Those Who Eat Worlds, Part 3

(Massive credit to 4og8zzjkc, who was incredibly helpful with this chapter. If you haven't, definitely check out Kiss the Girl, Save the World.)

Hailey took a deep breath, and then ran towards the creature off in the distance. She thought about her life up to that point, including her brief time at Harem Hotel. Was this how it was going to end? Killing a creature that had ended this world, and was devouring reality itself. It had probably devoured many other realities before arriving at this one, tricking cultists with whatever sweet bullshit it whispered into their ears and then filled their minds with so as to feast on their worlds. Worse, feast on their very realities. The whole thing made everything Hailey knew before, even Harem Hotel, insignificant by comparison. It was worse than the universe being uncaring, it was actively absurd in its ability to make her life, and the lives of everyone she knew, meaningless.

But there was one last step. Hailey was familiar with the idea of being driven mad by seeing an Eldritch Abomination, or being paralyzed in terror by seeing one. A long time ago she had gotten a bunch of potions in the mail, and as a gift to her, the demon had let her keep them in the same sci-fi inventory that held her bullets, guns, and other such things. Each potion had been described by the sender to do a transformation, and one of them was described as being emotionless, which would be a considerable boon for the situation at hand. Hailey checked for it, and sure enough, she found the Nehtaliante Potion.

*Nehtaliante Potion – Weird? Be a Wasp-girl like my wife’s lawyer. Wings! Multi-arms! Paralytic venom! Stinger! Emotional detachment?

The description was enough to reassure Hailey that it was the right choice. While the emotional detachment was a maybe, the rest of the transformation would be helpful for she had to fight next. After all, she doubted all these brainwashed cultists would just let her kill their beloved god, even if it was destroying their very reality. Being able to wield the anti-mage revolver, and perhaps one or two other weapons, along with the 8 gauge eldritch slayer would be important. So Hailey drank the potion in one fell swoop, and transformed.

Wings and arms ripped out of Hailey in a transformation that'd be suitable for any body horror movie. She also got a stinger, but it was located in a place that'd be... awkward to use for the situation at hand. After a check of her guns, Hailey flew up, and towards the entity in the distance. While she felt calmer, this fight would be the real test of whether this transformation's emotional detachment would be enough for her to combat the foe at hand.

On the way, she tested out her new arms, using the SMG to gun down cultists that weren't magically empowered, and every once in awhile, switching to the revolver to finish off any mages that blocked ordinary bullets. As she flew closer and closer to the eldritch being in the distance, she realized how important it was she had transformed herself with the potion. There was a zone around the being where gravity had gone haywire by launching everything upwards, and that meant, if she lacked the ability to fly...

...best not to think about it. Instead, when she passed through this zone, she was launched upwards, but her wings meant she could control her ascent, and exit the zone. Then, directly above the creature, she chose her final loadout. The eldritch slaying break open double barrel 8 gauge shotgun was placed in her primary arms. Her other limbs had the anti-magic revolver to slay any cultists, magical or otherwise, that were foolish enough to be there, but she it wouldn't matter. Psyching herself up for what could very well be a suicidal assault, Hailey said, "Ever step on a wasp? I hear it hurts like hell."

Hailey dived, letting gravity do the work of propelling her towards the creature. She was going to shoot into its eyes, and then tear through them to whatever passed for a brain in this horrific thing. While approaching the creature, she dared not look at its over all form, as she suspected it would break her brain, or worse, become brainwashed into serving it like all the cultists she had slain. So the dive continued as Hailey fell faster and faster until-

Right before crashing into one of the creature's eyes, she fired off both shots at once. The recoil was immense, and would've dislocated her shoulder if she hadn't hip fired. But a hole is ripped into the creature's eye by the shells, both from their power, and from whatever makes this weapon hurt the eldritch. So she fell in, and kept reloading before blasting whatever was in front of her, whether it looked organic, like an abstraction, or something meant to break her brain, over and over, mindlessly. The sound from the weapon was deafening, but for once, that was a good thing, because it blocked out the assault on her ears from this creature's dying screams. Except these weren't the screams of an animal, a person, or anything else. Hailey couldn't describe it as a sound if she was honest with herself, but rather like reality tearing itself apart, and her senses reporting it to her as a massive cacophony which drowned out reality itself...

Hailey stumbled out of a very green room into a hallway, the potion long worn off. The floors were lined with marble, criss-crossed with glass tubes of water. The room smelled of something marine, sea salt or something like it. The doors all had panels, as if each was one door for many rooms. Hailey tried a door, opening it to find a sex dungeon. She closed it and tried again. A “build your own teddy bear” store? And again. Some kind of convenience store, featuring a bored teenager resting her head on the checkout counter?

Hailey heard shouting down the hallway. She trotted over. There was something like cover in the room: a water feature statue of mermaids eating… something? A female voice, shrill, shouts something in Esperanto from the top of this weird aquarium lined stairwell.

The man, orange jumpsuit tied around his waist instead of fully zipped up, shouts back in English, “Bitch, I am not taking another punishment because you refuse to speak to me in English. Get back down here!”

She recognized him as he turned around. The man killed innocents. Lots of innocents. It was in another world, one she had been in too briefly to do anything to stop him, or really do much of anything, except grab some shotgun shells for the pump action she had in her inventory. In this one though? The only pistol she still had on hand was the revolver from the world that had been eaten, and she wasn't afraid to use it here.

"Hey, asshole, where am I?" Hailey cocked the revolver, aiming at the man's head. "You're the one I saw committing a massacre, so my patience with you is NON-EXISTENT!”

The man approached, not the least bit scared of the gun. In fact, he pressed his forehead into the barrel by the end of his rant, “Fuck? Another crazy bitch? Where’d the fuck you come from, huh? Don’t matter. C’mon skank, pull the trigger. Rather be dead than here. Put me out of my misery, yeah? Go on. DO IT!”

Hailey blew a chunk of his head off. Blackpowder 45 may have had less muzzle energy than smokeless, but it was still more than enough against an unarmored target, especially at point blank range. But right in front of her, she saw the man's head reassemble. All of the gore fused back together into a solid head. She even heard him grumbling about death not being an escape.

Hailey is tugged back from the man by seawater. Her attempts to struggle against it were for naught. She is spun around against her will, only to have her vision filled with sharp, shark-like teeth.

The teeth pull back to reveal… a mermaid? Luscious blue and black hair; black scales shimmering with incandescent blues and indigos; fina radiating from her arms of the same coloration. She had on a top hat, an eye patch, a sports jacket, and a tie threaded between two gigantic breasts that can’t be hydrodynamic. One of the tendrils restraining her forced Hailey to let go of her revolver; it sank into the living mass of seawater.

“Trespassing on a closed set, eh? Hmm… What to do with a trespasser?”

"I don't know, let her go?" Hailey got out the 8 gauge, although it was difficult to hold in the present circumstances. "I'm a bit harder to keep, as like every other red blooded American, I have more guns than sense."

"You just saw someone be bulletproof," Calaypso said. "Are you really going to try that again?"

"Yeah, but this will be more annoying to heal from," Hailey said while aiming the enormous double barrel. "Besides, this thing is built to kill charging elephants and eldritch abominations in one fell swoop, so I'm sure it can hurt you."

Hailey felt something land on her head. It was warm. A mesmerizing soprano voice rings out, “Calypso, I will deal with this.”

The mermaid groused, “Ma’am, punishing dimensional breachers is in the purview of…”

“I know the network regulations. Hailey here is a lingering loose end from that Archivist fiasco. I will deal with this. Deal with your contestant.”

Then, with a resonant tone, both Hailey and whatever is sitting on her head began to fall. They land with a thud on a pile of dragon-girl plushies.

The thing hopped off Hailey’s head. It turned out to be a silver furred cat. It purred, “Welcome to relative safety, Hailey. Can I get you anything while we are here? A stuffed rabbit-girl? Breast expansion gum? A T-shirt with your face on it?”

“Where are we? Who are you? How can you talk?”

The cat bound up on a shelf to get to Hailey’s eye level. “We are in the stockroom for a Harem Hotel retail store near another set under my purview. You may address me as Ms. E, should you feel the urge to use a name. I’m a Producer for the show. Not your season’s Producer, mind you, but a producer nevertheless. I take the form of a cat, usually, when dealing with show things. Feel free to shop around while I start to get you back to your bunker. My treat, for your inconvenience.”

"Alright," Hailey said while putting away the gun. "I'd appreciate the revolver back, I might need it in the future. Otherwise..."

Hailey grabbed a fox plushie, calming herself, and then set about grabbing a myriad number of things from the store. She didn't know much about Ms. E, but if she was a producer, she could pick up the tab, and seemed to understand this whole situation was a fuckup that was the Hotel's fault, not Hailey's. So a restock was in order, although ammunition for her various weapons was out. Other than the revolver, where once again, she found ammo in a corner of the store nobody paid attention to. After cleaning that out, she grabbed a T-shirt of herself to experiment with, a Harem Hotel notebook branded off of Claire's from the HH, although it lacked infinite pages, a couple of mechanical pencils, and a pile of pens to write with.

The cat then strutted out of the storeroom and into the shop proper. Hailey has to lightly jog to keep up, which felt ridiculous and impossible. She barely had time to examine the store displays before they find themselves on a cobblestone street. A castle loomed large on the other side of a lovely neighborhood park. The sky was filled with stars and a mostly full, silvery moon. It was quiet and peaceful. After so many worlds, it seemed like Hailey had a moment to breathe.

It was a world Hailey had heard about from Cammy and Felix, but seeing it in person was another matter altogether. The mixture of a medieval fantasy world with one that clearly ran on porn logic and that had random flashes of modernity in it was fascinating. Unlike all the other worlds Hailey had been exposed to over the last month, it was still intact as well.

They walked right past the guards, who merely nodded as they passed. The castle interior is dimly lit and quiet. Only the occasional patrol would break the hush as they approached a door floating in the middle of the hallway.

The cat hopped up on the doorknob, twisted it, and pushed off to have the door creep open. The weight of the cat landed on Hailey’s head again.

A voice from within yawned, “Come in.”

Inside, the room reminded Hailey a bit of the last place. A large aquarium dominated one wall. A tired looking woman with blue skin sits on one of two overstuffed chairs, green hair holding a tablet as she gives it her attention. A small tray of snacks sat on a small table between them. Behind that arrangement was some bookshelves and a painting of the woman in a shark themed bikini.

The woman sighed, “The demon will be along to pick you up shortly, Hailey. Come. Sit. Eat. Ms. E, if you would greet her and bring her in, I would appreciate it.”

“Tyalangan, you would tell your boss what to do?” the cat purred on top of Hailey’s head.

“I asked,” this Tyalangan scoffed.

The weight of the cat lifted. Hailey warily moved forward. A sea slug mashed its face into a keyboard as Hailey walked past. She perched on the empty chair, still not fully feeling safe. She didn’t know if she’d ever feel safe again.

The tablet disappeared as the woman looked at Hailey. “So, any quips you want to get out of your system, or should we just skip to something more serious?”

“Little vain to have a bikini painting of yourself hanging on your wall.”

The woman’s smile was radiant, “Oh, you know, when an illustrious smut reviewer sends you a prize, you have to display it.”

Hailey nodded. The two exchanged some banter for a bit, while Hailey relaxed with the plushie, calming her down. Eventually she said, "Did you see Felix and Cammy before me?"

“Yes, about a ten-day ago. I did what I could to help them. I imagine that I might see them tomorrow at the wedding crossover. You want me to tell him about this?”

"I can trust you then," Hailey said, "judging by how they reacted. And given your season's end goal, you'll understand that..."

All at once, Hailey's defenses cracked open, and she cried. Tears flowed out until, eventually, she gathered herself together enough to continue. "I just saw what an absurd universe I'm in. I've been to a world where a mad scientist wrecked it with the help of their elites, and another where an eldritch abomination ate it in part by corrupting the religious orders meant to protect it. And I just got to live with that, while going back to Harem Hotel."

“To be pedantic, you saw several parts of the multiverse, but, regardless…” Harper sighed, “Look, I saw and did some crazy things during my time on the show. Ever fought a fire giant in the middle of an active volcano? Or took on an alternate universe version of yourself in a summer camp set? Or fought a tank with a sword? I can’t even tell you the craziest thing; that bit didn’t make it on air for a reason.”

"I can accept stuff like that, the thing I cannot accept is how vulnerable my world is," Hailey had gathered herself. "Insanity is one thing. The utter gaping horror of the wider universe crushing down on me... that's something else."

“From what I can tell, your world is going to be dramatically different than the one you left. Whether the show will end up making your world more resilient to the wider multiversal environment or not, I cannot yet say. I do know that, if you can keep your head on straight, you are in a better position than most to do something about it. I guess my first question would be: are you going to be able to live with what you have seen, with what you have done? One of my wives has a transformation that lets her prescribe sex acts as mental health treatments. I can page her to give you one.”

"I think I'll take you up on that," Hailey said, seemingly surprised by her own answer. "I can do something with Felix perhaps involving it when I get back. And..."

Hailey trailed off as the demon had arrived. "Do that. And then, as much as I'm sure you hate my guts right now, I think we both agree it's time for you to get home."

“A few moments, Ma’am. It has been a busy night.” Tyalangan replied. The blue woman pressed down on her earpiece and spoke a few soft words in… whale? Hailey ate most of the snacks laid out by the time a different fiery woman arrived. There appeared to be chunks of obsidian growing out of her skin. She gave the demon some side eye, muttering, “At least it’s not Genet.”

Turning over to the seated pair, the obsidian encrusted woman said, “Love, I thought you promised to get some rest tonight?” handing over a grey sludgey potion.

The blue woman downed the entire potion in one long pull, then answered, “I planned on it, then Craig happened. Then Hailey here happened. Give her something for her Archivist trauma, if you wouldn’t mind.”

The woman stared into Hailey’s eyes. She spoke, as gently as her subtly Bronx accent would allow, “Okay. Quick version, as we all are in a bit of a hurry. Hi, I’m Scarlet. I got turned into an oread. Think Castelilise, but for volcanoes. The sex in lieu of therapy thing does work, provided that you actually follow through, but it is a quick fix. Also, oof, that is A LOT of trauma. How heavy of a treatment plan are you wanting? A cure or just something to take the edge off?”

"Lets take the edge off but..." Hailey gathered herself before continuing. "Pretty much anything I can do with Felix, preferably something that involves him touching me, is something I'm down with at this point."

The oread paused, considering the request. “This should hopefully help. I’m going to make it a bit broader, as you may need some succor when Felix isn’t available. When the nightmares come, whether while you are asleep or awake, they will be soothed with a nice warm glass of cum. Not a literal glass of cum, mind you, but that would work. The more you swallow, the stronger the sense of peace. Straight from the source will be better than… from storage. Felix’s will be the best, but cum from your harem-sisters will work, too. Bear in mind that he can’t cum until you do, Hailey, and you should be fine.”

"Thank you," Hailey said. "Never thought I'd love drinking cum but here we are."

"Alright, lets go," The demon said. "And Harper, thank you. I'll be sure to keep unwanted intrusions for your dimension or anywhere else under the care of Ms. E going forwards to a minimum..."

Vizrokoth's trip back with Hailey started in silence. The demon just walked with her until they passed through a portal, and re-entered the bunker.

"Why did you make me do that?" Hailey asked. "There was no reason you couldn't have grabbed me earlier, and with far less stress for everyone involved. Instead, I..."

"Killed an eldritch being," Vizrokoth continued to walk, guiding Hailey back to her bedroom. "Not many other people can say that. I know of very few humans, even ones enhanced like you, that have ever done it. Your brain even managed not to break."

"I kind of doubt that," Hailey said. "I literally gave myself a treatment where I drink cum, and have to get it from a guy who cannot cum unless I do so first. Do you know what it says about what I've encountered that I'm comforted by the idea of drinking cum anyway?"

"That you won't let humiliation, or the sexual nature of a treatment, stop you from getting help," Vizrokoth said. "I'll explain to you later why I put you through that, however, you need to sleep."

The demon waited for Hailey to enter her bedroom, and get into bed. Vizrokoth tucked in the contestant like a mother tucks in a child after a long, stressful day. She knew Hailey would have nightmares, but the demon had many different ways she could deal with that. What she couldn't was a question gnawing at her ever since this had begun: Had she fallen back into old habits? Was this excursion any different than some of her more elaborate punishments? What was the point of escaping hell if Vizrokoth was just going to fall into the same damn habits over and over again?

Vizrokoth left, trying to suppress those thoughts, but couldn't. They were inescapable, perhaps because they were old anxieties or perhaps because they were true. Either way, it meant the demon spent the early morning of Wednesday in her office, writing up reports she had no reason to trying to silence those thoughts to no avail...