The Hyper Confrontation 2 – Stupor [Momo POV]

‘He is definitely monologuing right now,’ Momo thought.

The isolation of her mind felt strange. There was a dullness where her soul connected with John’s and she could not feel the others at all. It was a strange quiet, like moving from a gorgeous symphony to an empty theatre.

‘More like a noisy train station to a bathroom stall,’ she corrected herself mentally.

GLUG! GLUG! GLUG! GLUG!

‘Definitely a train station bathroom,’ she reinforced the thought, beholding her opponent.

Kyle was downing a bottle without end. The mystery liquid within the amber glass sloshed with every deep gulp, yet never depleted. Whenever it appeared as if it was going to, a particularly intense wave went through it and suddenly it was right back to where it had started. Momo ran the calculations on how much fluid could guzzle down the gullet of a man of this size and came to the conclusion that he had already drunk twice the volume he should have been capable of.

Momo weighed the Witch Blade in her hands. The staff of elderwood had a nice lightness to it. Even the tip, made of gemstones that magically melded with the wood, barely weighed more than a regular sword. At her Strength, that might as well have been weightless.

White eyes scanned the environment. As requested, she had been brought to the densest part of the local forest that could have been found. They had used the past two days to scout out every square metre of the Protected Space, then created individual battle plans both in case their offer was accepted and denied.

A flick of her wrist aided in the channelling of mana, empowering the white barrier that spawned between her and the bottle suddenly flying her way. It exploded on impact, dousing the ground in strong-smelling liquor and glass.

“It’sh all your fault!” Kyle slurred. “I ha…aaaad it all! You listen to me, you… gorgeous, fat-assed beauty?”

Momo rolled her eyes. “If your name is not John Newman, objectifying me is not in the cards.” She smirked with delightfully justified smugness. “I’m too much women for you anyway.”

“I tshink I’m sheeeing double?” Kyle slurred and rubbed his eyes. “I didn’t have that mush…?”

“”I rather think you did,”” Momo answered, her voice coming from fifty mouths scattered around the forest. “”Not that it matters what I think.””

Kyle suddenly charged forwards. There was a tumble to his step, but he was fast all the same. Faster than Momo was in terms of her body, but not when it came to her mind. The move had been predicted, and when his fist crashed into a jawbone, it was merely the jawbone of one of Momo’s Fae Maids.

She could feel the pain echo through the hivemind. It was a ping like an annoying itch. The Fae Maid fell onto her back, the rotund man on top of her. “It’sh all your fault! All yoursh!” he shouted, striking the face of the empty vessel repeatedly.

There was no need to feel for the destruction of the Fae Maid. Even broken, she would be returned to proper shape soon enough. Each Firefly was an effectively immortal entity, fragments of the greater self of the viscountess. Still, Momo did not take kindly to watching an image of herself be violated like that.

“Being… a woman’s… shoooooo easy… you jusht have to lay there and… eheheheeee…” A lecherous laugh made the collective Momos shiver. Wiggling fingers moved down from the ruined face to the collar of the poncho.

The intent was clear and Momo decided that this was a bridge too far, even as a functioning distraction. The Fae Maid’s skin glowed from within for a split second, before exploding into a weak wave of red. Blowing them up in their humanoid form was much less effective than the tiny, concentrated shape of a firefly. Still, it did prevent Kyle from defiling her likeness.

“H-how dare youuuuuuu!” Kyle shouted. “She was soooo into it!”

“…You know what? Come here for a second.” Momo made a ‘come hither’ gesture and the man waddled over like an obedient little dog. The moment he was close enough, she patted him on the bald head twice. “I think you are the most disgusting thing I had to deal with recently.”

Then she dug her black fingers into his scalp.

Kyle went from drunken giggling to pained screams within a single moment. Momo had removed the gloves, usually part of her outfit, revealing the pale skin of her arms. Yet, her digits were black, a gradient that started at the first knuckle and turned so black at the tips that it looked like she had dragged them through wet ash.

The Touch of the Archfae wracked the target with esoteric pain. The signals flooded through the nervous system and magical circuitry both. Kyle was convulsing. He was frothing at the lips. Even his spit reeked of liquor. His eyes rolled back in his skull. His mouth opened and opened until it looked like his jaw would fall off.

Momo was not sure whether her next Swap was necessary or if it was her Swapping that enabled what came next.

The moment the hand of the true Momo was replaced with that of a blue-eyed copy, a stream of projectile vomit hit that ‘her’ in the stomach. It was a truly vile sight, impossible in its power and quantity. Yellow acid punched through the Fae Maid, then continued to dissolve two more with its spray. Several trees collapsed under their own weight once their trunks had been eaten at enough.

“Now I am sober!” Kyle shouted, angry again. He grabbed a bottle out of nowhere and went back to chugging.

Momo loosened two Darc Lances at him. Without any charge time, the spells were a pittance compared to what they could be. Yet, with her Intellect, their punching power was enough to pierce through a row of average people. With Kyle, it barely left a dent on his skin.

“Ouchie!” he shouted, like a child.

“Ew.” Momo recoiled at that voice. “How many layers of disgusting can you pile on? It’d be impressive if it weren’t so pathetic.”

“Oh, shut up, silly woman. You are talking to the Chosen of the Bottle,” he guffawed, then put the liquor back to his lips.

“Congratulations, you have been chosen by the only hole that thinks your penis is big,” Momo sassed.

Another bottle was launched at her immediately. “YOU ARE A DAMN WHORE!” the alcoholic shouted. “YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT’SH GOOD FOR YOU! YOU’RE JUST ANOTHER FUCKING WHORE!” He barrelled at her, launching himself at the fairy maid at impressive speed.

By now, Momo had seen enough to have estimated how she could compensate.

She thrust her hand forwards and clenched slender fingers into a tight fist. The staff in her hand sang, one of its enchantments activating, spreading her charisma to physical reality. Space collapsed behind Kyle. The drag of folding physics took all the momentum out of his sails, allowing the fairy maid to grab her staff with both hands and swing.

The blade dragged through flesh and cloth without leaving a mark, as if the crystal had never existed in the first place. It left the body of the man all the same. By the end of the swing, Kyle would have fallen on her. Another well-timed Swap saw him crash into a double and nothing more.

Momo followed a calling and began to wander the forest. The bottom of the Witch Blade staff tapped on the floor of bark, dirt and needles. They shattered, where her feet fell, releasing the scent of aromatic oils. “Do you believe yourself powerful?” she asked aloud. “Do you think that your acts are allowable? Wretch, know that you are dust to me, unfit even to nourish flowers. Scum, know that you are naught to me, your prophet matched us poorly.”

“OH YEAH?!” Kyle roared. “I SHOW POORLY MATCHED!”

The drunk broke out into his own sprint, charging at one of the Fae Maids after another. He was quite agile, a meat boulder that leapt from tree to tree, tearing through the copies on the way. Colourful insect wings tumbled for brief moments, before turning into light that turned to nothing. The man ripped through the bodies like they were made of paper.

It was the proper strategy, born from rage rather than cunning, to deprive the fairy of her bodies many. All the same, Momo continued to wander, inspecting the low-hanging branches of trees. “There you are.” She smiled and took hold of a cluster of needles, as if she was taking hold of an old friend. The Witch Blade sang.

“THERE YOuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu!” Kyle screamed, slobbering like a dog.

Momo tugged gently at the branch. It came loose from the tree without any resistance. Forks in the pine branch twisted, catching the fall. Cones and bark rearranged into sharp teeth. The Wicker Man let out a wooden scream, then hurled itself in the path of Kyle.

“DA FUQ?” Kyle screamed.

The defender of amber and pine bit and scratched the much shorter man. Like a snake, the branch-born guardian wrapped around the alcoholic assailant. Its sharp edges sliced skin, drawing blood.

Momo stepped forwards with ritualistic slowness. She raised the staff in a fluid motion. Then, just as Kyle ripped the Wicker Man off himself, she swung. The weapon sliced without cutting once more, entering the thick neck on one side and exiting the other.

“Biiiiiiiiiiiiiish!” Kyle slurred, then giggled. “I’ll shoooow youuuuu!”

Right in front of her, he pulled a fresh bottle from nowhere and began chugging. The light in his eyes, already dimmed, dimmed further with every gulp. Wounds closed as **** filled his veins.

The power of the man, Momo had already realized. A simple one of booze entering, increasing Physical Stats, Strength and Endurance primarily, in exchange for the Mental. By his speed, she could estimate he was a threat around level 400. A formidable foe, certainly, and a threat to her, who was built to support – yet a poor match-up for him.

“One more offensive, will you be afforded, before your life you forfeit to me, the fairy fly of this forest deep,” Momo half-sung. “I will not miss, creep.”

“That huuurrrrrtsh,” Kyle lamented, his speech slowed by more than just intoxication. The swings of the Witch Blade killed Intellect, something another enemy would have realized. “Can’t we like… talk?”

“Such privilege I shall not afford. One more exchange of blows, then your ****, such is my accord.” Momo activated the Skill Acceleration of the Witch Blade. Fireflies scattered out from her black poncho, turning into her likeness all around.

“If you inshiiist!” The Chosen of the Bottle flung himself at her. There was barely any hostility in it anymore. No aggressive, perverted intent either, just… a lack of conviction in attacking her. It was the mounting consequence of the Mind Damage he sustained every time she struck him.

Momo sliced at the air in front of her. Fae energies rent the space open. A swarm of colourful insects poured out, scattering less than half a metre before exploding into white and silver moonlight around the drunk.

Kyle hissed, aggression returning. Landing where she had been. Mana burned, accelerating her flight upwards. The soft vibration of her wings kept her hovering. “CUUUUUUUNT!” the drunk shouted yet another obscenity and jumped up at her.

Momo closed her fist.

Space collapsed by the decree of the viscountess of the Midnight Court. Her mana dropped steeply, but that was a price she readily paid to pull Kyle back to the floor. He crouched down again, too stupefied to realize the double standing behind him. A double that Momo Swapped with at the end of the 10 second charge.

If the drunk realized the white-eyed woman now had eyes of black, he did so too late. Momo’s black fingers grabbed the back of his neck. The Touch of the Archfae caused the man to convulse once more. His muscles were involuntarily trembling. His skin became wet, stinking sweat soaking his bodysuit. “BLUUUUAAAAAAARGH!” The moist vocalization of vomiting accompanied yet more streams of the bile, burning a groove into the forest.

Momo held on with a dispassionate gaze. “As a monster you acted, with a monster you allied, and a monster you will slay,” she mused, watching the spasms slowly die down. Once the man in front of her was completely motionless, she let go.

“Whatever you want, lady,” Kyle said, the cadence of the middle-aged man regressed to that of a boy of 11 or younger. His Intellect was truly gone, and when he turned to her, there was an abominable innocence in his eyes.

“My desire I have stated, plain and true,” she reminded him. “Your final offensive has been had and thus your life you forfeit to me.”

“Yes, oh yes!”

“And I do not desire it.”

“I understand!”

Kyle put one hand on his jaw and the other on top of his head. One hand began to push, the other to pull. The edges of his placid smile twitched downwards. There was a spirit of recognizing what he was doing still there. A few muscles tensed against the inevitable.

“N-no…” Kyle muttered. “Maybe there’s-“

“Shut up,” Momo ordered. “There is no use you have left, traitor.”

Kyle pumped air in and out with increasing panic. A scream echoed through the forest. It was determination and struggle both. It ended with a loud snap. His own neck broken, the Chosen of the Bottle slumped down as a heap of meat. Yellow liquor streamed from every orifice, the magic that had allowed him to contain it all breaking.

Holding her nose against the stench of the other fluids mixed in with the ****, Momo took rapid steps backwards. She could still taste it on her tongue, right up until her fae magics overpowered it and replaced it with the fragrance of lilacs. “Absolutely vile,” she gagged, then pulled open the Harem Comms to let Lee know that she was done.

She did not expect the other fights to have gone much differently.