Fitness and Family

Mona

The meeting wraps up and Ms. O’Connor-Peters looks discombobulated, “Ah, sister... I mean brother... ah, sibling? Sibling works. May we please talk?”

The Host is at least gracious, “I can make some time for you now, Sis. We’ll be at the pool if you need either of us, Mona.” Then, the Host grabs onto Ms O’Connor-Peters hand and they both dissolve into mist.

Most of the others head upstairs to do whatever it is they are going to do. Andromeda stands, waiting. Tyalangan did tell me to talk to her about the app before I use it. I should maybe do it now?

“Andromeda, wanna come help me find the gym? I apparently have to work out.”

Andromeda pulls out a phone and stares at it for a moment. “Sorry, still adjusting from what just happened. It hurts a little bit to look at my phone. You ever try to film a cell phone screen? I’m experiencing that effect. Gym is a bit of a walk. We can go upstairs to teleport to it.”

Ugh, the bounties. “I shouldn’t. One of my bounties is to walk around a bunch and it tells me not to teleport.”

Andromeda blushes in a very weird way: it’s as if there are a bunch of LED lights embedded in her cheeks that light up at once. “We should probably compare notes.” Mona gets excited by the exclusive Spring and Winter room bounties. Very excited. She is tempted to text Caoimhe just to have her watch her jill off to all of the perverse ideas floating in her head about them. We goon together, so she should get points and make that okay. Ooooh, maybe she can show me if she locked herself up?

Mona forces down her urges for now. She’ll have plenty of time to be degenerate with Craig tonight. Just gotta get him to apologize properly, then get him to like me, then I get to go to pound town! I’m going to have sex tonight! Whoo!

Instead, she complains about her bounties. Andromeda looks annoyed. “Really? Your dailies are basically to act like an adult and I have to...”

“Hey, that one weekly thing makes it so I can’t frigg by myself. You know how much I normally do that? Several times a day!”

Andromeda blushes again. The conversation lulls to the point where Mona pays attention to her surroundings. They have left the castle completely, now on a cobblestone street with what look like manors on either side of them. There is a crowd of sexy people following them, too. Mona nearly creams her pajamas from the looks they are all giving her. It’s like everyone views her as a particularly scrumptious piece of meat.

They turn a corner and see the gym. The Wulf Den. A small crowd has gathered in front of it. The crowd notices them. A cacophony of cat-calls, wolf-whistles, and girlish squees erupts. Mona and Andromeda soon find themselves nearly pressed on all sides by a mob of horny townsfolk, asking for autographs, photos, sex acts. It starts to become too much.

A howl erupts from the gym, silencing the crowd. There, glowing with a menacing red aura and bearing some painful looking claws, is Josie Wulf, the fitness influencer thot herself. She growls, “Give her some space, you horndogs.”

The crowd splits, allowing Mona and Andromeda space to walk into the gym. The workout wolf-girl trails behind them.

“Maybe next time you leave the castle, Mona, you should have a proper escort? Let’s head to one of my personal training rooms. We can talk there.”

Andromeda follows the gym thot dutifully, but Mona lingers. Sooo many sexy women are exercising with so little on, all tightly hugging curves. Josie barks, “Mona, here!” That breaks the pervert out of her stupor.

When they get to the private room, Josie directs Andromeda to have a seat. Then she has Mona stand on this weird scale thing with something like an electronic display on it. Mona has to wash her feet with these little wipes and start on these metal bits on the scale and, when it tells her to, to hols onto these metal bits on these rods with her hands held out. She gets scanned, hops off the scale, then Josie orders her to stand on one leg and try to hold her arms forward.

“This is dumb. Why doesn’t Andromeda have to do this?”

Josie shrugs, “She’s a construct person now? Exercise won’t do anything for her, physically.”

“Boo!” Mona almost immediately loses balance as soon as she begins the test.

The initial health assessment SUCKS! She couldn’t even do half of the Level 1 tasks for each exercise. Her fancy body scanning scale measurements were also very bad. Moderately obese according to both BMI (Whatever that means...) and percent body fat. Low muscle mass and metabolic rate.

Mona collapses on the padded floor when they are done, groaning, “Couldn’t Tyalangan just magic away the fatness?”

“Sure, she could. She might even do it at one point. But magic always has a price to pay and using magic that way is a shortcut. Without developing good habits, you will suffer more in the long run, even if she made you in perfect health all the time. My bunny- and cat-girlfriends have both had to bury some of their children, all of who lived to a ripe old age. You want to bury a child in their thirties ‘cause they picked up your bad habits? That could happen.”

Man, do they want to guilt me into being a more mature person. “Wait, you outlived some of your children?”

Josie stares at Andromeda for a moment, then sighs, “Secrets probably out already, so doesn’t hurt to answer. We fucked up a little with the wish at the end. We forgot to include the kids in the whole ‘extended life’ thing. Most beastkin here live to their thirties, maybe forties if they are lucky. So, I have been to a couple of harem grandkid funerals already. My old lady takes them hard. So does my bunny-girlfriend.”

Josie stands up, takes a breath, then pulls Mona up on her feet with a single arm. “Drink some water, then hit the treadmill for half an hour, then you’re good for today. I will have your lunch delivered here by then. I’ll leave the two of you here. I’m sure you have plenty to talk about while I get back to running my business.”

Mona groans, then starts trudging along the treadmill, sipping her water when she gets thirsty. It’s almost empty. Andromeda goes to fill up the big cup and Mona thinks to stop right then. She doesn’t, but she thinks it. A notification ding in her head encourages her.

Mona: Daily task bonus objective reached! Reward pending completion of primary task!

Mona happily slurps down some water once it’s brought back. Andromeda finally asks, “There is something we need to talk about, right?”

Mona almost freezes in place. “Oh, uh, yeah. A lot of things.”

Andromeda stares, unblinking. It would be a bit unnerving, but Mona is too busy having a minor mental meltdown to worry about that. How do I tell her I can permanently adjust her emotions on the fly with my phone? Can I tell her? I mean, she’s my friend and she’s in my harem as a sexy robot lady, so I probably should, but...

“This is about the garbled portion of my transformation, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, uh, it is. Please don’t be mad?”

“I will try.”

“They gave me an app that lets me tweak your emotions. Like, permanently. It doesn’t mess with your intelligence, just your feelings and stuff like that? I will try to not use it without your go ahead, but the idea is really hot and it looks like you will need me to, so...”

Andromeda’s facial muscles twitch as if she tried to blink. Weird, no eyelids.

“Why would I need you to?”

Mona pulls out her phone and opens the app, still walking along. The app has a bunch of sliders between opposing emotions. Andromeda has maximum limits on each emotion and is allowed to experience any emotional state between those limits. The app displays Andromeda’s current state for every slider. Mona can spend points to change the position of each limit. She tries to show Andromeda the screen, saying, “Well, there are these warning messages on some of the categories. In your current emotional parameters, you are incapable of earning XP with me, outside of some very minimal friend things. See?”

Andromeda does the try to blink twitch again. “Uh, Mona, that is an image of me nude, before the transformation.”

Tina, somehow anticipating the confusion, appears in a sparkly poof of silver rabbits, shouts, “Security feature! None of the cuties can perceive the app, Mona, so they don’t spend your points for you! Byeeeeee!”, then disappears in another burst of bunnies.

Oops.

Mona explains what she is seeing. She reads the warnings verbatim. Andromeda nods, finally, “I see. So long as you are extending the range of emotions I can feel, I see no problem with you using the app. Try to clear the warnings first. Shrinking my emotional capacity down is where I will have a problem. I have to trust you not to **** this, Mona. Please don’t take advantage.”

Mona nods and fiddles with a particular slider. It costs her all of her current EP, but Mona is satisfied for now. A little blast of pixelated confetti appears once she confirms her selection. It includes a scrolling text message: “Congratulations. Your android can now feel mildly horny. Enjoy!”

The number of items Andromeda won’t be able to do for points in the warning messages shrinks. A good start. Need more EP.

Mona: Daily tasks complete! Walk for 30 minutes and walk 5K steps. +10 BP

Mona: Weekly task update! Spend one-on-one time with each contestant (1/6)

Tessa

Tessa’s head still hurts from the transformation. 200 years or so of memories appearing suddenly, quadrupling one’s life experience, will do that to you.

She takes in the sight of the pool. It’s like a mad scientist tried to cram dozens of water slides into a single space, with a lazy river and a tide pool section for an added lark. Tessa stands on the top stair of a series of concrete steps in the shallow end of the clean, yet briny, water. She looks at her reflection staring back at her; while the human can barely recognize herself, the elf grimaces more about the clothes.

“Can I...” Tessa asks, hesitating.

Tyalangan (It’s Francis; focus Tessa!) shrugs as she dives in, already skinny dipping. Tessa pulls her uncomfortable dress into her inventory (the human surprised how easily that was done) and walks the rest of the way in. She spots Tyalangan sitting at the bottom of the deep end. The human is terrified, but the sea elf is relieved. Tessa dives. She notices several clear porthole doors built into the pool wall, sealing off water tubes that go... somewhere. When she gets close enough, Tyalangan reaches out, filling her mind with her words, “Old season had water tubes for the staff to use. We have a similar setup for our pool complex. This pool is for you contestants, but I have one in my wing of the castle and a couple for my children. Please leave them be.”

While the human is surprised by how the Host did that, the elf knows she can do it too. Tessa reaches out, “Not what I wanted to talk about, Tyalangan.”

“I know. I just saw you being curious. Come, sit. You likely need to spend a bit of time underwater soon. We can talk like this.”

Tessa settles down beside her sister... brother... sibling. “So, you done avoiding my questions, Tyalangan?”

A burst of whale song rumbles in the water; a chortle in Aquan. “I am done avoiding some of your questions, Sis.” Tyalangan then proceeds to summarize a century worth of her life, starting with being kidnapped by the show as her season’s Master turned Mistress. Tessa’s blood boils; it seems Josie told her true. How can Francis be okay with all of this?

Tessa sighs in whalesong, which feels weird to the human, normal to the elf, and exclaims, “Given all of that, why reject your human life, Tyalangan?”

Tyalangan smiles, trying to hide some pain, “You know what your mother did to Dad, right?”

“She was your mother too, Tyalangan.”

“She stopped being my mother before you were born, Sis. When she framed Dad, got him thrown in the madhouse, it destroyed me, even if it took being kidnapped by smut peddlers for me to realize it. When I was taken, the only good thing from my human life that wasn’t with me was you. The life me and mine built here made the human one irrelevant. Now that you’re here, there is nothing I personally care about back in your world. I still want to save it, but you see...”

As her sibling runs out of words, Tessa thinks back to the information her PIs dug up. A couple found evidence that Mother committed terrible acts to Francis’s father, having him falsely committed and then murdered by some of his “caretakers.” And she was cruelly neglectful of the boy, never quite to the point of having CPS called but undeniable. The fact that her father went along with the neglect hurts too.

“Before you ask, I always knew, in my gut. Could never prove it, but I always knew.”

Tessa sits, feeling the weight of Francis’s hate towards their mother, unsure what to do.

The Host suddenly changes the subject, “Sis, can you do something for me now? I need you to focus on the game. You win, you survive the game, and we will have centuries to catch up. You fail and it will break my heart. So, please, focus on Mona, not on me.”

And, with that, Tyalangan disappears. Tessa sits at the bottom of the pool, mulling over the conversation. If Francis is right, then I need to play the game. It’s been so long since I tried living for something other than finding him. It’s been nearly a decade since I was Mona’s teacher. I have something like my old body back, even if I’m now blue and breathing underwater. Can I make Mona happy? Can Mona make me happy?

Tessa breaches the surface of the water, a little bit dissatisfied needing to use her lungs again. She reaches the edge of the pool and drags herself out. Drying her bare skin with the sun, she reluctantly dresses. Time for me to try to find out.