.

“Did you pick this one because you think you can win, or because you want me to have a wardrobe malfunction and get my tits to spill out?” She accused.

“What do you think?” I'm kind of curious which one you think it is.

“Dirty pervert.” Felicia half-heartedly grumbled. “So which song are we doing first?”

“You’ll see.” Dick said as he scrolled to the “video game music” section that had shown up on the screen.

“Wondertail?” He scrolled a little further. “No, fuck all the way off. You can’t expect me to do the song from that stupid skeleton boss on the genocide route in this dress.”

Am I going too far? He tried tapping into his new TF to check. Nothing happened. That’s a good sign, right? “If you don’t want to do it, we can always just skip to the fourth game and let me have the point…”

She slammed the start button.

The song started, and on the screen in front of them a skeleton in a hoodie started dancing along to the song. He started slow, and Richard had enough breathing room that he could watch as both he and Felicia followed along.

Then the skeleton’s eyes lit up, white where the irises would be. He started speeding up, going fast enough that Richard needed to put in more effort to keep up. He didn’t have time to glance at Felicia. He could hear her though; she was muttering and cursing at him, the game, even the show.

Then the skeleton’s eyes shifted from white to red. The skeleton’s hoodie was bouncing fast enough on screen that it never quite touched back down. The skeleton’s sneakers were on fire, and Dick kept losing his combo from the impossible speed the beat was coming at.

"Fucking hell. Again?!" He heard louder than usual. He looked away and saw that one of her breasts had slipped out of her dress. She saw him staring and snapped: "Stop going easy on me, it's not over yet."

Not long after the third stage of the song, the skeleton did a backflip and disappeared, denoting the song ended. Dick looked over to his date, who was trying to fix her dress again. Her score was barely a third of his despite how many times he’d lost his combo.

“Are you alright?” Dick asked, brushing past the warning he got before asking.

“I’m fine. Now let’s go again.” Felicia dismissed him as she tucked herself back in.

“We really don’t have to. Do you want to move on to your pick?”

His date seemed to be having trouble deciding, before looking at him as defiantly as she could while agreeing. “Fine, then it’s time for pinball.”

There…wasn’t much worth saying about how pinball went. She crushed him as easily as he’d beaten her at Dance Dance Revelation or the cup game. She’d made a point to keep playing her second game of pinball long after she’d won, just to prove that she could.

“So what’s our last game?” Felicia asked, after she’d finally lost control in her game of pinball.

“If I’m going to win this, we’re ending with basketball.” Dick declared, hoping to use his superior height and upper body strength to his advantage.

“That’s fine with me.”

But when they got there, his game winning idea fell through. The basketball arcade machine was taped up and a sign was on it reading ‘Sorry, Down for Repairs.’

“You included a broken basketball machine?”

“Well…yes.” She admitted, deciding not to lie to him this time.

“Fine, We’re doing Wario Kart instead.” He led her over to the racing game, which had several seats side by side. At least that was working.

“Want to do just one race, to act as a tiebreaker?” Felicia suggested. He nodded, so they both got into their seats to choose a racer and modify their karts.

They both chose pretty obscure characters. He picked Wario’s green cousin that pretty much only appeared in the sports games and an old ghost hunting game that he’d always wished had gotten a sequel and then put him in a matching green kart, and she went with a dirt bike and the baby version of one of the princesses in a different spin-off series.

As the race got started, they shot into first and second place, zooming past the CPUs. Who was in first versus who was in second kept shifting as they picked up mystery boxes to throw stuff at each other. The banter intensified on both sides in their own way, like Felicia telling him to eat shit as she pelted him with one red shell after another, and Dick “accidentally” waiting too long to warn her about the grease traps he’d littered a turn with.

As Dick was finishing the final lap, he started to realize that he’d been in first too long. It’d been too long since Felicia hit him with another bomb or mouse trap. He didn’t have time to look over and check on her, so he decided to just ask: “Hey, you still playing?”

“Yep.”

Ok, she’s up to something. He instantly knew from her tone of voice. “Are you that far behind then?”

“I’m not behind, don’t worry.”

“I can see right here that you’re in twelfth.”

“Not for long.”

She’s getting cryptic again. There’s never a clearer sign she’s scheming than when she’s getting cryptic. It’s not like she’s in range to blow me up, so what’s her angle? “You’ve got maybe thirty, maybe twenty seconds before I win. What’re you doing?”

He could see the finish line approaching as his little green plumber zoomed forward. Felicia hadn’t responded right away to his question, and he was starting to think she wasn’t going to. Then she eventually asked: “You want to know what I’m planning?”

“That’s why I keep asking, yes.”

“Then I’ll show you.” He watched as her dirt bike flew onto the screen from the side opposite a gorge, landing on the ground mere pixels away from the finish line. He ticked down from first to second as their final game ended.

“Ava showed me that shortcut years ago, it requires having at least two speed boosts ready.” Felicia gleefully explained, moving from her seat to his. Finding a spot on his lap, she asked: “Do you remember what we agreed on if I kicked your ass?”

“Unilateral control over designing one of your spells?”

“Exactly. Now let’s discuss all three of them over dinner.”

***

She’d taken him to a fancy restaurant, the sign outside declaring it Frederick’s. The menu was as constrained by budget as the other places other contestants had taken him to. They’d explained their orders to an unseen wait staff, their menus disappearing afterwards.

“So,” Richard started. “You wanted to negotiate? What was the first spell you were trying to get?” As he asked, a spectral set of scales manifested itself. It was shimmering with a pink light, and looked like it was weighed down heavily in his direction.

“My first idea is being able to point at someone and make them stronger, faster, and broadly more athletic. As a trade off, they’d get more intense and get a bit of tunnel-vision.”

The scale moved, shifting to an off-putting red sheen as it became slightly tilted in her direction.

“What happened?” She asked.

Dick wasn’t sure how, but he felt like he knew. “The cost isn’t proportional enough to the utility of what it can do. You’ve got both something that can shore up your weaknesses, and something that can destabilize others.”

“So I can’t get it? That’s stupid.”

“What if it was slightly more conditional, like you needed to shake someone’s hand or something to get them to agree to it?” He suggested. The scale turned pink again and moved from slightly in her favor to slightly in his.

“Would it work if I just had to touch someone?” Felicia countered. The scale came into balance. “Deal.”

“Did you have a second idea?”

Felicia nodded. “I asked Genet at lunch about how close my vote was. She told me that there was less than a three percent difference between this and the lactation TF. So I’m hoping that if I use this one to replicate that one, it'll help me climb back up to first.”

“So you want to…be able to lactate on command?” Whoever wrote those essays is getting exactly what they wanted.

“Think bigger. Hazel and Maeve beat me, and they've both been super cooperative with everyone. If this is going to help me take the lead back, then I want it to make any of us lactate on command.” Her side of the scale sank.

“With their permission.”

“Of course.” Seeing her agree, the scale rose slightly back up.

“So what’s the cost supposed to be?” He inquired.

“I don’t know yet,” she admitted.

“What about something like compelled honesty or obedience?” The scale balanced itself.

“You misogynistic, controlling prick. Have you just wanted to control me the whole time?” She asked in outrage. But there was something… hollow about her anger.

I mostly would’ve used the obedience to get her to be more direct, but she’s talking in that tone she uses when she’s bullshitting. He decided to test how far his transformation could check, then stood up and leaned over the table. “Do you really mind? We could always go with honesty if you want, but something tells me you don’t mind the idea as much as you say you do.” He had both hands on the table, and was looking down at her. God, I hope that TF didn’t steer me wrong.

In most other situations, Felicia would’ve kept going and tried to turn up the bravado. He’s so tall. And his arms…Imagine if he took me right here against the table. Pinning me down... “Deal.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.” She looked down at the table a bit sheepish. “Could you do that again sometime?”

“What, like this?” He tried leaning over the table again.

“Maybe? It doesn’t really work if you don’t sound confident. Do you want to do the third one now?”

“Increased sensitivity?” He offered. It seemed like it’d be nice for her.

“With decreased inhibitions?” The scale swung first in her favor when he spoke, then in his with her addition.

“That seems like a bad combination.” He tried to warn. He’d seen himself do things he’d been trying to be careful about under similar inhibition based effects.

“I can handle it.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yes. Now stop being a pansy.”

“If you’re sure, then I guess it’s a deal.” As he agreed to the final spell, the white wine and entrees that they’d both chosen appeared in front of them.