Commercial Break (Worm / Slut Life) (Borderline SFW)

[Jonakhensu]

Preparation 2.7

---

"Wake up, you sleepyhead," Taylor heard a lilting voice say as she slowly returned to consciousness. "It is time to get out of bed." That settled it, she decided fuzzily. Zecora was the one waking her up. A quick mental check revealed that her spiders still hadn't hatched, she'd lost about a hundred bees, but it felt like the queen was laying again, so she'd have more soon enough, and the ants had a net increase of around a hundred individuals. Her crickets and millepede were also doing fine. All things considered, her bugs were doing a lot better than she'd expected.

"Give her a moment," Cindy's voice chided. "I'm sure you remember how disorienting it is waking up after the mods."

"It did take me a while to stand," Zecora agreed readily. "But then, I was not used to hands."

"Sure, that's what made it so hard for you," Cindy rebutted. Taylor could almost hear the eyeroll.

"'M up," she groaned as control started to return to her body.

"Take it easy," Cindy advised. "You've been undergoing modifications for a full week."

"Why did it take that long?" Taylor asked in concern. "I thought you said it'd only take a few days."

"Your gills were quite hard to make,"Zecora explained, "they caused me quite the headache. The first three times weren't so nice. Only the fourth would suffice."

Taylor's hands flew to her throat in shock as she searched for her new gills. "I'd forgotten about those," she admitted. Finding nothing but smooth skin around her neck, she asked, "Where are my gills?"

"On you sides, to be concise," Zecora explained, gesturing to a series of small flaps of skin covering slits on Taylor's sides. "This way your breathing will work twice."

Taylor stared at the humanoid zebra for a moment before turning to Cindy. "Can you translate that for me, please?"

"I don't know all the details," Cindy hedged, "but I think they set you up with a second structure in your throat, so you can switch between swallowing or breathing, like normal, but you can also switch to a third tube. When you try to breathe underwater, your diaphragm will draw the water into special pouches before forcing it through your gills when you exhale. I'm pretty sure they tweaked things a bit so you'll be fine with a lower oxygen concentration when you're in the water… or that's one of the things they plan on testing when you're in the tank."

"Wonderful," Taylor grumbled.

"Thank you, Cindy, for the facts you relayed," Zecora said before turning back to Taylor. "Now, let's look at the rest of you before we are again delayed." She held up a small mirror, allowing Taylor to look over her face.

It was, as far as she could tell, exactly what she had agreed to a week before. Her lips were narrower, but not so narrow that they looked out of place, and the little aspects she had asked to have touched up were flawless. Over all, she was very happy with the outcome, even if something did seem off. "Is there anything else I should be aware of?" she asked, nervously. With everything going so well, she was rather worried about what else was lurking around the proverbial corner. It was about then that she realized what had been bothering her. She could see perfectly, but she wasn't wearing her glasses. It was a disconcerting feeling, after having worn glasses for so many years.

Cindy shrugged. "The only thing I can think of is that they've cleaned up your genetics and installed the climax control and breast enlargement chips."

"We like to calibrate while you're in the tank," Zecora added. "That way, you reaction on tape will be more frank."

"Great," Taylor sighed as she swung herself into a seated position. "Hey, my paunch is gone!" she exclaimed happily. "And I have boobs!"

Cindy smiled. "We'll give you a few minutes to get used to the new you, alright? Just try not to get aroused if you can help it." Taylor shot her a questioning look even as she was continuing. "We've got a lot to do today, and the first time your sensitivity mods kick in will be a doozy." She shrugged and added, "Sure, we could push some of it back, but if you spend the next few hours exploring yourself, you won't get a chance to check on your bugs or get any practice in on the firing range before your appointment to get empowered."

Taylor nodded. "You're right, I do want to check on my bugs. I think the spiders are getting really close to hatching, and I want to make sure they have food available right away when they do." She hopped off the bed, and began looking around until Cindy pointed her towards a set of clothing. She quickly began dressing.

"Make sure you have some fun," Zecora said, smiling. "You'll be quite busy before you're done. It was a pleasure to work with you, now farewell, unless you'd rather stay a spell?"

"No, thank you," Taylor said. "I've got a lot to do, so I should probably get started before we get distracted or something. I should probably get started now. I'm sure I can get used to my new body as we go."

Cindy shrugged. "That's up to you. I know it took me a bit to get used to it, but everyone is different."

"Feel free to visit if you want to talk," Zecora said as she led Taylor to the door. "Or if you'd like to try to make the bed rock. As I said before, you're rather pretty. I wouldn't mind getting down and gritty."

Taylor flushed. "Thanks, I'll keep that in mind." She quickly made her way out side and started down the path back towards the storage shed housing her bugs.

"Bring your friends, the more the merrier," Zecora called after her. "And remember, species is not a barrier!"

---

For the fifth time in as many minutes, Taylor attempted to adjust the glasses she wasn't wearing. She and Cindy were in the storage shed, looking over her insects. As she'd expected, they were doing fine. Her golden orb weaver had even caught a few moths, judging by the silk wrapped bundles stored in her web. "Grah, that's getting annoying," Taylor grumbled as she caught herself attempting to adjust her glasses again. "I'm too used to wearing glasses. It feels weird without them."

"We could always get you a pair with plain glass, if you'd like," Cindy suggested. "Some people like the slightly nerdy look, so it shouldn't cause any problems with your viewers. Just do whatever is more comfortable for you."

"I'm probably going to need to get a pair," Taylor acknowledged. "It feels weird not having them." She grabbed a convenient case and began packing her egg sack and a few bottles of Cricket Crush into it. "I'm set here, unless there's anything you think I missed?"

"I don't think so," Cindy replied. "Your housing should be set up soon, so they'll move your insects into a spare room there in a few days, so there's not much point in doing much more than the absolute minimum right now."

"That was my thought as well," Taylor agreed. "Especially if they're in my range most of the time. I'll be able to tell if they need anything."

"We might as well get going, then," Cindy decided. "We'll grab some food on the way to the range, then you can practice a bit. After that, we've got the empowerment ritual to get through."

"Do you know what that's going to entail?" Taylor asked as she stepped out of the shed.

Cindy locked the door behind her before answering, "Not really. It's not something I was ever really interested in, so I don't know how it'll compare to the usual methods. I do know that they're shipping in a bunch of mana pools to use, though."

Taylor turned to face Cindy before asking "Why? They already know what I'm planning on picking."

"I think they want to make it a spectacle, since we rarely get a chance to record and televise them," Cindy explained. With a shrug, she added, "If it's impressive enough, it might just increase recruitment, which would be useful. Not every planet has people invading just to provide entertainment."

"Will we have to worry about that here?" Taylor asked worriedly. Sure, she had wanted some experience before getting back to Earth Bet, but a full scale invasion was a little much.

Cindy thought for a moment before replying, "To the best of my knowledge, Babnockorty shouldn't be too much at risk. Still, the other magical girls would know more about what happens here than I would."

"I'll have to ask them when I meet them," Taylor decided.

"I think they're setting up a meet-and-greet right before the ritual, so you should get your chance."

"Oh, good," Taylor agreed distractedly. "Hey, do you think we can stop there for breakfast?" she asked, pointing at a cafe.

Cindy shrugged. "I haven't been to that one yet, so why not? Everywhere else here has been excellent, so I don't think McBagles will be any different." Taylor's stomach grumbled, causing Cindy to ask, "Eager to try out the new stomach?"

"You replaced my stomach?" Taylor yelped. "I don't remember agreeing to that!"

"No, no," Cindy said placatingly. "That was a figure of speech. They did the tune up on your digestion and everything, but it's still mostly original parts. Just… enhanced." There was an awkward beat before she added, "Anyways, let's get some food."

---

"I hear you're going to be becoming a magical girl," the range master, Gaston LeGume commented as he handed a large rifle over to Taylor.

"That's the idea," Taylor replied, taking the rifle and quickly checking it over. Her temporary instructor looked on approvingly.

"You've only been on the range once, correct?" he asked.

"Yeah," Taylor admitted. "Why, am I doing something wrong?"

The burly man shook his head. "No, nothing like that. Your previous instructor did a good job drilling in the essentials."

"Well, he did have me learn how to disassemble, clean, and assemble the Arctic Warfare Super Magnum before I even got to the range," Taylor began as she lowered the rifle before picking up the magazine and beginning to load it. "Then he had me practice with a few smaller rifles before he let me try the AWSM, drilling me on safety all the while." With a shrug, she admitted, "I'm not the best shot yet, but I can cheat if I have to."

Gaston raised an eyebrow. "Cheat? How so?" he asked.

Having two gnats fly over, Taylor positioned them on the barrel and explained, "By having two gnats on the barrel and one on the target, I can make sure I line up my shot correctly."

"That might work in zero-g without any air movement," Gaston noted, "but you would still need to adjust for drop and windage with any normal shot."

"True," Taylor agreed. "But it does give me a starting point, and bugs are really good at detecting air currents and stuff."

"Still," Gaston said, "that's a bad habit to get into. It might work occasionally, but I'd rather you learn how to shoot the right way." He gestured down the range. "Now, let's get you practicing, and remember, no insects."

"I'll give it a try," Taylor gamely said. At least she knew she wasn't likely to break her shoulder or anything stupid like that. Laying down and steadying her rifle, she took her ten shots before kneeling back up. "So, how'd I do?"

"Not bad, not bad," Gaston replied. "If you keep practicing, you should be able to get a Marksman ranking soon enough."

"Thanks," Taylor said smiling. "And I've been told that becoming a magical girl can help with that, too."

"Don't you believe it," Gaston said dismissively. "Any skill you have will disappear as soon as you change back to your normal form, unless you plan on staying a magical girl all the time?"

"That doesn't sound ideal," Taylor noted with a wince. "I take it I should keep practicing like this, then?" She picked up a second filled magazine and fitted it into the rifle.

"That's what I'd do, in your place," Gaston agreed. "If you practice normally and regularly, your skill should carry over to your magical girl form." He paused a moment before adding, "Worst case? It makes no difference and you're still competent when you're normal."

"Thanks for the advice," Taylor said. "Now, let's get back to practicing. I've only got a little while longer before Cindy drags me to a meet-and-greet, and I'd like to try a few longer shots before we leave."

---

"She's almost here!" Hope Celandine called as she hurried to her place. As the magical girl with the best scouting capability, she had had one of her ravens flying overhead, watching for the new girl's approach. "Everyone get ready!" There was a mad scramble as everyone found a place to hide, except for one little girl who stood in the middle of the room.

"What are you doing?" Joy Cassidy hissed from her position behind a couch. "You need to hide!"

Obsessive Rose shrugged. "I don't see the point," she opined. "Taylor already knows we want to have a welcome party, and she already knows where we all are."

"Oh?" Lucy Lewd asked, leaning out of the closet she was hiding in with her children. "How's that?"

Rose gestured to a fly buzzing around overhead. "She's had a few bugs in here watching us for the last five minutes."

"But Pip only just spotted her!" Celandine protested. She pouted and asked, "I take it that means I'm losing my position as team scout, huh?"

"Probably not," Rose said. "I've seen what she sees through her bugs… it messes with Infestation somehow, and I'd be surprised if she can make much sense of it already."

"Thanks," Celandine said, smiling ruefully. "Anyway, she's at the door, so we might as well let her in."

"Aw," Wicked Angelica complained. "I wanted to jump out and scare her."

"It wouldn't have worked," Cassidy acknowledged with a sigh. "You might as well come on out and meet her with the rest of us."

"Fine," Angelica grumbled, even as she came out from hiding.

"Stopped hiding," Taylor's voice drifted through the opening door.

"Your abilities ruin surprise parties," Cindy noted as she followed her charge into the room.

"I'm hoping it's just as good at spoiling ambushes," Taylor replied dryly. She looked around the room and gave a little wave. "Hi, I'm Taylor Hebert, as I'm sure you know."

Cassidy stepped forward. "Hello, Taylor. I'm Joy Cassidy, or just Cassidy when you want to be informal and we're in uniform. I'm the leader of this group." Gesturing to each girl in turn, she continued, "This is my second in command, Hope Celandine. Next to her is Wicked Angelica and Obsessive Rose. Over by the closet is Lucy Lewd and her kids, Paul and Laura." The girls each waved and gave a short greeting. "Grab something to drink and some snacks, and we can all sit down and chat," she suggested before heading over to the refreshment table.

Taylor followed, looking over the offered goodies, a surprising assortment of treats and healthier food, and picked a few things to eat while they talked, along with a cup of the provided punch. Presumably, at least some of the magical girls were older than they appeared, considering that the oldest still looked like she was only sixteen or so. Then again, one of the girls who looked like a little kid had been introduced along with her children, so it was safe to say appearances were deceiving. Snacks in hand, she made her way over to one of the couches and took one of the end positions. Rose quickly claimed the seat next to her as the others found their own seats. Cindy leaned against one of the corners, obviously staying out of the event as much as possible while still being there.

"Have you figured out what you're going to call yourself?" Celandine asked once everyone had gotten their food and seat. "The usual convention is your Well or Pit and then a name we can use as a shorthand." She gestured to herself and then to Rose before continuing, "That name can be of a flower you like," she gestured to the others before finishing, "or based off of your actual name in some way."

Cassidy jumped in to add, "You can use pretty much anything you want, including your own name."

"That's what I did," Angelica interrupted, jerking her thumb at herself.

Cassidy rolled her eyes and continued, "But it's generally a bad idea if you're worried about anyone tracking you down. The magical disguise field, not to mention our transformations, helps a lot, but the less you can connect to your real identity the better."

"I hadn't really thought about it," Taylor admitted. "Isn't being a contestant going to mess with the disguise stuff? Everything's going to be recorded and broadcast, right?" She looked around and added, "And do most magical girls use the Pits and Wells? I've only seen the emotional types so far."

"I can answer your first question," Rose piped up. "I'm not really a contestant myself, but I still have a bunch of cameras following me around a lot of the time because I'm the significant other of one, so it's kind of similar. I'm contractually obligated to be in magical girl form anytime I have anything to do with magical girl activities, and I needed to have my name approved by a Slut Life representative to make sure it wouldn't cause any problems. I happen to like roses, so..." She shook her head and got back on track, "Anyway, most people will forget about the connection when they aren't actively watching the show. They'll just think they watched two different people instead. You only have to worry about the most obsessed fans, but they're supposed to be pretty rare."

"It's a bit annoying," Angelica muttered. "I don't like not knowing who I'm working with, but I get why you'd want to keep the fans away. If any of them get too pushy, I just punch them. Works well enough."

Celandine signed. "We've been over this, Angelica. For some reason, Slut Life likes to have their secondaries keep their identities secret, at least while they're part of the show. You remember Sayaka with the contract girls, right?"

Angelica wrinkled her nose. "Yeah, she was a bitch."

Cindy took a step forward into the room and added, "I can answer this a bit more in depth, if you want." When the others gave her their attention, she continued, "I looked it up, and apparently it's because of one of our early contestants and her significant other. They were both magical girls, the contestant was an Obsession type and the secondary was a Cute type. They both used their real names, and the secondary quickly became more popular than the contestant. It didn't end well, to sat the least. Since then, we've done our best to discourage secondaries from relying on fame and require them to keep their identities secret if they do anything that could attract too much attention, just as a precaution.

"As to your other question," Cassidy began, "Babnockorty tends to keep its magical girls separated by type. They figure we work best with others with similar power sets. Most of the larger settlements have a few groups spread around while the small ones usually have a least a small group, though they often have a mix of types. If a threat pops up that one group is poorly suited for or is larger than they can handle, another group can be called in to help."

"That sounds a lot like how fire stations operate," Taylor noted.

"More or less," Cassidy agreed. "We've got two other stations here. One of those math girls with their AI-driven magical devices and a group of soul-contract ones."

"And we don't fight over territory or anything, right?" Taylor pressed.

Cassidy laughed. "Of course not. We're magical girls, not a gang. There's a dispatcher in City Hall who passes calls on to each group, usually based on how close the event is to a particular station or how big it is."

"It also depends on what our schedules are," Celandine noted. "Since there's only a few of us, and we're still human, or at least mostly human for those contract girls, they try to stagger our shifts for maximum coverage while allowing us a fairly normal life. That means there's times when a station may be completely empty."

"Of course, there's nothing stopping you from staying here during your off hours as well," Lucy added. "I'm here fairly often, since we've set up a fairly nice area for my kids and I do a lot of healing. It's better to have the urgent cases come here or have me go to them to stabilize them before they go to the hospital."

"'Course you might also be called away from school or any other job you have," Angelica commented. "Most of them are pretty understanding about it, since it's only done in an emergency."

"They may even call you away from your owners or punishments," Rose added, "though they may be a bit more annoyed about that."

"It pretty much only happens once or twice a year, though," Cassidy retorted, "So I wouldn't worry about it too much."

"That brings up another question I had," Taylor interjected. "What types of things do we usually fight?"

"Usually we get these clay-based humanoids," Cassidy replied. "They aren't terribly hard to put down, but there can be a lot of them at once."

"We usually try to get them into one place," Lucy added. "That way Celandine can blast most of them at once."

"The hard part is getting them into a nice, empty area," Celandine muttered. "My best attacks are a bit too indiscriminate to use in the middle of the city"

"We also get some feral demons occasionally," Angelica added. "They're really fun to fight, but they cause a lot of trouble if we don't get to them fast enough."

"If they're Shikima, we typically throw Lucy at them," Cassidy commented. "She drains them slightly faster than they drain her, so it keeps them from going after everyone else, and it eventually defeats them."

"Once!" Lucy declared while blushing furiously. "That only happened once, now can we please forget about it?"

"What's a Shikima?" Taylor asked, having not heard the term before.

"They're a type of sex demon," Cassidy explained. "They tend to go after schoolgirls, and are a pain in the ass to deal with." She shuddered before elaborating, "Tentacles. Lucy's right, though. They don't show up all that often, and there's enough people who are into that kind of a thing that it isn't usually too much of a problem."

"That's good to hear," Taylor replied. "Anyways, I think I only have one more question. Do I get to learn your real names?" she asked. "You all know who I am after all."

"Sorry," Rose answered immediately. "I can't tell you. It's in my contract. No one here knows it."

"As for everyone else," Cassidy began, before looking around at the other girls. They each nodded in turn. "We'll show you what we really look like and tell you our real names after you go through the ritual but before the show starts." Looking over to where Cindy was standing, she added, "But we won't be telling Miss Matos. No offense, but keeping our real identities private is important."

"Don't worry about it," Cindy said, waving off the comment. "I completely get where you're coming from."

Taylor nodded. "All right, that'll work for me," she said. "Do any of you have any questions for me?"

"Can you really control bugs like a dark magical girl?" Laura asked from where she and Paul were sitting, nibbling on some snacks.

Taylor smiled and stood up, walking over to the door. "Yes, yes I can," she replied before opening the door, allowing a handful of butterflies to enter the room and flitter around the younger girl as she made her way back to the couch.

"Just don't try controlling them yourself around her," Rose grumbled. "I can't make heads or tails of real bug senses, and whatever she does scrambles things so I don't get the magically clear images I usually do."

Cindy looked at her watch before cutting in, "If anyone else has on questions, you'll need to make it quick. They want to start the ritual at twenty-six thirty, and it'll probably take us a while to get everything set."

"It's that late already?" Lucy asked in surprise. "I need to be getting the little ones home, it's almost their bedtime."

"Aw," Paul whined, "bud I wanna play wid the budderflies."

Taylor chuckled at that as she stood up. "Don't worry, I'm sure you'll have plenty of time to play with them later." Heading over to the door, she paused and asked, "Where are we doing the ritual, anyway?"

---

"Hello and welcome to a rare treat," the unseen announcer said as the camera panned over a large chamber with an indistinct magical circle in the middle of eleven large and oddly colored crystals standing on pedestals. There were also two empty pedestals that were obviously still part of the circle. "Most magical girls are empowered in the field, but today we've got an inside view of an out of combat empowerment! Don't adjust your screens because you can't make out the details of the magic circle, that's intentional. These rituals can be deadly if performed incorrectly."

A sliver of light appeared from 'behind' the camera as a door opened, growing to show silhouettes before Taylor walked into the middle of the room wearing a simple white robe and carrying a book and a chain with a glowing white crystal hanging from it. Two others followed in elaborate costumes, but stopped outside of the magic circle.

"This is going to be an emotion-based empowerment," the announcer continued. "That said, those who are versed in these things may note that this chamber only holds eleven mana repositories instead of the full thirteen. This is intentional, as Miss Hebert will be participating on Slut Life. Due to issues with mana overloading previous contestants that drew from them, the Light-alignment Lewd Well and the Dark-alignment Carnal Pit are blocked by the circle in this chamber."

Taylor had been instructed to lay down in the middle of the circle, the book placed in one of the smaller circles next to her and the pendent placed in another circle on her opposite side. Once she was situated the other two started around the outside, sparks of light jumping from their fingers as they touched each of the crystals. Each crystal started to glow as it was activated, and those observing carefully would note that they alternated between each other as they moved around the circle. Once they were done they said something to Taylor, before both reaching down and touching the very edge of the circle. A moment later it glowed, and the two retreated, closing the door behind them.

"Now it's on Miss Hebert," the announcer whispered, as though speaking loudly would cause problems. "She'll need to focus to pull on the reservoirs." The crystals visibly pulsed, and a tendril of energy reached out from one of them towards Taylor. "And there she goes. Unless I'm mistaken she's going to be drawing upon the Light-aligned Will well." The tendril made contact with Taylor's chest, then the energy spread out to cover her entire body. Tendrils then came from half of the remaining crystals, the ones in between them having their glows fade.

When the other tendrils were all connected, the glow around Taylor became fully obscuring, just before two tendrils formed from the glow around her. The new tendrils reached over to the book and crystal and coated them as well. They were also fully obscured by the energy a moment later.

"Now we must wait while she communes with the Wells to make her choices," the announcer said in their normal voice. "While we won't know what those are we can try and make educated guesses when her new form is revealed. Unlike a field empowerment she should have plenty of time to make her choices. When she's done with her choices the reservoirs will glow a little brighter as the stored mana is used to lock her choices into place."

The unused crystals suddenly pulsed, their glows returning to full strength before a tendril reached out from one of them. The announcer seemed to be in a state of shock as the tendril reached into, but did not seem to connect with the glow obscuring Taylor. A moment later the remaining crystals also reached out with tendrils that joined the first.

"I..." the announcer said, sounding unsure of themselves. "I'm not certain how or why, but I believe the Dark-aligned Obsession Pit just activated. This isn't supposed to be possible, and the experts we have watching are just as confused as I am."

They didn't get to speculate any further as all of the crystals seemed to explode with light and energy, the feed cutting to static a moment later.

 

[Jonakhensu]

Preparation 2.8

---

"Good morning, girls," a female voice rang through the room, rousing the two preteens. "I know you're probably a little confused, and I'll do what I can to explain things."

The two girls sat up, nearly in unison, and turned to look at the speaker, a young woman wearing a lab coat. "That'd be nice," one of the girls began.

"Could you start by explaining why we seem to remember stuff I'm sure we weren't around for?" the other asked.

"Ah, yes, that," the woman began. "To start, my name is Violetta Seward. I'm one of the New Body Coordinators here. Now, before we begin, I need to check. What are your names?"

The girls looked at each other before one replied, "I'm Zoe Rose Hebert."

The other girl chimed in, "And I'm Ashley Silvia Hebert, but you can call me Ash."

Violetta nodded and made a note on her tablet. "Good," she commented, "you're differentiating nicely. There's always some concern that the memories form the primary contestant could cause problems with the sibling's ego, so we do need to check."

The girls both smiled and nodded their understanding.

"Now," Violetta continued, ignoring the girls' obvious lack of understanding for the moment, "we usually try to use the same base contract when a contestant chooses Siblings or similar choices. However, the higher ups have decided to allow you to use a more complete catalog."

"Does that change things?" Zoe asked, biting her lip nervously.

"Oh, heavens, yes," Violetta replied. "First, let me explain what Taylor already signed you up for." She tapped her tablet before saying, "Under the original contract, you would each have thirty-eight credits to start with. Taylor signed you up for the bare essentials for a long, healthy life." She looked over the page again and quirked an eyebrow. "She also signed you up for the Water Chamber punishment, which seems a bit out of character for her."

Ash grinned. "Oh, it's because she wants us to be able to breathe if the worst happens and Leviathan tries to drown us or something."

"I...guess that makes sense," Violetta agreed shakily. She coughed as she recomposed herself. "Unfortunately, under the new contract, you will be starting with eight credits, due to some differences in pricing." The girls were obviously upset at that, so she held up a hand and added, "Now, before you start arguing, the new contract will be better for you, and we've already received permission to replace your education option from the Entertainment section with the School job, which will have you starting with the original thirty eight credits and you'll also receive educational credit for the work you do should you decide to live at least partially on Earth Bet."

"That's… probably worth it," Zoe agreed, looking over at her sister.

"It'd make things easier for Dad when we get there," Ash agreed. "I say go for it."

"Agreed." Looking over to Violetta, Zoe asked, "Where should we go from here?"

"Well, as it currently stands, unless one of the other roommates decides to bring something with them, you will be stuck wearing Taylor's clothing, which probably won't fit you, and eating baby food."

Zoe and Ash wrinkled their noses in disgust. "No thanks," they said in unison.

Looking at her sister, Ash asked, "Food?"

Zoe nodded and stated, "Clothes."

Looking between the two, Violetta asked, "Which do you want to start with?"

The two girls had a brief staring contest before Zoe sighed while Ash did a little dance. "We'll start with the food."

---

"What caused that mana wave?" Emperor Malik demanded of his Field Marshall. A massive wave of mana had blasted through his outer sanctum only an hour before. While nothing seemed damaged, all of the mana detection devices were sounding their shrill alarms. If they weren't shut down soon, he knew he would soon have a pounding headache. He was already getting worried about his hearing. "Are we under attack?"

"I am not sure, My Liege," Field Marshall Asmodeus answered promptly. "We will be putting our forces on high alert until we know for sure."

"Do that," Emperor Malik ordered. "We are going to be essentially blind until the mana detectors can be deactivated and re-calibrated. I nearly saw that." Settling down into his throne, he added, "I want you to step up patrols and send out more scouts as well. We need to know what happened and if it can be done again." He paused for a moment before asking, "Other than our mana detectors, has there been any damage or casualties?"

"If you will pardon me for a moment, My Liege, I will find the most up to date information on that," Asmodeus said. "However, as of the last time I checked, half an hour ago, the only damage has been to devices unusually sensitive to mana surges, and most of those had adequate shielding to withstand the mana wave. We estimate about two percent of our sensitive equipment, that which was currently undergoing maintenance, was affected. There were only five casualties, where engineers were actively working on components that exploded with the surge. There were no fatalities, though one of the technicians will never see again."

Malik sighed. "Make sure he is compensated accordingly and see about getting shielding on the entire maintenance depots. Maybe something portable as well."

"It will be done," Asmodeus intoned.

"Has this seriously delayed my plans?"

"No, My Liege," Asmodeus answered. "We built in a margin for unexpected events. It would take something far greater than a mere mana fluctuation, even at larger magnitudes than we just experienced, to slow our preparations."

"Good," Malik replied. "You are dismissed. I expect a detailed report on damages, casualties, and proposed countermeasures in the morning."

"Yes, My Liege," the Field Marshall said before he turned, making his way out of the inner sanctum. He had much paperwork to do and not much time to do it in.

---

Violetta nodded as she made the final notation on her tablet. "That takes care of the clothing and food. And you're only one credit in the red." Looking over the tablet, she added, "Which nicely segues into the next topic. A lot of people try to go into what you can get out of the run first. I prefer to start with what you're willing to pay. Then you know what you have to work with before you need to start making any of the hard choices."

Once again, the girls shared a look before Ash asked, "What did you have in mind?"

"I figured we could start with the most unpleasant topic," Violetta began. "Punishments."

"Can we see what Taylor picked?" Zoe requested. "It might give us some ideas."

"Certainly," their helper agreed, pulling up the relevant section. "Here you go. Just keep in mind that she was working with a much more limited form, so she may have picked some things she otherwise wouldn't have."

The girls looked the form over and winced. "Oh, she did not think that one through," Ash opined.

"Definitely not," Zoe agreed. "Think we should take that one as well? For moral support?"

Ash nodded. "That was my thought, as well. Maybe it won't be as bad if we're all on display together." Pointing at another punishment, "And we should probably travel around with her as well." Looking even further down the list, she asked, "Wait… shouldn't we already be signed up for Tentacles? We're sharing a small apartment, right?"

"There is nothing small about where you'll be living," Violetta said. "Though I do agree with your assessment. It should be safe enough to sign up for that. Even if they decide to give each of you your own tentacle pit, it won't be any more dangerous than you were already expecting."

"Some of the other punishments look pretty amusing," Zoe noted, once they'd returned to the main punishment menu. "Especially with the controller options. Would we need our own AI, or could any AI controlled options be handled by Taylor's?"

"I'll have to check," Violetta replied, pulling out a cell phone. "Keep looking through there and make note of anything you find interesting. I'll look up the answer for you."

"Thanks," Ash said as she quickly flicked through the available options. Nudging her sister in the side, she asked, "What do you think about this one?"

---

Velma Platt stepped out of the Slut Life provided car and looked at the large house. "This is not an apartment," she noted cautiously.

"Ah, yes," her driver, a tall, thin man who had introduced himself only as Jenkins began, having also exited the vehicle to start retrieving her bags. "From my understanding, someone put in and paid for an upgrade order. Each of you should be able to have your own deluxe bedroom, rather than needing to at the very least double up."

"That's nice," Velma replied, a bit faintly. She looked around the front of the house for a moment. There weren't any lights on, despite it being early evening, and all of the blinds were open, showing no movement inside. Cautiously, she asked, "Has anyone else arrived yet?"

Jenkins shook his head. "No, you're the first to arrive, though I understand most of the others should be arriving over the course of the next day or so. They're planning on having the meet and greet with everyone in two days and will be starting the show the next day."

"That quickly?" Velma asked in shock. "I thought they'd at least give us a few days to get used to each other."

Jenkins shrugged. "The polls show that the audience likes to watch all the awkward getting-to-know-you bits, so we try to minimize how long you have to work out any issues before we start filming live. Of course, that mostly applies to the contestant. If the roommates are squabbling enough, it detracts from the other aspects of the show. That said, we are still filming before then for promotional purposes."

"I see," Velma lied. "Anyway, we might as well stop standing out here. Let's get my stuff inside. Do you know if we have assigned rooms already, or is it first come first serve?"

"From setting up previous roommates in the past," Jenkins began, "it changes from show to show. Some have assigned sleeping quarters while others rotate rooms based on any number of factors. Until that is worked out, I recommend unpacking the bare minimum you need for the next few days, in case there's a reason you need to set up the rooms differently. Then again, the viewers love drama, and there are plenty of rooms available, so you should feel free to stake one out as your own."

"I'll keep that in mind, thanks," Velma said as she grabbed a few of her lighter bags. "Now, come on, let's get this stuff inside."

---

"All set with the punishments?" Violetta asked, as the girls pushed the tablet away again. They nodded, so she continued, "Why don't we take a look at the jobs next? You don't actually need any, but you might want some spending money beyond what Taylor gives you or to make a nice nest egg for after the show ends. From the sounds of things, especially with the choices Taylor made for you, she plans on having you stay around, so you might not need that nest egg, but it's always nice to have, right?"

Zoe and Ash exchanged looks, taking that advice to heart and silently agreeing to go into the same jobs unless something really cool was available that one wanted but the other would hate. "Show us what you've got," Ash said leadingly.

"Certainly," Violetta replied. "Now, the jobs range in credits from five credits for an hour of work up to forty credits for six hours of work, though I doubt your sister would appreciate either of you becoming a porn star, based off of what I've read about her."

"Probably not," Zoe agreed. "Anything else we should know before we get started?"

"Yes, actually," their helper began. "You're already signed up to go to school, and that'll take six hours out of your schedule already, so you can only take up to another ten hours worth of jobs. You can also make your school experience more… trying… in order to get more credits for it."

"Yeah..." Ash hedged.

"I think we'll skip that," Zoe concluded. "We've got enough memories of what Taylor went through without adding our own, thanks."

"That's perfectly understandable. Now, would you like me to explain each job, or would you like to just browse them?"

"I think we're fine just browsing," Ash replied.

"But we'll ask you if we have any questions," Zoe added before both girls turned to the tablet again.

---

Henrietta Womack watched in near giddy excitement as the first of her new neighbors arrived. There was a new contestant in the area, and that meant new sources of materials for her. "Ooh, I can hardly wait," she crooned to herself.

There was a general misconception among non-alchemists, that all fluids, especially sexual ones, were the same, regardless of who they came from. Nothing could be further from the truth. Each individual had their own potential, their own little quirks, that made their fluids better in some potions than in others.

This just led to another reason she was so excited about her new neighbors. She would be getting six of them at once, and if she could convince all of them to contribute materials, then she should have a wide range of options when it came to expanding her craft.

That wasn't even counting the benefits of having an insect controller nearby. Alphonse Flemal on SLO had been right about that. There were certain secretions that were nearly impossible to acquire in any meaningful amount without painstakingly distilling it from hundreds of samples that could, theoretically, be milked from insects.

"Oh, I need to make sure I have enough bottles and extractors ready," Henry muttered to herself distractedly, turning away from the window. While all of her new neighbors could share extractors, it would cause a small amount of contamination, which she would either need to remove or otherwise account for. Using dedicated extractors for each of them, on the other hand, would keep the samples pure. "So much to do, so little time," she complained, making her way to her storage area.

She'd need to load up a cart to bring her supplies over. Once she got the first few samples and could see what she would be working with, she would determine how much credit each sample would be worth. Once she had that in hand, she could provide them with a price list for her various wares. She'd also need to see about contacting Slut Life over the marketing rights. Having her products officially associated with a specific contestant would only improve her sales, after all.

---

"I think that's good for now," Zoe said as she pushed the tablet back towards Violetta.

"We can always come back if we need more credits," Ashley added. "What's next on the list?"

"Next we have the owners," Violetta said. "They're good for filling up time if you're looking for something to do, but they can also be very demanding and don't provide very many credits, proportionally, unless you get some of the more strict ones. A lot of them will also demand to have sex with you, so keep that in mind if you decide you want any owners. I usually recommend them for the end when you're trying to make up any deficits."

"That sounds like a good idea," Zoe replied. "We definitely don't need to be rushing in to things."

"And I'd like to have at least some free time," Ash added. "From what it looks like, Taylor will be lucky to be able to sit down for more than a few minutes at a time."

"There is that," Violetta acknowledged. "Of course, since you don't need to worry about a number of things your sister did, you can also avoid a lot of the more onerous issues."

"Right," Zoe said, shaking off a slightly glazed look. "Are there any other sections we can go through to get points or are we pretty much done with them?"

"There's a few more," Violetta answered, "but most of the only other sections I can think of are the Time Adjustments, which you aren't eligible for, since Taylor didn't take any, and the Experimental Drugs, and then only if you get either mandatory injections or have them become permanent. You can also have the drugs' release be controlled, but that'll start costing you credits. It'll still be a net gain, though."

Ash sighed. "I don't think we'll be interested, but we might as well take a look, right?" Zoe nodded her agreement.

The girls took a moment to look through the various drugs available before Zoe looked up and asked, "Why would we want to take any of these?"

"I mean," Ash continued, "I could see the strength booster, and maybe the stamina booster, being useful, but 'might include a loss of strength?' What's with that? It doesn't even say how common the side effects are!"

Violetta shrugged. "I don't really know how the different drugs work. You'd need to ask a scientist about that."

"All of the side effects are awful," Zoe agreed. "I don't think I want to risk any of them."

"Same here," Ash concurred. "Got anything else?"

"A couple of the body mods grant credits, as do a couple of the entertainment options, but other than that? Not really," Violetta admitted. Shrugging, she continued, "We might as well start with a part of the contract I think your sister overlooked: Health and Hygiene. Now, she may have just been sparing you additional points, since you'll be getting basic healthcare and you can use her supply of the essentials, but you may be interested in the more advanced options."

---

Smaug grumbled to himself as he continued shoveling gold into one of the number of expanded trunks he kept for this purpose. He had forgotten one of the main reasons he had stopped participating on Slut Life a few years ago: moving was a bitch. It was fine when the contestants were assigned to a planet where he was already living, but far too often they liked to send them out to relatively new worlds, in the hopes of inspiring colonization.

That was all well and good, but Smaug wasn't a young dragon anymore, and his hoard had expanded substantially over the years, making packing and unpacking it a pain in the tail. Of course, he didn't really need to take his entire hoard, but he also didn't trust the young whippersnappers he had bested to become Taylor Hebert's owner to leave his lair alone over the course of a year. Younglings tended to be petty like that.

He really should have started packing more than a week ago, but he'd been preoccupied with coming up with new plans for Taylor, a number of which he'd practiced with his sex slave. And, while Kasumi had done a lot of packing over the last week, she couldn't really pack his hoard. Gold is rather heavy for humans, after all. So it was up to him to shovel his mounds of gold, silver, and gems into the waiting trunks.

He definitely wasn't going to be jumping straight into sex with Taylor. While he could, and was entitled to do so, the girl had had a hard enough of a life already without him adding to it by screwing her on the first day. Besides, he was a dragon. He knew how to be patient. He could at least wait until they'd gotten to know each other a bit better, and he had some ideas for activities that would let them learn about each other while still entertaining the audience. He also had plans for the favor Cindy owed him now, but that was for later as well.

He looked up in surprise when Kasumi came running into his hoard room. "Master," she called, lapsing into the subservient language she still used when emotional. "You need to come see this!"

"What is it, Kasumi?" Smaug asked, lowering his head to be closer to her level. She insisted she didn't mind when he towered over her, but he preferred being closer to her level.

"Your new contestant, Taylor just went through her empowerment ritual," Kasumi explained hurriedly.

"So they decided to do that tonight?" the dragon grumbled to himself. He would have appreciated getting a call, so he could watch it live, but he understood how busy things could get leading up to a show's start.

"Yes, and something went strange," Kasumi continued, gesturing for Smaug to follow her back to their living area. Just because he liked sleeping on gold didn't mean he was going to force Kasumi to, so he had set up a small side cave with comfortable seating, a nice bed, and a television for her, though he did have to admit to enjoying the television as well.

Shaking his long length out, he began following her. If she was going to interrupt him like that, it was probably something important, especially since she was still wearing her normal clothes. "What happened," he asked as he made his way into the thoroughly stripped room. Everything, other than one chair and the television, had already been packed, the boxes stacked in the corner waiting to be picked up.

"I'm not sure," Kasumi replied as she fiddled with the remote to start the segment over. "They decided to try something new, and, well..." She let the video play, watching silently as the empowerment went out of control, until everything faded to white.

Smaug blinked in surprise. "That's definitely not normal," he commented. "Can you give Cindy a call? She should know, or at least be able to find out, what happened and if Taylor is alright."

"I can do that," Kasumi said with a nod. "I take it you want to get back to your packing?"

Smaug winced at the mild rebuke. "Yes," he finally said. "You were right, I shouldn't have kept putting it off."

Kasumi nodded again. "You get back to that. I'll give Cindy-chan a call."

---

"Now that you have your healthcare set, what do you want to look at next?" Violetta asked. "Body mods or entertainment options? I recommend starting with the body mods, but it's up to you."

Zoe and Ash nodded. "Are there any you recommend?" Zoe asked.

"Well, Menstruation Control, Easy Pregnancy, and Healthy Babies are always a good start," Violetta explained. "Most of the girls going through grab those, even if they're keeping everything else pretty much stock. And there's a few combinations that'll give you additional credits without any major downsides."

"Anything else we should know?" Ash asked. "Anything we can't take, or anything like that?"

"Since you're defaulted to New Body, there aren't any restrictions," Violetta stated. "Strictly speaking, you aren't actually done being grown yet, so we can still add anything you want before we decant you."

Zoe blinked. "We're still in a tank somewhere?" she asked, looking around the plain but obviously real room.

"We temporarily uploaded your minds into a virtual office," Violetta explained. "Once we're done here, we'll unplug you and finish your modifications and the last of your growth."

"Does it let us model changes before we get them?" Ash asked excitedly.

"That is one of the purposes for using this setup," Violetta confirmed. "Your current appearance is what our predictive software says you will look like should no further changes be made."

"Neat!" Ash cheered. "I'm going to try all the things!"

"Please keep in mind that not all of the modifications are physically apparent," Violetta cautioned. "And sensations will be at least somewhat dampened, as the inputs are simulated."

"That's no fun," Ash pouted while Zoe patted her back consolingly.

"There, there, we can still have fun," Zoe said placatingly. "Now, why don't we start by seeing how we'd look with all the boobs?" She poked at the tablet's screen a few times before asking, "How do we get the preview to work?"

---

The newly minted magical girl looked over her form in surprise. When she had accepted the magic into her body, this was definitely not what she was expecting to happen. Judging by her hands, she was much smaller than she had expected. Still, that shouldn't be anything too difficult to adjust to.

Looking around, she was greeted by a wholly unexpected landscape. As far as she could see, from horizon to horizon, the land was flat and cracked. Here and there she could make out what looked like the flattened remains of what could have been a rock, a tree, or something else entirely. It was very obvious that the only living things within miles of her location were herself and her familiar, which had just appeared next to her.

Looking up revealed a sky covered in roiling yellow clouds. The sun was shining through them, but it was being diffused into a hazy, dim circle in the sky. The clouds were also beginning to spiral, indicating that a powerful storm was about to erupt. The wind was also starting to pick up, swirling loose sand and grit into the air. Staying for the storm looked like an increasingly uncomfortable option.

She took a moment to look at the tome that appeared in her left hand as she called for it, the tool ready to lend its aid in casting the spells it contained. A quick look showed that none of the three spells in it would be of any great use. Closing the book, she allowed it to close and dissipate before looking up at the darkening sky above. The clouds had darkened considerably already, and the first drops of rain could be seen falling in the distance.

Deciding it was time to leave, before the storm could break, the magical girl concentrated, her outfit shimmering for several seconds as it changed in both coloring and design. With a nod, she lifted her hands and began crafting the spell. Slowly, a gateway formed in front of her, breaching reality between her location and her intended destination. Finally, once it had formed, she stooped down, scooping her familiar into her arms, and strode through the gate, allowing it to close behind her.

 

[godzillahomer]

ok, here's a new offering, a series of 4 shorts; based around jokes that came to me recently

---

High Chair

Taylor stared at the odd bit of furniture in her apartment's kitchen. "Why does my apartment have a giant high chair?" She couldn't stop herself from asking.

"It's part of the Baby Food package. As well as that bib on the counter and baby talk," Cindy replied, thinking back to her own experiences when she'd chosen that part of the Baby Food option.

"But, why?" Taylor found herself asking despite her common sense telling her to shut up.

"You'd be surprised how wide the fetishes of the viewers are," Cindy answered, with a dual tone of pleasure and long suffering.

"I have a feeling that's going to be a common answer," Taylor deadpanned.

"You have good intuition," Cindy responded.

Note: I just found the image of someone tall like Taylor in an oversized high chair oddly funny.

---

This Week's Porn

"Ok, seems this week the viewers picked Sunstone, Sunstone: Mercy, and Sunstone: Jasper." Taylor said, holding the three books.

"Nice, I really recommend those," Velma replied.

"Agreed, the plot is better than the porn," Swanhilde gushed.

"We also have a complete boxset of Totally Spies...? Isn't that a kids' show?" Taylor questioned while holding the DVD boxset.

"It's full of fetish stuff, pretty much every episode appeals to some fetish or another. I say it was all accidental," Velma explained.

"Well, I think it was intentional, how can you accidentally put in THAT much fetish content, that takes conscious effort," Swanhilde objected.

Note: Everything named here, exists, google it.

---

Charity Case

"You said Slut Life took you from a hospital, right Cindy?" Taylor asked, seeing another similarity between herself and the older woman.

"Yeah," Cindy replied.

"What did you have?" Taylor questioned, assuming it had to be something bad.

"Nothing, I stopped there to use the restroom during a jog," Cindy responded. Taylor just blinked in shock, but realized, Cindy was right, Charity Case never said the contestant had to be terminally ill or even a hospital patient.

Note: Based on my realization that Charity Case never specified the contestant was a patient, just that they came from a hospital.

---

A Super Old Joke

Halloween had come around and Taylor and a group of her friends had gone out trick or treating. They were now back at Taylor's apartment to show each other what they'd managed to get.

"I got a chocolate game controller!" Crystal proclaimed, dressed as a character named Primrose from a game she'd been playing lately.

"Ha! I got an Ultra-King Size Snickers," Velma gloated, having went as Daphne Blake.

"Ugh, I got candy corn," Swanhilde sighed, having gone as a cleric.

"I got a king's ransom worth of chocolate coins," Smaug replied, somehow having managed to get a knight costume his size.

"We got a tooth brush and an apple." Zoe lamented, having gone as a police officer, while Ashley had gone as a burglar.

"So, we TP'd their house." Ashley cackled. The two had trick or treated together.

"Ashley, Zoe. Do you remember what I told you about TPing?" Taylor asked, annoyed.

"If we TP a house, use the cheapest one-ply toilet paper we can buy. Which we did," Zoe explained.

"Good," Taylor said, no one did that to her sisters.

"So, what'd you get, Taylor?" asked Velma.

"I got a cock," Taylor reluctantly said, having went as a ghost.

"Lucky," Swanhilde griped.

Note: Yes, I went there, the rock is just a classic.

 

[Jonakhensu]

Preparation 2.9

---

"All done with the body mods?" Violetta asked tiredly. The two girls had tried every physically noticeable option at least once, and had tried playing with a few of the others just to see what they might be like, even if it was a pale shadow of the real thing. Just watching them go at it had been exhausting, and she was beginning to wish she could convince them to calm down. Unfortunately, one of the problems of being in the virtual office was that physical tiredness wasn't a real issue, even if the mental fatigue could become significant.

"I think so," Zoe said, wrapping her hair around her sister in something similar to a hug. Apparently she had enjoyed the prehensile hair option and was planning on keeping it.

"I really want a fang," Ash muttered, pouting. "But I should see what else I can get first."

"You're already going to be looking for ways to make back some credits," Zoe pointed out, giving her sister a light shove.

"You took most of the same mods I did!" Ash protested. "Including some I didn't bother with, like the hair!"

"And, yet, I'm not the one who needs to make back credits," Zoe retorted haughtily, turning up her nose.

"Why you..." Ash growled warningly, right before she pounced on her sister and began tickling her.

Yes, dealing with lively, young children was definitely tiring, Violetta decided yet again. Really, she wasn't sure why she kept offering to help them. Then again, if not her, who would? "Calm down, girls," she called. "There's still plenty of things to look over. Why don't we have a look at the entertainment options?"

Ash perked up from her perch on her sister's supine form. "That sounds fun!" she chirped. Standing up and bounding back over, she eagerly looked on.

With a slight roll of her eyes that she hoped the perceptive young girls wouldn't notice, Violetta made a point of waiting for Zoe to stand, brush herself off, and make her way over to join them. Only then did she flip over to the entertainment options. "Here you go," she said, handing the tablet over again. "Now, even if you don't intend on using it, I highly recommend taking the porn and Viewer's Choice options, as it doesn't force you to use the porn and it'll earn you a few credits." She paused for a second before adding, "Granted, you could just use Taylor's porn on her computer if she lets you, but why worry about it when signing up for it yourself doesn't have any downsides?"

The girls exchanged glances then grinned in unison. "Sounds good to me," they chorused.

Violetta sighed. "I can see the twin-speak is going to get tiring," she commented wearily. "At least I won't have to deal with it too much longer." Shaking off the fatigue, she added, "You can also gain points using the various Outside options, though I don't recommend it, as it may make things rather… unpleasant for you. And your sister is likely to swarm anyone who tries anything, which is usually bad for ratings."

"Usually?" Zoe asked, quirking an eyebrow.

"Sometimes people like to see how long it'll take others to get the fairly obvious point," Violetta elaborated while not explaining anything. The girls were going to be on Slut Life, sure, but they hadn't seemed especially interested in the sex, and it was her job to get them as close to what they wanted as possible, within the existing constraints.

"Any other suggestions before we start looking through things?" Ash asked.

"Well, Taylor didn't take any of the gaming options," Violetta noted, having flipped back to Taylor's form to check, "so you might want to pick up either the tabletop games or some of the gaming systems."

"What type of games?" Zoe and Ash asked.

Violetta rolled her eyes before answering. "The table tops games include a wide range of board games as well as role playing games and card games. You would need to get the entertainment system to get console games, and you'd need a second option to get more than just a few games. You can also get computer games, but that would require having a computer. Of course, having a computer is generally useful anyway, so you may want one just to have."

"I'll take the tabletop games," Ash offered.

"And we can share the computer and its games if I take it," Zoe offered. "I think I'll also sign up as a Professional Gamer, too. That way I can get paid to play, right?"

"It'll more than pay for the games you'll get," Violetta offered.

Ash whistled as she looked at the change selecting those options caused in her sister's sheet. "Wow, and you were making fun of me for being in the red. Making that up is going to be hard."

"I don't think it'll be that bad..." Zoe replied, failing to hide her wince. "Besides, you haven't taken your options yet."

"Well, yeah, but the tabletop games are a lot cheaper than that!" Ash protested.

"And we're not done yet," Zoe retorted primly. "Who knows what else you'll want to pick up."

"Yeah? Like what?"

Zoe scrolled through the options quickly before stopping on one that caught her eye. Pointing at it, she said, "Like a hoverboard."

Ash looked at the item's cost and winced. "Damn it, how am I going to pay that off?"

"So I take it you would like to get a hoverboard?" Violetta asked. "And you can easily pay for it through additional jobs or punishments, taking at least one owner, taking Slut Life is its Own Reward as your reward option, or some combination thereof."

Ash relaxed fractionally. "That doesn't sound so bad," she said. "Yeah, I'll take the hoverboard."

"Definitely doable," Zoe agreed.

"Now, before we move on to any adjustments or rewards you'd like to take," Violetta began, "Are there any other entertainment options you'd like to get?"

"Give us a minute!" the girls chirped before they crowded over the tablet to look at the other options more closely.

---

Cindy was watching over her sleeping charge when her cell phone rang. Taylor had transformed at some point during the ritual, shrinking down significantly while her clothes shifted into a flowing dress, done up in patches of lighter and darker fabric, with a short, seemingly tattered cape that would hang behind her if she were standing. Her skirt came down to her knees and looked equally tattered, with a pair of shorts underneath, and functional boots and stockings covering her feet and legs.

According to the magical girls, falling asleep after the empowerment ritual was, while unusual, not unheard of, providing there wasn't an immediate threat. They said the process was sometimes stressful, and Taylor had only just finished her body mods that morning, so that probably wasn't helping.

Shaking herself out of her thoughts, she picked up the phone on the third ring. "Hello?"

"Hello, Cindy-chan, it's Kasumi Tendo," the pleasant voice came over the phone. "I'm calling for Smaug-dono."

Cindy nodded to herself. Smaug often had Kasumi make calls for him whenever he was busy or didn't feel like fighting with making his own calls. "What can I do for all old smokestack?" she asked.

"We just saw the empowerment ritual Taylor-san went through and he wanted to see if you knew what had happened," Kasumi explained.

"We're not really sure," Cindy admitted. "It took a while for the light show to stop, and once it did, Taylor was sleeping. We're waiting for her to wake up to find out if she knows what happened. All the bugs in the area are acting strangely, as well. One of the camera techs tried to kill a fly, and… well, it didn't squish. We're not sure what exactly that means, yet, but it could mean Taylor is directly empowering the bugs in her area… which could be worrisome."

"Oh my," Kasumi said, "I hope nothing too bad happens to her." There was a sound of clanging and jangling in the background. Hurriedly, Kasumi added, "Can you give us a call when you know more? Smaug-dono just knocked over the boxes of kitchen supplies, so I need to go help with that."

"I'll give you a call," Cindy agreed. "You go help the great lug. Take care, Kasumi."

"You, too, Cindy-chan," Kasumi answered. "I'm looking forward to seeing you again."

"I think you mean tasting," Cindy replied with a chuckle.

"That, too," Kasumi agreed impishly before terminating the call. Sighing in fond remembrance, Cindy settled back to continue waiting for Taylor to wake up.

---

The twins looked up from the tablet and, in unison, said, 'We're done! What's the next section?"

"You two are going to drive somebody crazy," Violetta noted. "Anyway, next up are the two sets of adjustments. As I mentioned earlier, you can't actually take any of the time options, since Taylor didn't take them, and, even if she had, you would still be restricted to the same length of service that she picked. The only real choice would be about what you wanted to do after the show finished. As is, you'll be free to do whatever you want after the year is over, including signing back up for your own full runs."

"Makes sense," Zoe replied.

"We can't really leave early and stop being Taylor's owners, right?" Ashley asked.

"Yes, exactly that," Violetta agreed. "So, with that out of the way, we can move on to the miscellaneous adjustments." She flicked the tablet to the correct screen and set it down for the girls to see.

"Are there any we definitely should take?" Zoe asked, looking over the list.

"Most of them don't currently apply to you," Violetta admitted. "Though I'd still suggest taking Caretaker if you want to keep any kids you have. Safe Word is another one that is often a good idea, even if you shouldn't use it that often."

"Taylor didn't take Caretaker," Ash pointed out.

Violetta nodded. "Yes, she thought having Safe Word would be more important, and the form she was using didn't allow her to take more than one adjustment from this section."

"That's not right!" both twins shouted, glaring at their helper.

Violetta raised a hand placatingly. "We know," she said. "It was a mistake on the form. They should be letting her know that they've fixed that for her, along with a few other issues they found."

"That's good," Zoe said.

"We're definitely taking that option, too," Ash added. "Even if we don't plan on using it."

"And Safe Word," Zoe added. "We want that one, too."

"No problem," Violetta replied, making the notations. "Anything else you want to take right now? If you want, Zoe, you can change who gets priority over your hair."

Zoe shook her head. "I think I'm good with keeping it standard. I'll keep it in mind if I have any extra credits to spend, though."

"I can think of better things to use extra credits on," Ash grumbled.

"And I think that brings us to the Rewards," Violetta noted, trying to move things along. Navigating to that part of the form, she added, "Unfortunately, you can't pick New Home, since the house belongs to your sister, not you, but you can pick any of the other options. I'm not sure New Game+ is worth it, though, since you'll just wake up next to your tank before the show starts."

"Well, fuck a duck," Ash grumped.

"Language!" Zoe snapped in a surprisingly accurate approximation of Annette Hebert's voice.

"Sorry, Mom!" Ash yelped reflexively. "Damn it, Zoe," she snapped as she realized what had happened. Shoving her sister, she shouted, "That wasn't funny! Stop laughing, damn it!'

Finally the two settled down again, allowing Zoe to ask, "Do you have any recommendations?"

"It really depends on what you want to get out of this," Violetta replied. "If you want an easy run, with as little hassle as you can get away with, I'd recommend taking Slut Life is its Own Reward. If there's something your really want to get now, go for it. It'll make things a bit harder on you now, and you could get it later by being a contestant, but it's ultimately up to you."

The two girls spent a few minutes looking over the different options before coming to their decision. "We'll take the extra credits," they chorused.

"The only other thing on there I'd want is the spaceship," Ash added, "and the Simurgh would probably break it on me."

"Or you could just keep it here," Zoe noted.

"Yeah, but where's the fun in that?" Ash protested. Shrugging, she added, "I can wait until I do my own run if I really want one. It'd be nice, but at least I'll still have my hoverboard, and that I can bring back home with me."

"If you're planning, or at least considering, having your own run later on," Violetta began. "I often recommend taking Slut Life is its Own Reward, especially for our younger secondaries. It allows you to have a much easier time of it, and you won't be losing out on much."

The twins considered that for a moment. "What about getting powers?" Ash asked, looking toward her sister. "Earth Bet is pretty dangerous, and that could help keep us safe."

"Yeah, but didn't Mom do a research project in college showing that capes were more likely to get into fights and killed than random civilians?" Zoe countered.

"Oh, right," Ash said thoughtfully. "That was after she left Lustrum, right?" Zoe nodded. "That study was flawed," Ash protested. "It works on statistics. More normal people who end up in the middle of cape fights end up in trouble than the capes. And we do live in Brockton Bay."

"There is that," Zoe admitted with a wince. "Still..." She thought about it for a while before finally agreeing, "I guess you're right. But there's a better way to get powers without paying for them."

Ash smiled ferally before asking, "Magical girls?"

Zoe nodded. "Magical girls."

Turning to face Violetta, they chorused, "We'll take Slut Life is its Own Reward, please."

"Got it," Violetta replied with a nod. "Now, would you like to work on your jobs first or go straight to the Owners?"

"We'll finish the jobs first."

---

Setsuna Meioh sipped at her special stash of scotch, aged in the Gates of Time for longer than she wanted to think about, as she waited for the last of the Senshi to arrive. The others already present were wondering why she had called this meeting, especially after she had put them on high alert late the night before, but she only wanted to go through this once. Suddenly, the door slammed open and a blond girl sprinted in. Setsuna made a mental note to check the door frame later, just in case.

"Sorry I'm late!" Usagi announced as she skidded to a halt in the room, sliding across the wooden floor in her socks, her shoes still falling into the provided basket next to the door. Even as she was sitting down, she asked, "What did you find out? Is there a new enemy? Why are we on high alert?"

Setsuna took another soothing sip of her alcohol before starting. "If you'll be patient for just a moment, I'll explain." There was a little fidgeting among the girls, but they settled back down quickly. "Late last night, there was something I could only describe as a mana pulse that radiated through the aether. When I tried to track it back, it led well outside of the solar system."

"It was really strong," Rei added. "It even woke Grandpa up."

"It also registered on the Mercury Computer's sensors," Ami chipped in. "I've been analyzing it since I woke up to your alert, and the results are unusual, to say the least."

"What did you find?" Usagi asked.

"As far as I can determine, it was an unfocused mana spike, though it did have a dimensional component," Ami explained.

Turning to Michiru, Usagi asked, "Can the Neptune Mirror find anything out about it?"

Before Michiru could reply, Setsuna stepped in. "That won't be necessary," she stated. "I already know what happened, and we can stand down the high alert."

"What was it?" Haruka asked. "It could still be a threat, right?"

"Yes, it could still be a threat," Setsuna admitted, before taking another pull on her drink, "but that's rather unlikely to happen. One of my contacts from outside sent out an explanation to… pretty much everyone they could. Apparently, someone was trying a modified empowerment ritual." Dryly she added, "Things were a bit more energetic than they expected. They're still analyzing things on their end to see what happened and how likely it is to happen again."

"If it's from outside our reality, how could it still be a threat?" Minako asked reasonably.

"It could be like Pharaoh 90," Hotaru said quietly.

"No," Ami cut in, "the dimensional harmonics were all wrong for something like that. It involved far too many dimensions for something like Pharaoh 90 to be involved."

"Ami is right," Setsuna said. "The girl in the ritual would not be able to invade here the same way Pharaoh 90 did. However, she might have access to spells that would allow her to do so."

Usagi nodded and asked, "So we're taking a wait and see approach?"

"Pretty much," Setsuna replied. "It is made even more difficult because we can't actually track her actions until she is in our reality, or at least a more directly adjacent one." She took a moment to splash more scotch into her glass. "I'm told she's likely to be reasonably heroic unless pushed, though, so we shouldn't have any problems."

---

"Are you all set getting your jobs set up?" Violetta asked. The girls nodded, so she added, "Ash, we're going to need to send you halfway across the planet to get your puer magicus empowerment done, but you can still work alongside the girls. And neither of you are going to be getting a specialized empowerment ritual, not after what happened with your sister. Now, you both still need to pick up some extra credits. Would you rather do that through punishments or owners?"

The girls looked at one another before Zoe said, "I think we'll start by looking at the owners again."

"It should let us make up the credits we need faster," Ash added.

"Without doing anything too uncomfortable," Zoe concluded.

Violetta took the tablet and set it to the correct portion of the form. "I have no problem with that. Now, who were you two thinking of getting? Remember, you can't share owners at the same time on a regular basis. And, please, don't pick siblings. It either has us trying to squeeze three separate eight or twelve hour periods into an already cramped schedule or causes a crisis of infinite siblings. Neither is fun to deal with."

The girls looked over the lists, muttering between themselves while weighing the merits of each choice. Finally, Zoe asked, "What's the deal with the ghost?"

"We have a number of ghosts looking for temporary accommodations in living bodies," Violetta explained. "As it happens, most ghosts can't feel or taste much of anything in their normal state. Some try to get around this issue in rather… unpleasant ways, such as floating through rotting food. Others possess people in order to use their senses."

She paused for a moment before continuing. "Most magical girls and pueri magici tend to hunt down the ones who do this without permission. First time offenders usually get a warning, and often an offer to find them willing hosts, while repeat offenders and those more… insistent spirits are dealt with in a more permanent manner."

"So they aren't going to do anything too extreme with their hosts?" Zoe asked.

"No, Possession Certified ghosts won't do anything the host is adamantly opposed to unless that's part of the rental agreement," Violetta explained. "They may push the boundaries of your comfort zones, but going too far is a good way to get their license revoked. Each ghost fills out a survey detailing what sensations they are interested in experiencing and we, along with the various other body rental agencies, do the best we can to accommodate them safely."

"Why do you even have ghosts?" Ash asked. "Can't they just get reincarnated or something?"

"Most people who stay as ghosts are afraid of reincarnation for one reason or another," Violetta replied. "Some worry that it'll fundamentally change who they are, while others don't want to pay for any of the services that could do it for them. Other just like being ghosts. We tend to focus on those ones, since they tend to be the most stable."

The girls shared another look before asking, "Can we share the same ghost if we have different days?"

Violetta smiled. "That shouldn't be an issue," she said. "Now, that should put you both back into the black, and, unless I'm mistaken, you should have at least another eight hour slot open in your schedule if you wanted to have a second owner."

"I think we're good for now," Zoe stated. "We should still have enough leftover credits to pick up a few of the things we had decided against, so we should be fine, right?"

"Well, that should definitely work," Violetta conceded. "Shall we head back to the body mods, then?"

"Yes please!"

---

"She's waking up!" Lucy Lewd called, causing the others to turn toward her. They'd been waiting for this to happen for quite a while, so they had decided to take turns watching over Taylor's sleeping figure until she woke.

"It's about time," Wicked Angelica grumbled. "I wanted to go to bed hours ago."

Joy Cassidy sighed. "We told you, if you wanted to go home and go to bed, you didn't have to stay here."

"But then I'd have to wait until after school to find out what Taylor got!" Angelica complained.

"How are you feeling?" Lucy asked, helping Taylor to sit up.

"Pretty good," Taylor replied, before stopping suddenly. "My voice is a lot higher," she noted. Looking down at her chest she snapped, "Damn it, I just got those!"

Cindy chuckled as she came over. "Well, you look like you're about twelve, so that makes sense."

"Don't worry," Obsessive Rose said from Taylor's other side. "You'll get your boobs back when you transform back to your normal self."

"I'm glad I don't have to worry about that," Angelica commented smugly. She thrust her chest out a bit. "It's one of the perks of being an 'older' magical girl."

Lucy made a shooing motion with her hands, gesturing the others back. "Give her some room," she said reprovingly. "She'll need a moment to adjust."

"Thanks," Taylor said, swinging her feet off the bed to stand up. "This is harder to get used to than my body mods were this morning." She paused for a moment before sheepishly asking, "It is the same day, right?"

"Almost," Cindy replied. "It's about six in the morning. You've been out for a little more than twelve hours, which is surprising, considering you only need four hours a night."

"Lucky," Angelica grumbled, stifling a yawn. "I need the full eight hours, and I've got school in a couple hours."

"Don't give us that line," Hope Celandine cut in. "You've taken plenty of naps while we waited. You'll be fine for a day."

"And if not," Lucy added, "you can always go to the nurses' office and get dismissed."

"Maybe I'll just call in sick," Angelica mused.

"You'd better not!" Cassidy declared. "You should have known better than stay up all night! The rest of us got plenty of sleep, right?"

Rose yawned. "I might have stayed up too long," she admitted. "But I think I'll be fine."

"Good," Cassidy said, before turning back to Taylor. "Now, Taylor, there's been rumors that girls who sleep after their empowerment get prophetic visions. It didn't happen to any of us, so I have to ask, did you see anything?"

"Yeah," Taylor said with a nod. "I don't really remember it, though. Something to do with the supercomputer in my head." She gave her head a shake, as though that would knock something loose. "It was like something stretched, or twisted? Either way, whatever it was was starting to fray and fall apart. But then light started replacing and supporting it, and I found myself on a featureless plane. The only other one there was another magical girl, that I didn't recognize but feel like I should, but the light connecting to me was darkness connected to her? Kind of a gradient but not? It's hard to explain. After that, we were in a city, and there was some nebulous force, and girls were falling over left and right. I'm not sure what that was about, though." She paused for a moment. "Nor why I feel like someone made a mistake with dragonflies. I was happy about it, I think, but really?"

"Well… That's ominous," Cassidy opined.

"Very foreboding," Celandine agreed.

"Anyway," Cassidy continued, thinking the description over. "Is that it? No other details you can remember?"

"Er, I think there might have been a black sun in the sky?" Taylor offered. "Maybe? It covered pretty much the entire sky as far as I could see, though the plane was also on fire. Dunno what that was about."

"Sometimes the sun or a fire shows up as a representation of mana pools and such," Rose offered, looking at her phone.

"That doesn't sound quite right in this case," Cassidy replied with a shake of her head.

"Well," Lucy piped up, "we can think about it more later, in any case. It's late and only getting later, so we should probably get to bed." She paused for a moment and sheepishly added, "I'm not sure Taylor will want to sleep, though."

Taylor yawned, surprising everyone. "Well, I think that settles it," she said. "I'm still tired enough to sleep some more. Whatever happened to me, it definitely wasn't restful."

Cindy stifled a yawn before she also spoke. "I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm ready for bed, and I still need to call Kasumi back."

"Who's Kasumi?" Taylor asked.

"Come on," Cindy urged. "I'll tell you on the way back to the hotel. The sooner we get there, the sooner I can get to sleep."

"We should all be heading to bed as well," Cassidy replied. Looking at Angelica, she added, "Especially you."

"Yeah," Angelica agreed before yawning mightily. "I definitely need to get to sleep."

"Let's try to meet up tomorrow," Cassidy said. "We can discuss that vision more then." The others agreed and they left, making their way back to their homes for a late night's rest.

---

"Alright," Violetta began wearily, the mental fatigue of dealing with the two preteens showing through her professionalism. "Now that you've balanced everything out, all that is left is looking things over and making sure you haven't missed anything glaringly obvious."

"I'm pretty sure we didn't miss anything," Zoe began.

"But it's a good idea to check," Ash finished.

"While we're looking," Zoe added, "can you tell us what happens next?"

Violetta watched for a few moments as the girls checked over their entries, making sure everything was how they wanted it, before speaking. "Next we'll finish your growth, which should be done early tomorrow. After that, we'll send Ash off to get empowered by the pueri magici in one of the other settlements while Zoe gets taken care of here. You are going with the emotional mana sources, correct?"

"Yes," the girls replied in unison.

"Alright, good. That'll ensure you're at the same station as your sister, though I can't guarantee you'll be there at the same time."

"That's fine," Ash answered for both of them. "Oh, and that reminds me. I was wondering, why aren't the pueri magici set up here as well?"

"There's a very good reason for that," Violetta replied. "For some reason, which I don't know, the mana needed for the magical girl empowerment only works on this side of the planet, while the pueri magici empowerment only works on the other side. Once empowered, both groups are fine anywhere on the planet, so, while both groups could mix, they've determined that it's easier to just stay apart unless something major happens."

"Thanks," Ash said. "That was bugging me a bit. I really didn't want to find out I'd need to commute halfway across the planet every day for work."

"You're welcome." Violetta continued, "Once you're both empowered, we'll bring you over to the house, where you'll meet Taylor's other owners and neighbors. After that, the show will officially start, and you'll need to figure out what you want to do to keep the ratings up, unless you want to get spanked, of course."

"Let's avoid that," Zoe said dryly. "Even with the masochism mods we took, it doesn't sound very fun." Ash nodded her agreement. Handing the tablet back over to Violetta, Zoe added, "Anyway, I think we're set. Everything looks good."

"Yup," Ash agreed. "I didn't see any problems."

"Well, good. In that case, we'll just submit the forms and get you back to your bodies so you can finish growing," Violetta said. "Anyways, it was nice meeting you. Have fun over the next year, and I look forward to seeing your full runs in the future." With that said, she signed out of the virtual office, leaving the two girls behind until they, too, were disconnected.

---

Taylor yawned as she made her way toward the hotel. Cindy followed her example a moment later. "What are the plans for later today?" she asked, not wanting to walk along in silence.

"I think they have you scheduled for orientation at your jobs," Cindy said. "And, if you'd like, there should be time to practice shooting some more. Then, in the evening, they'd like to have you give another interview. And there's a few things we need to go over about your magical girl outfit."

"Is there something wrong with it?" Taylor asked defensively, looking over her costume.

"Not really," Cindy replied. "However, since you picked Walking Billboard, there's a minor issue we'll need to resolve."

"Oh?" Taylor asked. "What issue is that?"

"You currently aren't wearing anything lewd or promoting Slut Life or its sister companies," Cindy stated flatly.

"Oh. That," Taylor said with a wince.

"Exactly," Cindy continued. "That. Now, there's two fairly easy ways to deal with this. Either you try to pin a prominent patch on that fits those guidelines or you license your magical girl image for the year."

"What would that accomplish?" Taylor asked, confused.

"It would allow us, meaning Slut Life, to use your image, as a magical girl, to create iconic t-shirts, posters, action figures, and so on," Cindy explained. "You'd get a small percentage as royalties, and, for the purposes of Walking Billboard, you'd be considered to be promoting Slut Life whenever you were out or about in uniform."

Taylor nodded thoughtfully. "That does sound like a good deal," she commented. "Can I think about it and get back to you?"

"Sure," Cindy replied. "And, keep in mind, after the year is over, you can renegotiate the license, either getting a higher royalty on each item sold or ending the agreement entirely."

"I'll think about it," Taylor repeated. "Now, what was that about another interview?"

"It's mostly to go over your body mods," Cindy replied. "Give the audience some idea what changes you had done. And, if you decide to license you magical girl image, there'd be a second interview to promote that as well. Possibly with a small demonstration of what you can do."

"That doesn't sound too bad," Taylor replied.

"It shouldn't be," Cindy agreed. "But, fair warning, some of the hosts like probing personal questions about why you picked or didn't pick certain mods."

"Yeah, well..." Taylor began. Unfortunately, her retort trailed off when a brightly glowing portal tore its way into existence before the two of them. "Get behind me!" Taylor ordered, stepping between Cindy and the portal. A large gun formed in her hands, which she leveled toward the vortex, waiting for whatever emerged.

She was not expecting the dark blur that exited the portal to go straight for her waist, latching on. Once it stopped moving, the blur resolved into the form of a girl, around eight years old, wearing a dress that was mostly purples and blacks, with ribbons going… somewhere. It was really hard to get a good look at them. Her hair was the type of black that looked purple under the right light, like the streetlights around them, and her skin was surprisingly pale.

Weirdly, Taylor thought she recognized the girl, even though her hair, eye, and outfit colors were all different than she thought they should be. She was distracted from that thought when the lump on the smaller girl's shoulder moved, revealing itself to be a small tentacle monster. The little monster lunged forward and wrapped itself around Taylor's mini-dragon, nuzzling the surprised lizard's face.

"Taylor!" the girl cried, trying to burrow her face into the older girl's stomach. "I found you!"

Taylor looked down at the girl, at a loss for several moments. Finally, she gathered her wits enough to ask, "Who are you?"

The girl looked up at Taylor, revealing purple eyes. "It's me, KNFqPRY5E1YrSYfPH00!" Whatever the girl had tried to say, that last bit came across sounding like someone trying to imitate a fax machine mixed with the sounds of an actual fax machine. She frowned, saying that last word again. "That's not right," she muttered, trying yet again before giving up. "I let you do this!" she finally said, raising a hand and letting a moth land on it.

"I'm sorry, what?" Taylor asked.

"I let you control all sorts of things, silly," the girl insisted, giggling lightly. "And now I'm human and I get to stay with you and everything's great!"

"You're saying you're the supercomputer connected to Taylor?" Cindy asked.

The girl tilted her head in thought. "I think that's what the computer talking to me eight planetary rotations ago called me..."

Cindy turned to Taylor. "What do you say? Think she's trustworthy?"

Taylor nodded. "I think so. I kind of recognize her from my dream-vision-thing. Her being connected to me like that would make sense for what I saw."

"Right," Cindy said, rubbing the bridge of her nose. "It is far too late to be dealing with this now. Want to just go back to the hotel, put her on a cot, and deal with it in the morning?"

Taylor was staring blankly into space. Shaking herself out of her fugue state, she replied, "Sure. I think I've had enough shocks for the day."

 

[Jonakhensu]

Preparation 2.10

---

Taylor awoke to the strange sounds of a small dragon being assaulted by an affectionate tentacle monster. It did take her a few moments to realize what the sounds were, as she wasn't used to having her animal companion around quite yet. She looked over and saw her mini-dragon attempting to ward off the tentacle monster with small puffs of pink flame. It wasn't very effective.

"I'm coming, I'm coming," Taylor grumbled as she rolled out of bed, nearly stumbling when she didn't account for the low cot holding what was apparently a humanized biological supercomputer, and made her way to the desk where the two animals were wrestling. "Leave her alone," she demanded as she reached down to forcibly separate the tentacle monster from her dragon.

This proved to be a mistake, even as the maneuver accomplished its goal, as the little monster allowed itself to be removed from the pink dragon only to wrap its limbs around Taylor's arm. For her part, Taylor could only look on nonplussed as the tentacled menace began rubbing against her arm affectionately. Giving her arm a few experimental shakes, Taylor sighed and asked, "You're not going to let go, are you?"

"I don't think so," the magical girl on the cot replied. "She's lonely and likes hugs."

"Well, so long as that's all she wants," Taylor decided, "I guess she can stay there for now." Turning around, she looked over the purple clad girl. "So you're my power, right?"

The girl held up a hand and tilted it side to side. "Kind of," she replied. "There's a lot more to me than just that." She pouted and added, "I just have a lot of me locked down right now."

Taylor thought about that for a moment before commenting, "I think the scientists are going to want to talk to you about that. They might even be able to help you with that, right?"

The source of her powers smiled at that and cheered, "Yeah! That sounds like fun!" There was a soft grumbling noise and the girl flushed. "I think my stomach wants me to fill it. How weird is that? Ingesting material for caloric value rather than for base materials… kind of wasteful, isn't it?"

Taylor shrugged helplessly. "It's what we've got, though." Opening one of the desk drawers, she pulled out a pamphlet and asked, "Want to get room service?" The little girl rushed over to look over the menu. After a minor argument where Taylor had to convince the younger girl that they didn't need to order everything, they settled on getting a few sampler plates so that she could figure out what she liked without wasting as much food.

---

"I see you enjoyed breakfast," Cindy commented as she looked over the several empty trays arrayed around the room.

"We wanted to see…" Taylor trailed off before looking over to the other magical girl. "We really need come up with a name for you."

The girl pouted and huffed. "But I have a name. I just can't get it to translate into something you can understand."

"We still need something we can call you," Taylor insisted. "It's rude to talk about you like you're not there, and we'll need a way to address you."

"Preferably in a way that won't need either a recording or altered vocal chords," Cindy added dryly. "Is there anything you'd like to be called?"

The girl grumbled and stamped her foot. "I want to be called by my name, but it's not translating right."

Cindy pondered for a moment before suggesting, "Why don't we try to come up with a name to use now, and we can change it later once you figure out how to get the translation to work properly."

"I'm going to have a hard enough time figuring out a magical girl name for myself," Taylor noted. "I've got nothing for you."

"I'm admittedly not the most creative person with names, either," Cindy agreed. "Though I might know some people we could ask for suggestions."

Taylor grimaced. "We won't end up with with something like McSquirrelFace or something, right?"

"Ha, no," Cindy laughed. "They wouldn't do something stupid like that." She paused for a moment before adding, "Probably."

Taylor looked over the younger girl for a moment before saying, "There's no harm in asking, right? You might find a name you like. Worst case, we ignore their ideas and keep looking."

"I guess that's fine," the younger girl replied sullenly.

"Great," Cindy began, flexing her hand and bringing up her phone. "Now that that's settled, we've got a few things to take care today, and it'll take them a while to come up with some ideas."

"What's first?" Taylor asked.

"Well, you had mentioned wanting to test out your magic gun, so I've set up some time on the range for you," Cindy said.

Taylor perked up. "That sounds like it could be fun."

"Though you might have something of an audience," Cindy admitted ruefully. "A lot of people seem interested in seeing what you can do."

Taylor sighed. "I guess I'd better get used to people watching me, right?" she asked rhetorically. "Well, we might as well get going."

---

"I'm coming," Velma Platt called as she made her way out of the kitchen towards the front door. She had just been finishing breakfast when the doorbell rang, so she had left her dishes in the sink to take care of later. It wasn't like anyone else was around to complain about it if they sat there for a few minutes, after all.

Once she reached the door, she paused for a moment to take a calming breath before opening the door. "Um, hi," the girl on the other side said. Velma blinked as she quickly took in a few key details. The girl had green hair and square rimmed glasses. Horns rose from her temples and wings spread out behind her, along with a swishing tail. Watching the tail led her to a more important detail. There was a medium sized rolling suitcase sitting next to her on the porch.

"Oh, hello there," Velma greeted the girl standing on the doorstep. "Are you going to be living here as well?"

"Ah, yes, I am," the green haired girl said, fidgeting a little. "I'm She-Who-Always-Needs-Hugs-In-Large-Doses-Everyday, and I'm going to be one of Miss Hebert's owners."

Velma smiled. "It's good to meet you," she said. "I'm Velma Platt. I'm going to be another of Taylor's owners. If you don't mind me asking, which owner will you be? I'm a Cutie."

She-Who-Always-Needs-Hugs-In-Large-Doses-Everyday blushed slightly and hesitantly said, "I'm a Succubus."

Velma blinked. Some of the girl's features could be considered demonic, such as the wings, horns, and tail, but she had thought those were a stylistic choice. She'd seen weirder online, after all, and had even briefly considered getting a set of wings of her own. She still needed to do more research on which insect wings would be the most practical on a human frame before she made any decisions on that front. "Well, come on in," she finally said, gesturing into the house. "We've got a bunch of empty rooms, so I guess you can pick whichever one you want. We might have to change them later, but that's no reason to be uncomfortable in the meantime, right?"

"I guess," She-Who-Always-Needs-Hugs-In-Large-Doses-Everyday said as she stepped into the house, dragging the suitcase behind her. Looking around, she commented, "It's bigger than I was expecting."

"I know, right?" Velma agreed. "They told me we'd be in an apartment, so I was trying to psych myself up for sharing a room. That won't be an issue now, though." If she was being honest with herself, Velma had to admit she wasn't sure if she was happy about the change or not. On the one hand, she would now probably have a room to herself. On the other hand, she really had been looking forward to all of the sleepovers. Shaking herself, she asked, "So, succubuses eat lust, right?" Without giving She-Who-Always-Needs-Hugs-In-Large-Doses-Everyday time to answer, she followed up with another question, "You can eat normal food, too, right?"

It took She-Who-Always-Needs-Hugs-In-Large-Doses-Everyday a moment before she answered. "It's succubi, actually. And I can eat human food, too. It's not enough to sustain me, but it still tastes good." She paused for a moment before adding, "Er, why do you ask?"

"Well, I made some cookies last night," Velma replied, "and you're the first person to arrive after I did, so I wanted to see if you wanted any."

"Cookies?" She-Who-Always-Needs-Hugs-In-Large-Doses-Everyday exclaimed. "Sure, I'd love to try some!" With that said, the two girls made their way into the kitchen to enjoy a quick snack.

---

It had taken a while to get everything set up at the range. Apparently, one of the scientists had guessed their plans for the day and had insisted on having sensors hooked up to record everything from Taylor's accuracy to any exotic particles her magic might produce. All told, had been a full hour since the time they had arrived and she still hadn't been deemed ready to shoot. "Is this all really necessary?" she griped as a few last sensors were placed around her booth.

Professor Daniel Akkeman nodded vigorously. "Oh, yes, definitely," he said. "We had Doctor Zecora take readings while you were being modified, so we have a baseline for your original and new normal state, but we still need to gather information on you as a magical girl. We'd like to get a baseline of your new abilities before you have too much practice with them. That way, we'll be able to track your growth. The scientific study of magic is still a nascent field, after all."

Taylor sighed in defeat. "Fine, set up all the sensors you need."

"Oh, don't worry, we only have a few more to calibrate and you'll be ready to go," Akkeman said reassuringly. "Unless there's a computer glitch or something, we should be ready in fifteen minutes or so." He paused for a moment before adding, "And look at the bright side, you weren't here setting up for half the night."

Taylor winced. "What time did you start?" she asked out of morbid curiosity.

"Oh, around the time you were waking up, I believe," Akkeman replied. "It brought back memories of all nighters during college, it did. Oh how I don't miss those days."

"Well, in that case, I think I'll head over to the shop and have another cup of tea," Taylor decided. "Hopefully you'll be done when I get back."

"Go ahead," Akkeman replied, waving Taylor off. "We won't need you until the last calibration run, so you have some time."

"Thanks," Taylor called as she made her way over to the concession stand. "Can I get a tea and a small thing of fries?" she asked once she reached the counter.

"Sure, no problem," the clerk replied. "Just make sure you wash your hands before heading back to the range." He shuddered. "You do not want to see what Mr. LeGume will do if you try to shoot with greasy hands."

"I do take range safety and gun maintenance very seriously," Gaston agreed from behind Taylor. "It's bad enough that I have to allow those scientists to cover my beautiful range in their equipment." He sighed. "Still, it is good to know what you can do with your equipment before you try using it off of the range. And at least you're doing things correctly, unlike that other one."

"What do you mean?" Taylor asked, accepting her basket of fries and her drink from the counter clerk.

"Hi, Taylor!" an excited voice singsonged.

"Damn it, she's here..." Gaston groaned. He and Taylor turned to see Obsessive Rose making her way toward them, dragging a large case behind her. "Hello, again, Rose," Gaston said with obviously forced cordiality. "I take it you want to practice as well?"

"Of course!" Rose shouted enthusiastically. "I heard Taylor was going to be here, and I wanted to see how I'd do compared to her."

"So I'm not the first magical girl using a real gun?" Taylor asked, looking over the girl's gun case, which looked identical to the one Johnson kept his AWSM in.

"That depends on how you want to look at it," Rose said cheerfully. "The person who helped me with determining what kind of magical girl I wanted to be mentioned you. It sounded really neat, so I decided to try as well." Ruefully, she admitted, "I didn't have as much time to learn how it works, though, so she got me a real gun, so I wouldn't need to form all of the mechanical parts from memory."

"She also refuses to practice in her normal form," Gaston griped.

"I told you, it's contractually obligated," Rose said defensively. She poked her forefingers together and added, "And I don't actually know how to shoot properly without the magic helping."

"Which is why I want you to practice more without it," Gaston insisted.

Rose waved him off. "I will, I will," she said placatingly. "After my contract is up."

"I'll hold you to that, brat," Gaston stated. "Now, Taylor needs to finish her snack and wash her hands. I'll be getting the rifle for her to use before she transforms. If they're going to use my range to test her abilities, they're going to do it properly."

Taylor blinked and took a sip of her tea before placing the drink down on Rose's case, where it would be steady and not cause a mess. "Do I really need to use one of your rifles, though?" she asked Gaston. "I've got mine right here, right?" She held out a hand and concentrated.

Her audience of two watched as motes of lights formed in the air and coalesced in her hand, forming the long shape of a sniper rifle. "That's awesome!" the clerk from the concession stand exclaimed, startling the three in the group. Their attention had been riveted on the display of magical might.

Shaking himself, Gaston noted, "I'm sure the scientists will agree, but I want you to use that alongside a mundane rifle. It'll be interesting to see how a magically constructed weapon compares to a real one."

Taylor sighed. "Yeah, I'm not sure why I thought that wouldn't happen." Perking herself up, she added, "Well, they should be done setting up, so we might as well head over and ruin the scientists' day, right?"

"Might as well," Gaston agreed heartily. He paused for a moment before muttering, "I may need to speak to my therapist about lingering issues with intellectuals." Speaking louder, over Taylor's questions, he finished, "I'll go grab the rifle and meet you over there, alright?"

He quickly left, leaving Taylor staring after him. Rose, on the other hand was still staring at the gun in the older girl's hands. "Liana is going to flip when she hears about this. Or be unbearably smug." She tilted her head in thought. "Probably both."

"What was that?" Taylor asked.

"Oh, nothing much," Rose said quickly. "Don't worry about it."

---

"Cindy," the humanoid supercomputer whined, "why can't we watch Taylor?"

Cindy sighed. She was beginning to see the downsides of being around Obsessive magical girls. This was already the third time the girl had tried to convince her to let her watch Taylor's testing. "I already told you," she began, forcing herself to remain calm. "We wouldn't be able to see anything, since the range doesn't have a spectator section, and they like to keep the number of people around not firing down as much as possible."

"But I want to watch!" the purple clad girl griped.

"Again, they won't let us," Cindy repeated. "Besides, the people I have brainstorming names for you didn't take as long as I thought to come up with some names. Don't you want to pick one out? You can surprise Taylor with it," she weedled. Hopefully mentioning Taylor would be enough to sway the girl. If not, she wasn't sure what she'd do with her until Taylor finished at the range.

"I was hoping she'd help with it," the magical girl admitted.

Cindy sighed. She honestly hadn't expected that plan to work right away, but it had been worth a shot. "Why don't we go and listen to their ideas anyway?" she suggested. "That way you can think about them for a while. See if any of them feel better than the others. Then you can tell Taylor the ones you liked and she can help you determine which one is best."

The girl perked up, much to Cindy's relief. "I guess that could work," she said.

The redhead smiled. At least she wouldn't be trying to keep the girl out of the gun range for the next hour or so. "Come with me, we'll need a nice, private room for the discussion," she said, taking the magical girl's hand. Hopefully none of the suggestions would be too dumb, and hopefully one of them would be to the girl's liking. After all, she was getting tired of referring to the girl as 'the supercomputer,' 'the girl,' or other descriptive names. It was almost as bad as referring to her as 'hey you.'

---

"So, who's going to say it?" Lucy Lewd asked as she looked over the ritual room with Joy Cassidy and Hope Celandine.

Celandine looked over the ritual circle, now burned an inch into the floor. "I'll say it. What the hell did we just add to our team?"

Cassidy looked at the mana crystals still arrayed around the circle, two of which were completely drained while the rest were heavily depleted. "Whatever she is, I'm just glad she's on our side," she admitted. "Of course, the other question is how much of this is due to her being weird and how much is because we had a proper ritual circle with far more mana available than was even remotely reasonable?"

Lucy shrugged helplessly. "I don't think we're likely to find out until the next time we use the circle. And I don't think they'll let us try it again anytime soon."

"True enough," Celandine agreed. "That was a bit more… energetic… than I'd been expecting. I'm pretty sure they felt the mana wave it put off on Earth… or will in a few years. How fast do mana waves propagate again?" The others shrugged. "Well, I'm sure we'll find out eventually." She looked down at the circle again. "So, think we're going to be making this thing permanent?"

"I don't see why we shouldn't," Cassidy replied. "Taylor already did the hard part, carving out the symbols for us. We'll just need to fill them in with something permanent."

Celandine nodded. "And Taylor and I should probably supply some blood for it, using the Blood Rite. It'll make the whole thing more efficient and robust."

"Well," Cassidy said decisively, "it doesn't really change anything right now. Let's head back and get ready to answer any other questions Taylor has before the show starts. We'll also need a good way to keep any of the cameras out when we show her our civilian identities."

"True," Lucy agreed. "Even if people can probably figure mine out if they try." She looked at a clock on the wall. "And it's time for me to head out. I need to pick up the kids. I'll meet you at headquarters later, alright?"

"Sure, we'll see you there."

---

"Ah, good, you're back," Professor Akkeman said as Taylor approached. "Er," he began, pausing for a moment as he looked between the gun Taylor was holding and the case Gaston was carrying. Despite the large range instructor's strength, the scientist could still see the obvious heft of the case, which brought up an interesting question. "Where did you get that gun from?" he finally asked.

"It's my rifle," Taylor replied succinctly.

"When did you get a rifle of your own?" Akkeman asked in confusion. "And why don't you have a carrying case for it?"

"It's my magical rifle," Taylor said slowly, as though the answer should be obvious. "Should I have a case for it?"

"No, no, that's fine," Akkeman said hurriedly, waving the concern off. "I just wasn't expecting you to use it until after you transformed." He looked down at the spreadsheet he'd set up on his computer to record the test results and sighed. "I guess we can add a few more tests. We're going to want to see how your shooting compares with your gun and with a mundane weapon."

His subject shrugged. "We figured as much," she said. "Which did you want me to start with?"

Looking up from the new columns he was making, Akkeman made his decision, "We may as well start with the control, that is to say, the mundane rifle. It'll give us a better baseline for your abilities."

"Alright," Taylor replied before her weapon dissipated into a shower of multicolored sparks. "Looks like I'll need to borrow your gun again first, Gaston."

The man was already kneeling next to his open case, fitting his rifle together. Akkeman took a moment to savor working with competent assistants, rather than the useless undergrads he usually had to deal with. Once the rifle was assembled, he handed it off to Taylor, who took a moment to check it over before lying down in her stall. "Good," Gaston grunted approvingly.

Akkeman switched to another application on his laptop for a moment, looking over the data coming from the sensors. "Taylor, would you be able to scooch over two inches to your right?" he asked. "You're not quite in line with the sensors." Taylor scooted over. "That's perfect. We're ready for your first shot."

"Right," Taylor said. "Firing." A moment later there was a crack as she fired.

Akkeman nodded in satisfaction. "All of the sensors are reading well. Continue as you will and we'll establish a baseline."

"No problem," Taylor replied, lining up another shot. Four cracks later, she ejected the magazine, slotted another into place, and continued shooting. Once the second magazine was depleted, she asked, "Is that that enough to set up a base line, or do you want me to keep going?"

"Why not try a set while you use your insects for aiming?" Gaston suggested.

Akkeman looked up from his computer incredulously. "She can do that?" he demanded in surprise.

"It helps a little," Taylor admitted. "I still need to know what I'm doing, though." Akkeman noticed two gnats fly down and land on the rifle as Taylor switched out to a fresh magazine.

---

Florian Zilberschlag looked over his partner's shoulder. "What are you doing?" he asked.

"A few minutes ago, Professor Akkeman added some columns to that spreadsheet he's using to keep track of Miss Hebert's results," Vanna Zabala replied as she continued typing.

"That's not an answer," Florian complained.

"Fine," Vanna said, turning away from her console for a moment. "They're going to be doing a lot more tests than we're prepared for."

"So?" Florian asked. "Adding extra columns for the data should take care of that, right?"

Vanna shook her head sadly. "It might, depending on what they're testing and how much detail they want, but Miss Hebert is already up to fifteen shots, and hasn't even switched to her magical girl form." She turned back to the computer and resumed typing. "There's going to be a lot more data than we originally planned on, especially judging by the titles of those columns. And it's going to be us at fault when he doesn't have the data he wants."

"But shouldn't adding the extra columns fix the issue?" Florian asked.

Vanna growled in irritation. "Sure, if we only wanted to keep some simple data. Hell, he might even be able to handle it all if he adds enough columns to handle each, individual shot. He still oversimplified it to hell and made a mess out of the back end. Rather than deal with the mess he's bound to dump on us, I'm going to get this thing set up correctly now."

"Teacher's pet," Florian scoffed.

"Look, just because I actually care about my work," Vanna shouted, spinning in her chair. She took a deep breath to calm herself before saying, "No, arguing with you isn't worth it. Leave me alone and let me do my work in peace." She turned back to her computer and continued her coding.

---

Taylor was laying on the ground with her rifle snug against her shoulder. Considering she was currently in her magical girl form, and wearing a skirt, she was rather glad her outfit also contained a pair of shorts. Her younger age and loss of height made the weapon appear even longer, but that didn't seem to be causing her any difficulties.

They had just finished with her shooting mana bullets at the target, and it had taken her a few extra shots to get them back on target. Evidently, she was going to need to train with regular bullets and with mana bullets, as the mana bullets had significantly less drop than her Lupua rounds. It wasn't a significant difference, at least at the distances they were using for the test, but in the field it would definitely be something to keep note of.

"So, did you want me to try out some of my Rites, or are we done?" Taylor asked as she shifted to a kneeling position.

"What do you mean?" Akkeman asked. He was jostling his computer frantically. Based on comments he had made previously, Taylor suspected he had needed to modify his record keeping to keep track of all her shots. Apparently he wasn't expecting Gaston to insist on such thorough testing? It wasn't like he was going to allow the scientists to keep their gear set up on his range indefinitely, after all.

"Well, I've just been using mana bullets," the magical girl explained. "They're easy enough to produce and seem to be better than regular bullets, but it's just mana. I should be able to infuse them with actual Rites as well."

Akkeman stood silently for a moment, considering things. Finally he said, "That could prove valuable. Did you have anything particular in mind?"

"Before you get started," Gaston cut in, "I would like to request that you don't do anything too excessive. The range's backstop can only handle so much."

"Well," Taylor began, considering what she knew about her magical abilities. "I think Frost should be safe enough." Lying back down and taking careful aim, she said, "I'm preparing the shot."

Akkeman nodded. "We're ready to record the shot." A moment later there was a crack as Taylor fired, a bright blue light flashing from the muzzle of her rifle. Down range, the target grew an obvious coating of ice.

"Good to know that works," Taylor noted. "I think I may be able to make the mana bullets faster with Motion or hit harder with Blood. And, if things go the way I want, I should be able to shoot healing bullets with Life."

"Here, try this," Rose suggested, handing over a single cartridge.

"What should it do?" Taylor asked. She wasn't really concerned that the other girl would give her something dangerous, or at least more dangerous than she expected, but it'd be best to make sure before firing a magic bullet she didn't make.

"It should fix things up a bit," Rose replied. "If I did it right, at least." She paused for a moment and added, "At least, it shouldn't cause any more damage than a regular mana bullet would if I messed up."

"Gaston?" Taylor asked.

The man sighed. "You might as well go ahead."

"Professor?" Taylor asked again.

"Hm, yes," Akkeman replied. "It should be interesting to see how your magics interact."

"Right," Taylor said, slotting the cartridge into place. A moment later, there was a crack, followed by the target no longer being covered in ice. Taylor studied it for a moment and stated, "It looks like it did when we got here. I think it worked."

"Well, that certainly opens up some interesting possibilities," Akkeman noted.

"Yes!" Rose cheered. "Sniper buddies for the win! I can't wait to see what we can do with some time to prepare properly!"

"Not in my range, you won't!" Gaston snapped fearfully.

"We're gonna need a bigger range," Taylor noted, amused at being able to use a variant of the old movie line.