Somewhere among this strange collection of people.

Penny gaped as the red-headed strongman's opponent held up one finger and kept emptying his beer, pointedly not looking at the other man - who simply laughed and crossed his massive arms in front of his chest. The angelic woman took that opportunity to let her eyes wander over the other guests at the cookout. Anbu, squeezing the angel's shoulder encouragingly with one of her free hands, was walking over to the enormous grill that was currently manned by a one-legged man with bronzed skin and a physique that could rival the bearded drinker, even though the former was a bit stockier and broader, muscles rippling as he flipped some patties. The multi-armed woman had set her plate of burgers down on a table at which a jolly fat man with the flush face of an habitual wine drinker was joking with an impossibly beautiful woman who was using a clam-shell shaped compact to fix her makeup - even for the standards of Bay Cove, her looks where impressive, with skin so smooth it rivaled Penny's alabaster complexion. There were others milling and mingling about, but the angel suddenly felt her other shoulder squeezed by Anandi.

"Now, friend Penny, why don't you take a seat and a drink and I go fetch the pastor? Alcoholic or no?"

"Uhm, dost thou have water?"

"Sparkling or still?"

"Still, please..."

Smiling and nodding, Anandi gently pushed the angelic woman onto a bench at a picnic table occupied by two others finishing a burger and a steak - a very fit, toned woman in workout clothing and a man built like a greek god, both engaged in an animated discussion.

"I'm telling you, all you need is lifting and squats! The more the better - screw plans, screw running, just make the numbers go up!"

"Screw plans? Arden, you follow a meal plan, you alternate leg, core, and arm days, and you're telling me you don't have a plan?"

"Psh, not like you, with your binder full of notes and your checklist and everything, Autumn!" Flexing his left arm, Arden grinned at the woman. "See, that's what my approach gets you! Look at that biceps!"

"I'd rather look at the new girl." Autumn turned to Penny, who became rather aware of the fact that even compared to the other woman's sportsbra and yoga pants her wings were rather lacking in the clothing department. "What's your name, sweetheart?"

"Uh, P-Penny. Greetings." Penny felt her cheeks burn under the intense gaze of the two fitness models. At least to her, Arden and Autumn looked like it. "I hope I am not intruding..."

"Not at all!" Arden laughed - the huge man also had a huge voice. "Me and my half-sister just like to discuss who's way of training is best. Of course, it's mine!"

"You wish, Arden. Just because you're bigger doesn't mean you're fitter."

"Uh, yeah, duh? I..."

"Here you go, friend Penny, one still water."

"Anandi! Everything going well at the grill? I'll need another steak after this!"

"Don't worry, we have more than enough. And I hope you will understand, friend Arden, but the poor friend Penny has come to talk to the pastor." Turning to face the angelic woman, Anandi smiled warmly. "He should arrive in a few minutes. Do you require my company until then?"

"If thou wouldst..." Despite all the gender confusion surrounding Anandi and her husband, Penny felt the most connection to them. The loud and boisterous half-siblings in front of her were a bit much for her shaken psyche. "It feels... I think mayhaps I made terrible mistakes."

"Friend Penny, that is true of everyone on this whole wide earth. What matters is how we rectify them."

"I... I am not sure I can... I may have been wrong from the very beginning..."

"Hey, I don't know what this is about, but the pastor is definitely going to be able to help you," Arden smiled, still loud and boisterous, but at least a little softer in his demeanor. "In any case, my steak is done, I'll go get another. You want something, Autumn?"

"I'll come with - I feel like I'm intruding on something private here." Getting up, Autumn followed her half-brother, leaving Penny and Anandi behind, the angel looking after them.

Just as Anandi started to say something, Penny gasped at the two people coming towards them. The woman was more or less normal, except for her outrageously oversized breasts capped by no less than four nipples each, all of them gently leaking milk that ran down their bare swells and the impressive bulge in her pants, rivaling Penny's own. Penny rethought her statement of the woman looking normal - meeting Anbu with her six arms had changed her baseline for what was normal and what wasn't. The man, and Penny based that assessment on the face alone and was ready to adjust it after meeting Anandi and Anbu, was similarly endowed in very respect. His bare breasts were heavily laden with milk, nipples dark and swollen. The reason for that was clear - they rested on a swollen, gravid belly that was obviously not just fat. The man was pregnant. And around his neck was a black and white collar.

The pastor was coming.

"Anandi here tells me you are a troubled soul, my child?" The pastor's voice was warm and friendly as the woman he was with helped him lower his fecund body onto the bench before sitting down herself, resting her massive breasts on the table and leaking milk onto it. "I am Pastor Nicholas Clarke, of the Church of His Divine Message. Please, tell me what ails you, and I will try and help."

"I... I... uh..." A pregnant pastor was certainly a first for Penny, wings twitching in confusion. Particularly one that was walking around almost naked. "Wouldst... thou mind... 'Tis all too much for me, all... this city, and everyone here, and... thine own body, and mine..."

"Oh! I understand, I understand." Laughing warmly, Pastor Clarke began his tale, gently caressing his heavily pregnant belly. It was a tale of embarassment and finding himself, slowly accepting the changes to his body and the love his housekeeper, now fiancée Sarah, felt for him, and the grand plan he thought revealed to him, his divine mission to spread boons from the Lord. It sounded eerily similar to Penny's ears. Had she not been mistaken after all? But didn't that mean Ellie really was lost?! "But I soon realised I didn't have the whole truth, dear Penny. Look around you, look at the others. Each and every one has been blessed, but in a different way from us. Even you bear a blessing unlike mine and and Sarah's. Look at Anandi - she is the spitting image one of her own gods. So are many of my pagan friends."

"W-wait, pagan?" In her own church, Penny had heard much about pagans and their depraved rituals. But this day had shaken everything she used to believe in. No one here was depraved, everyone had been nothing but friendly and welcoming.

"Yes! Some follow the Norse pantheon, others the Greek. They may not be many, the ones present being the entirety of Bay Cove's pagans, but still they are here, and they are blessed. And they are not even the most changed out there! Reaching out to the citizens, I soon realized that I was at least partially mistaken. Not everyone was changed like Sarah and me, some more ****, some less, but they all had one thing in common: They were happier with their bodies and lives. Some had found new love or rekindled old. So whatever and whoever it is that is responsible for what is going on, they surely are benevolent. Maybe it is the Almighty, maybe it is him and other deities, maybe--"

Penny gasped in shock at the pastor's blasphemy. It was blasphemy, was it?! But Pastor Clarke only smiled and took the hand of his lover.

"Let me explain. There are beings from mythology and pantheons the world over roaming Bay Cove. There is Sarah and me, what I once thought to be the Lord's ideal form for humanity, but realize now to be just one form among the myriads in this new creation. Who's to say there is no room for other deities in the Almighty's endless creation, with him reigning supreme?"

"Well, we could argue about that, friend Nicholas," Anandi interjected, but her chuckle made clear that it was more of a friendly disagreement between them than a point of genuine strife.

"We can and likely will," Pastor Clarke chuckled before turning back to Penny, who was still trying to process what he was telling her. "In any case, I realized my own hubris. Me, the Almighty's chosen? I was just caught up in something bigger than myself, like so many others like me. Like you. I realized that all the Almighty would want from me is be happy, make Sarah happy, and help others become happy. What is happening in Bay Cove can be overwhelming for anyone."

Feeling the blood drain from her face, Penny suddenly felt dizzy, the world seeming to spin around her. Hubris. Chosen by the Almighty. Making her lover happy. It was as if the scales had fallen from her eyes. What the Pastor was describing... it was exactly what Penny had thought and done. In her hubris, she had convinced herself that the carnal interactions she'd had were a service to the Lord and not simply sexual intercourse to be shared between lovers. She thought back to the morning in the hotel, when Ellie had looked so inexplicably sad and understood finally. In all the confusion since coming to Bay Cove, Penny had become sure of one thing, a conviction that was unwavering even now - she loved Ellie, infernal as she was. It was the reason she'd fought so hard for her lovers soul!

All she'd done was make Ellie sad. And now the succubus was gone.

"Friend Penny! Quick, here, drink!" Anandi was holding the waterbottle to the angels lips, the blue-skinned hindu's hand between Penny's shoulderblades to steady her. "Are you feeling alright?"

"I..." Drinking a few deep gulps of water helped push back the darkness encroaching at the edge of Penny's field of vision. "Much better, I thank thee."

"I am glad," smiled the pastor, nodding at Penny. "Now, that is our story. Would you be ready to share yours?"

Sitting up straighter, eyes downcast at the table, Penny began to tell of what had happened since she and Ellie had come to Bay Cove.

"...a-and that's when I fled from there, leaving Ellie behind." Towards the end of her tale, the angelic woman had been unable to hold her tears back any longer, crying uncontrollably as she leaned against Anandi's muscular shoulder, who had her arm around Penny's own shoulder protectively. "Oh, surely she hates me now!"

"I understand, my child." There was no condemnation in Pastor Clarke's voice, only compassion. "Believe me, I do. Like so many others, like me, you were overwhelmed with what was happening. Understandably so! I myself did much the same. You fled into the belief that the Lord had given you a task that was bigger than yourself, and only now you realize the truth, that all that counts is the happiness of our loved ones and friends and helping others reach that same happiness."

"B-but how? Ellie is gone, and I do not blame her. I have been horrible to her."

"I would not be so sure about that, friend Penny." A smile was evident in Anandi's voice, even with her face pressed into his shoulder. "Look!"

Sniffling, the angel raised her head and followed the outstretched, blue arm pointing past the assorted revelers - and gasped. Running towards her, leathery wings flapping and tail swishing behind her... was Ellie.

"Pennyyyy~!"