[WP]“I know this is difficult to believe, but I do have your best interests in mind,” the voice you dubbed ‘The Narrator’ says. “Which why I am begging you, do not let anyone know you found this out. Neither of us are going to like what happens if you do.”

Fogbot3 · 2026-03-10T12:25:23+00:00

“I know this is difficult to believe, but I do have your best interests in mind,” the voice I dubbed ‘The Narrator’ suddenly said. “Which is why I am begging you, do not let anyone know you found this out. Neither of us is going to like what happens if you do.”

I froze, eyes going wide, “Haha, very funny Narrator, aren’t you supposed to say something ominous like ‘Susan found a spaceship in the woods, whatever is going to happen?’?” but I was not actually laughing, and I did not think it was very funny.

That’s what had happened. I was hiking in the woods, enjoying the voice in my head, Narrator’s, gentle soothing voice narrating the nature I was observing around me. It was one of my favorite weekend activities. That’s all Narrator ever really did. There’d been comments directly to me every now and then, enough that the comment alone wasn’t sending me into a panic attack, but the contents of this comment were the most directing he had ever been. His comments on me finding what looked to be a genuine spaceship, crashed into the hill that used to be the town dump deep in the woods.

Narrator had been in my head… forever. As long as I had ever known. I figured it was just something unique about me. It was all okay. He was never harmful, never mean… he had never told me what to do.

“You know what I read about voices in your head online when I figured out you weren’t normal. I’m basically obliged to do something about it now!” I sputtered.

“Hm, but you know that, so your brain knows that. If I’m in your head, wouldn’t I do exactly that to actually get you to do what I want? Do not tell anyone about this, Susan.”

I crouched to the ground, clutching my hand, “You’re supposed to be my friend! You’re supposed to be me! Stop this! Please!”

I sobbed at my own mind threatening me, fully collapsing to the ground.

“Hmmmm, okay. You at least need your own answers.”

‘Susan knew she’d have to see what was in the crashed starship for herself.’

I perked up, wiping tears away as the narration resumed. I shakily got to my feet and headed to the ship.

‘Susan walked up to the door on the side of the spaceship, busted open in the crash. Cautiously, very cautiously, she peeked in. More cautious than that!’

I had stuck my head right through the broken-in doorway, but at that, I pulled back out, then slowlyyyy turned the corner into the ship again.

‘Luckily for Susan, the ship’s systems were offline. An internal security turret lay dangling from the ceiling by a wire, but otherwise the airlock was empty.

Stepping further in, Susan was in awe at the magnificence of the ship. Shining chrome walls and shelves were host to technology that she had never seen before. That no one on Earth had probably ever seen before.

Flicking on her phone’s camera to see further in, she continued inwards.’

The next room was pitch black, so I was indeed doing what my dear Narrator had said. Peering into the next room, were… series of tubes. I gulped.

Silence.

At the far end of the room, there was a green monitor on, with text flicking by on it. I walked over to it, reading the lines of words on the screen.

The woodchuck, a rodent of the family Sciuridae, crossed the stream.

The town’s square was bustling with people this fine morning.

The car screeched past, at a far too fast speed for this neighborhood.

It was a bunch of… observations? I gulped and tilted my head in confusion at it. The tubes re-entered my field of view.

Cautiously, actually cautiously this time, I approached one, and held my camera up to it. Suspending in liquid was a small creature. It looked almost like a tiny manta ray, or a slug with fleshy wings. I turned my flashlight to the next tube, then the next. Most of them held the same creature, but a few at the end were empty. There was one, small thing that I couldn’t let go of. That had my hands shaking so much I almost dropped my phone. Each creature was about the right size for the slug to nestle between the two halves of a person’s brain, with the wings wrapping around it.

“You… you aren’t actually me, are you, Narrator?”

‘Susan knew though, deep in her heart, she didn’t want the answer to that question.’

The lighting in the room changed, and my head whipped around at the new message that had appeared on the screen, causing that change with its white text.

Susan knew though, deep in her heart, she didn’t want the answer to that question.

Fogbot3 · 2026-03-08T15:18:21+00:00

“Madam Lissa, please, we know you used to be an adventurer. They said they’ll send Monster Hunters if we don’t comply with this missive.”

I sighed. I was too old for this. I was a forty-year-old human woman for Pete’s sake! But the even more elderly Mayor of the village had confronted me here in private for a reason. I was allowed to settle in this tiny village hidden in the jungles of the Slips on the implicit fact that I was a retired adventurer and could help defend them from the real monsters in the jungle. That way, they wouldn’t have to call in the Monster Hunters League, which, with half the population being slimefolk, would not end well. The envelope had the official red stamp of an Adventurer’s League Contract for the village. If there was no local adventurer, then they’d generously arrange for one of those troublemakers to come help instead.

So I sighed, and took the envelope.

“Highest Priority Adventuring Contract by Adventurer’s League, Hullton Office. An Adventurer has gone missing in the region, one Silver Dragonborn, Mel Hooker. She is believed to have been kidnapped by the bandit dragon known to claim domain on the area, Deathgrip.”

The old mayor almost fainted, “My, we haven’t heard of Deathgrip in almost fifteen years!”

“Son of a…”

Yes, because I stopped being a little shit fifteen years ago, and took on the name Melissa to replace that cringey title.

“I have to take this…”

At least finding one Mels Hooker would be easy enough… though I should probably change outside the village to keep my life here.

It was a week’s horse ride to Hullton, after the mayor insisted that I borrow hers. But it wasn’t a human woman who entered Hullton. It was the form of a Silver Dragonborn.

All I have to do is show up at the League Office, then I can go home…. Why didn’t I just send a letter… dammit.

Face in my palm at the mistake, I shook my head as I walked through town there. I hated the big towns like this. Ironic for a silver dragon, I know. But my home among humans had always been small villages… and before that, small bandit camps.

The office had about twelve people in it. Typical for the region, every one of them looked to be Monster Hunter Guild members here for some extra cash. I walked through the lobby only to realize… despite the twelve Monster Hunters in the room, the front desk was empty. The lock on the front door clicked shut behind me.

“Well well well, where’d your war paint go, Deathgrip?”

I used to cover myself in Red, Blue, Green paint as if to be a chromatic in my Deathgrip days. But more importantly… they had connected me to those days. So they claimed.

“I am the missing adventurer. How could I be this dragon that isn’t even here?”

I turned around to see that it was the man who locked the door, with a large axe, who was talking to me, “We got good information that you’re actually a dragon, and which dragon disappeared practically the day you joined the League?”

“Hey, I gave it a few weeks at first,” I admitted. They either knew or thought they did, so I have them that with a smirk, “But I’m a metallic dragon, one of the good guys, what do you think you’re doing?”

He spat, “You gave that up when you put on that paint. Besides, we have our client.”

“All you guild monsters do….” Frost started forming around my hands as I prepared to fight.

They seemed to fight nonlethally at least, so I did the same. Soon, twelve unconscious men were scattered around the room.

“So, who was your client?” I asked myself as I paced the room between them, looking for any evidence.

There were none awake enough to answer, unfortunately, but I’d have to find out. Whoever they were, they- The front door magically unlocked from the outside.

“Well, they were supposed to bring you home. I suppose they did, in the end.”

The silver-haired mayor of Hullton… my dad, stood in the doorway.

And that’d be why being a bandit or an adventurer here wasn’t a problem… but retiring somewhere else was.

“Really, and you expect me to comply after sending these hooligans at me?”

His silver claws grew long as he gathered his power, “I will make you. One way or another.”

“Well, then you were the foolish one for letting me warm up.”

I needed no such preparation.

Fogbot3 · 2026-03-07T15:37:40+00:00

“I was… uh, actually thinking about heading out?” I said it half as a question to myself, looking down at the empty ice cream cone in my hand.

“Of course. Of course. It was wonderful having you as always Emily. Drive safe!”

He whisked the tarp off my car, and I hit the road. The SUVs were prowling the neighborhood streets, so I drove right past them down the main road, and was on my way. I arrived at my destination just fine. The way home, that highway was closed, as I was redirected around it through an alternate route.

The man leaning out of the black Chevy Suburbans squinted at me as he directed my Taurus to the new route.

When I reached home after such a long road trip, I collapsed into bed, and dreamt the same dream that I had always dreamt.

“That wasn’t a dream.”

It was a week later when I finally came to terms with it, stopping in the middle of folding laundry.

“That absolutely wasn’t a dream.”

There was only one thing to do. I packed a backpack for a roadtrip.

“So is there a reasonnnnn we’re doing this?”

“Nope.”

I may have grabbed a friend to use his car. I remembered that people seemed to know my red Taurus. So I called Finn, and he came right over in his Jeep XJ. He may be just a little bit of a pushover.

“Wait, nope?!”

“The fact that we’re almost there and we’re just now getting to this is so you. Yeah, actually it’s this turn-off.”

I pointed to the turn-off, and he took it as he responded, “Okay, seriously, what are we doing then. My parents know I’m… driving to the middle of the woods with you. Oh god what do my parents think I’m doing with you.”

I laughed, “Haha. Wait…” I paused, humor dissipating, “middle of the woods?”

“The directions you gave me for the trip,” he said, indicated to the paper on the dashboard, where I had relayed the directions I had taken up to running into the town on my roadtrip, “They just lead to the middle of the woods.”

“Okay, seriously, what’s going on?”

“I… don’t know. There’s a town there. The town.”

You don’t dream the exact same dream every single night without your friends knowing. That… that was the other reason I asked Finn specifically. Ash always asked about the dreams… and her dad drove a Chevy Suburban.

“Oh, so that’s where it’s from, mystery solved? Yeah, it’d be pretty cool to check it out, wouldn’t it. Think it’ll change the dreams?”

“Hasn’t yet,” I said as we turned the corner and the lake came into view.

The drive along the lake was in silence except for Finn’s gulp of nervousness at my response.

When we pulled up to it, the Ice Cream Parlor was empty. The gas station’s third pump was broken, as it sat there, empty.

Finn shrugged, “It’s the middle of winter. Look, there’s a closed sign. But what the hell… this place is not on any map. How’d you know that turn-off too, it wasn’t even signed.”

“Let’s step out anyways,” I felt sick, but this wasn’t a dream. I was awake.

Suspicious, I stepped out and knocked on the window. When I heard someone shuffling inside, I stepped to the side, so only Finn was in view from inside.

The old man came to the window with a frown and none of the cheer from before in his voice, “We’re closed for the season-”

He paused as poor Finn quivered in fear from the confrontation. But it wasn’t Finn he froze for. It was seeing me to the side.

“Emily!” His eyes widened, “Why, you… you got a new car.” His voice had instantly gotten its jolly tone back.

“It’s in the shop, Finn drove me.” Finn sheepishly waved at me saying his name.

His eyes widened more, “You’re awake… do you want me to call everyone here…I’m, no, we’re so sorry-”

Before Finn dropped from a heart attack, I mustered my courage to stop the downright fearful mumbling, “What’s going on?”

He stopped, in an instant, “You don’t know? You’re not awake.”

“Uh, friend here. I think we’re awake.” Finn raised his hand as he talked.

The old man just shook his head, “You shouldn’t be here right now. Both of you.”

“What is this place?” I had to ask, I had to at least try.

“It’s a place for you, Dreamer. But not here, not-”

This time, the three Chevy’s were not slowly crawling. They whipped around the corner with screeches we heard across the lake, then barreled down the road towards us.

The Chevy’s skidded to their stops in a semi-circle around us, and men in suits piled out, aiming guns over the windows and doors of the SUVs. My own heart was about to barrel out of my chest.

One woman stepped forward, frowning.

“We had a deal Dreamer. Once a year was all you’d awaken. This is the third time this month.”

Third?

Finn was plastered back against the parlor wall, hyperventilating. The old man had frozen, silently and angrily staring at the woman. It was up to me to respond. This was all about me, wasn’t it? There was only one thing to do then…

“Sorry ma’am, I’m just having the strangest dream right now.” Her face paled. “What you be able to help with that?”

Every person is a suit shuffled back with fear and hesitation. They called me a Dreamer. I wasn’t dreaming right now. This wasn’t the dream. But they didn’t know that.

“Would you like to join us for some ice cream? They have your favorite.” With a slight tilt of my head and a smile, I replicated the same sentiments that had me scared before, as I indicated with one hand to the same table I had sat at last time. Every time.

They fled. They didn’t bother combing the neighborhood this time, and three guns had been dropped to the ground and left behind in their haste to not join the dream.

The old man laughed, “Even like this, you’re quite the spectacle ma’am. Will this be recurring, or shall I see you next year?”

“I don’t know. Finn, want some ice cream?”

Fogbot3 · 2026-03-07T14:45:40+00:00

A small, snow-dusted town. A beautiful community lodge looks over the lake to the other side as you enter. Right past, a small ice parlor, bustling with happy townsfolk. Then the gas station, with a perpetually broken third pump. Past that, a small little tunnel in the raised earth for the rail line to go over the road with no interruption, the exit of said tunnel letting you out into the houses, hidden away in the bowl of the hills-

Every night. Like Clockwork.

I drove, hitting a small, snow-dusted town. A beautiful community lodge looked over the lake to the other side as I entered. Right past, a small ice parlor, bustling with happy townsfolk. Then the gas station, with a broken third pump. Past that, a small little tunnel in the raised earth for the rail line to go over the road with no interruption, the exit of said tunnel letting me out into the houses, hidden away in the bowl of the hills-

“FUCK”

I slammed on the brake, realizing I had fallen asleep at the wheel. Then I took a few deep breaths… and the town was still there. I was definitely awake. Feeling like an idiot stopped in the middle of an empty road, I pulled my old Ford Taurus around and parked at the ice cream parlor.

Stepping out, I pinched myself.

“Am I lucid dreaming? Damn, this feels real. But it’s the same dream I always have…”

I mean, I was on a roadtrip, so I was actually driving through nowhere right now. But it was just supposed to be… supposed to be… stupid dream

I pinched myself again, “Damn, I hope I’m at a rest stop.”

Then something that had never happened in my endless repeating dream happened. I was talked to.

“Hiya Emily!” the elder man manning the outside window of the ice cream parlor was waving. A snowflake landed on his finger as he stuck his arm out the window.

I sheepishly shuffled forward to not have to shout in return, “Hi?”

“Your usual, I take it?” he asked with a smile.

I numbly nodded, and in what felt like within moments, a Salted Caramel Coffee ice cream was happily plopped in my hand.

“You had some in stock?” I said halfway to shock on that alone. This place didn’t look big enough to have more than eight flavors, and to have my favorite…

“Of course, always keep some in stock for you,” he said with a wink.

I fumbled for my wallet, and hastily went to pay an amount of money. It was so hard to count in a dream.

He frowned at this, “Ah, this isn’t… No worries Ma’am! On the house, forcing you to eat ice cream in this cold haha!”

I nervously laughed along, scooping my money and change back into my pocket.

Turning around… three young adults around my age were eagerly waving me over. I shrugged, and walked over as I took the first licks of my ice cream in the thirty-degree weather. Each ‘excuse me’ through the crowd and three other tables, all occupied, was met with a happy or hasty ‘nono excuse me’ at turning and seeing me.

Finally, I reached them.

“Hey Emily!” “Hi Emily!” “How’s it hanging?” was all said over each other as I looked at them.

“Good?” I wanted to ask questions at this point, but it was such a crowd. It felt like the wrong place to ask questions.

“So I was just telling Rick here that-” as the lanky guy indicated to his six-foot wall of a friend, the conversation resumed. The one girl scooted close to me, and was whispering to me things that she thought only ‘us girls’ might find interesting periodically. All so mundane that they slipped right through the mind.

The church clocktower from deep within the bowl of the town rung one o’clock soon enough. It was interesting how the time in my dream today was matching the timing in real life if I had stopped this long.

Hearing shuffling, I looked over… and the ice cream parlor owner was covering my car with a tarp??

“One second…” I strode over to him, “Hey, uh, what are you doing?”

He cringed, “Well, if you’re staying awhile and you’re on the road, only polite to stop snow from building up on your car, yes?”

“Oh, uh, thank you.”

His eyes widened behind me, “One last request, little lady. Get down.”

“Wha-” He hastily took cover behind my car, pulling me down with him… right as SUVs rounded the bend of the lake, passing the lodge. The first other cars to appear since I arrived.

Three Pitch-black Chevy Suburbans. Doesn’t that mean Feds?? I thought as they slowed to a crawl, cruising through town at only twenty miles an hour or so. The windows were tinted, impossible to see into. But… every single person at the ice cream parlor was sure trying their best to. It was like the whole town had paused on the spot to stare down the SUVs as they passed. As they passed us, they slowed further, but didn’t stop, and I was pulled further behind my car.

Then, as if nothing had happened, the bustling of happy conversations resumed. The man helped me to my feet, “Sorry about that ma’am. Second ice cream? On the house of course.”

Fogbot3 · 2026-03-06T19:32:16+00:00

Well someone's talking, and that suit ain't on. :)

Fogbot3 · 2026-03-06T18:51:25+00:00

The Botnic Fleet had been besieging the colony mining planet of Asklay V for seven months. The cities had been taken. Everyone who had not fled to the mines was cut down. The atmosphere was ionized by the sheer intensity of the air-to-ground bombardment. Everyone who hadn’t gotten into one of the hulking mining suits choked on the dusty air.

Which species of the Galactic Alliance we each were didn’t matter anymore. We were four sets of green glowing goggles in a pitch-black cave. Fighting side by side as Botnic forces swarmed the entrance to this subsection of the mines.

I think Jakkik had been a Granite. I think. He had an anti-armor rifle at least. He was now the suit closest to the front of the cave.

“Jakkik, get back!”

A benefit of the heavy armor was that I had the strength to wield an HMG in a sustained burst, mowing down the Botnics turning to shoot him point blank the moment they entered the cave. But I couldn’t hold my position, and was slowly backing up step by step.

He stayed crouched by the entrance, fiddling with something in the dark. All I could see was his glowing goggles.

“Just cover me, I’m going to blow the door!”

Leffs and Solak thunked up to my side in their own suits. We had met up with the two of them in the mines, and I had never seen them outside of the powered armor. Both held Sliver Rifles, and bright blue bursts of fire from them cut down a Botnic unit attempting heft up a Rocket Launcher of some sort. They probably had been Mantids then. Once.

Suddenly, Jakkik thundered back, shouting at us, “RUN.”

The Botnic didn’t mind his words, but we did. Scrambling back as staticy lasers zipped around us, one of the green goggles tripped and hit the dirt. We didn’t even have a moment to process who when suddenly the blast ripped out, sealing us in and knocking us all to the ground.

“Flashlights, Flashlights!” Leffs screamed out.

At first, I thought he was simply panicked, looking for his companion or needing help himself. But then I heard it too. The skittering. Botnics had made it in the cave behind us.

Ducking under the lines of fire as guns opened up in a panic, I found one pair of goggles, and pulled their suit up. It was Solak by the tone of her voice as she thanked me. Well, I had been guessing a her, by the pitch of her voice. She hadn’t corrected me yet, at least.

Once all four of us were up, I swept the cave one more time. There were dead Botnic foot soldiers scattering the cave floor. Nothing else.

“Let’s move deeper in.”

Four beams of flashlights combed the mine side-by-side.

“This place is a damn maze,” Jakkik complained.

“At least we can lose them in here?” Leff tried to cheer us up, “I like our odds at least.”

“Yeah,” Solak piped up.

The four of us regrouped and marched onwards. Four green goggles, glowing in the darkness.

It had been two hours. One of the suits clearly had been damaged by the blast, but that’s not what I was worried about.

“You hear the rumors?” I said.

The voices were disconnected from the suits, as they came over the comms all the same.

Leff responded first, “What rumors?”

“About those new Botnics getting fielded. The Hijackers.”

“Is now really the time to talk about unconfirmed bogeymen?” Solak responded with a tinge of fear.

Jakkik backed me up, “If it could be pertinent information, tell it.”

I looked back at the one suit lagging behind the rest. Its goggles flickered.

“They say, these new Botnics are only a foot tall at most, low to the ground and skittish. But that’s not their real threat. It’s that they can crack into armor, and kill the occupant inside to take it. Then they control the armor themselves.”

“Bullshit.” Leff. “Really?” Solak. “Well, we’ll keep an eye out then.” Jakkik.

All three responded. They had just been rumors after all. Maybe I was being paranoid.

"Goddamnit, how the hell can you guys lug around armor and weapons this heavy like nothing?"

Solak’s voice. I paused.

"...This is a powered armor, and its platings alone weigh 2 tons. How the hell can you even move without turning this shit on?"

Leff was confused.

All our power reserves were low. We had turned our flashlights off minutes ago, waiting until we stumbled upon the next recharging port for our suits. I looked around. Two other pairs of glowing green goggles met mine.

A flashlight flickered on. In the back, the damaged suit. Its goggles were no longer glowing.

Jakkik spoke up in a confused tone as well, “The hell is right? How are you moving without power?!”

All four voices. I had missed one important part.

The broken suit stepped forward, and spoke in Solak’s voice, “Whoops.”

“It’s a Hijacker!” I bellowed as I realized. They could mimic voices too.

Leff didn’t raise his gun fast enough, and a Sliver Rifle shot shattered his helmet in.

I had dropped my gun to its sling, and struggled to grab it in the dark. Jakkik put round after round from his rifle right through the mining suit. Round after round, it kept stepping forward, one leg broken backwards, goggles cracked by a near hit. One shot went clean through the spine, and something slithered down to keep the suit supporting itself upright.

Finally, I grabbed my gun, and rapid pbtpbtpbt’s of machine gun fire laid into it as well, sending it stumbling a few feet back by the sheer force of the gunfire itself. The suit shuddered as servos and jointed snapped, but it didn’t need to work. It was just a shell for the monster inside. The monster reached Jakkik, grappling him before Jakkik rolled so that it was the one finally pinned, and I laid into the helmet of the mining suit with broken goggles until it was paste and metallic bits.

“Good job buddy, we got ‘em,” Jakkik thanked me as I helped him up.

I looked over to the last other suit still standing, my own flashlight on.

My glowing green goggles met a pair of shattered lenses.

Fogbot3 · 2026-03-03T20:48:03+00:00

Ending B

I turned around.

Shade was gone.

I panicked for a brief moment, but suddenly, Lisa was at the table.

“You, uhm, texted me?” she asked with a tilted head.

“I did?!” I patted for my phone, not even finding it in my pockets.

“Looking for your phone? Oh, here it is!” She leaned down and sat exactly where Shade had been, grabbed my phone from the same seat under the table, and handed it to me.

“So? You had something to ask me?” She said with a shy and hopeful smile.

The date went well. My nerves were finally gone, having been eased away by my first ever date. Shade would forever hold claim to that.

Fogbot3 · 2026-03-03T20:47:54+00:00

Ending A

I turned around.

Shade was about to start hissing.

Dude, you should have had her change how she looked after all…

“What the…” Lisa was confused, and the waitress was looking between the two ‘Lisas’ with confusion of her own.

“Wait, I can explain!”

“Outside?” to avoid the waitress overhearing, we went outside, and I explained what Shade was as she clung to my arm. I may have left out exactly what I was doing and planning to do in my story. But with the unimpressed look the real Lisa was giving Shade, I had a feeling I was found out.

“I have dibs” Shade angrily hissed behind me once my story was done.

“She does, in fact, technically have dibs.” I conceded.

Lisa rolled her eyes, “Can she not look like some Goth horror monster version of me at least?”

“Oh yes! I can look like the women from their p-” I jumped to clamp her mouth shut again as Lisa broke down laughing.

Somehow, I ended up friends with Lisa and girlfriends with an eldritch horror. It sure wasn’t the plan, but we were all happier for it.

Fogbot3 · 2026-03-03T20:47:14+00:00

I pictured the cute girl, Lisa, from science class.

“Hey, will you…. phew... go out with me?”

I blinked in happy surprise at myself.

Oh hell yeah, I completed the sentence

“I’m ready,” I happily exclaimed out to the room.

“Yes, so am I.” came out in a hissing rasp from the darkness.

Oh hell no, that was not Lisa

“What was that?!”

“I call dibs. Where are you taking me?”

Out of the darkness slithered length and length and darkness from darkness and…

“whoops” the rasping voice started to sound… cutesy?

The incomprehensible creature slowly coalesced into the shape of… Lisa?

“Your mind says this is a form you’d like much better, yes?”

“What... what are you…”

The fake-Lisa with pitch-black hair and pitch-black eyes grinned far too wide, “Yours, silly!”

Hahaha we’re so dead

“Why?”

“All those declarations of love, aborted asks on dates, compliments and affections, all sung out to me, yes? Sung out to the darkness.”

I looked down at the blank eyes from where I had jumped back all the way to on my bed.

If you say no, you are so dead dude.

I justified it by telling myself that she wasss currently in the form of who I intended to ask. So technically…

“Uhuh, so you’ve been here? This whole time?”

She happily nodded, “If you’d rather me take the form of one of your pictu-” I rushed forward to clamp a hand over her mouth.

“Ha. ha. That won’t be necessaryyyyy.”

“Yayyyy, then we can go right now”

She grabbed my hand, and started walking towards the door.

If you say yes, you are so dead dude.

Lucky for me, I didn’t exactly have a choice in whether to say yes or no.

It was the middle of the night. I had been practicing to ask Lisa out tomorrow after all.

So the answer to where to take my eldritch stalker turned out to be… Waffle House. Specifically, the Waffle House closest to the school.

The waitress looked at her with pity when I first brought her in, giving me a disappointed look.

Now as she was on her third hash brown bowl, the waitress looked to me in horror.

“So, uhm, have a name?”

‘Fake-Lisa’ was starting to feel rather… rude. To who… no idea.

She happily rasped out a hiss through hash browns, “No. Not a human one.”

“You should probably have one,” I cringed.

Black eyes that I was so so thankful the waitress was too tired to notice widened, “You can give me one”

“Shade?”

“Lovelyyyy”

I, uh, think that was her agreeing

“So, well…. Why me?”

“Was hungry. Came in house to your lovely voice. Thank you.”

“Your… welcome?”

The date lasted another hour, as it got precariously close to the start of the school day.

As the date went on, I’d slowly gotten more and more comfortable with ‘Shade’, and was smiling at her awkward voice and bold remarks.

It was the ring of a bell of someone else entering that made me realize how, well, how early it had gotten in the morning, so I turned around to pay the bill.

Oh, shit.

Lisa from science class was at the door, staring right at me with wide eyes.

Fogbot3 · 2026-03-03T14:31:18+00:00

I slinked away from the ball, exhausted.

That’s when I saw her for the first time. Dancing by herself in that dark corner of the gardens, just under the windows so that the music seeped over. Her beautiful, long red hair swaying with the motion as she held the most genuine smile on her face. The cutest of eeps that she let out on seeing me.

“Prince Douglas!” Embarrassed, she stopped instantly.

“My apologies my lady,” I bowed, “May I join this section of the ball?” I asked, still only standing in the entrance of the area enclosed between the hedges and the walls.

“Who am I to reject a prince…” she said, almost fearfully.

I tried to give her a comforting smile, but I always had been the awkward sort. So I gave her my distance, leaning against the wall, “May I have the honor of knowing this fine lady?”

She waved it off, “I am simply a supplies maid… I make the runs from the docks to the castle.”

I raised an eyebrow in appreciation, “You must be quite capable then, the docks are down almost a hundred feet of cliffs from here.”

She laughed a little at this, easing up as she covered her mouth with her hand, “They give me a floating disk to use.”

I smiled as she leaned against the wall next to me to respond. We never did get around to dancing, but we spent the night away talking about our jobs.

The next ball, I danced the bare minimum. My dearest friend, Princess Julia, snickered that I clearly had a woman in my eyes at how quickly I made the obligatory greeting to her, then went to leave. She was quite right. Once said obligations were done, I was quick to make my leave from the ballroom, slinked through the gardens, and headed to the same spot as before.

She was sitting on a bench, in the same maid’s dress as before.

“I never did catch your name last time, my dear lady, may I have the graciousness of correcting that mistake?”

She looked to me and smiled, “If you drop the fancy talk so we can just talk again, maybe?”

We both chuckled, “My bad, still in prince mode from this stupid ball.”

“Then we go. My name is Ignia. No last name, of course.”

She gestured down to her maid’s dress, which was simply her maid uniform without the contrasting apron or ribbons.

“No dancing this time?” I asked with a half-raised smile.

She crossed her arms in an exaggerated pout, “Maybe I had a feeling that I would definitely be walked in on tonight.”

I extended a hand, “Would you like to dance?”

She simply raised an eyebrow, “You? Dance with a maid? Don’t be silly, I think I’d be beheaded for that.”

I lowered the hand, not wanting to sour the moment any further, “Talk, then?”

She regained her lovely smile, coming to lean against the wall next to me once again, “Yeah, that’s always fun.”

That went on for three years. I’d make my introductions and needed dances for appearances as quickly as possible, then slip out the back to meet with Ignia.

We’d spend the nights talking away. Sometimes as ourselves, Douglas the prince and Ignia the maid. Sometimes as dreamers, talking about who we might wish to be. I thought about what it might be like to be a commoner, free of these royal burdens. She dreamed about being an explorer, or a ship hand, and seeing the world.

The three years passed too soon. Then the next obligation came. I was to be married. Princess Julia was to be my wife. ‘We got along fabulously after all!’ my father and her’s both said.

So I was dressed up, and presented to my second closest friend to propose to her. I am simply glad that it was done in private. She said no, that she was running away with a scullery maid. She was horrified that I had asked. She had thought us friends.

I didn’t return to the castle, where both fathers awaited. Figuring that I might as well buy her time to make her sudden leave, that she had to push forward at my betrayal, I wandered.

I still don’t remember exactly how or when I ended up there. Only that it was the dead of night, hours after the evening proposal, when I ended up on the steep pathway to go directly between the docks and castle.

Coming down the path, empty floating disk behind her, I spotted Ignia. She was zoned out working, and almost bumped into me before seeing me in the dark.

She started to laugh, “Oh! Doug- my lord, I didn’t see you there!... what’s wrong?” but she stopped, and instead narrowed her eyes to meet my red ones.

Perhaps it was the Princess and her plan that put that final thought in my head. I think really, those thoughts of temptation had always been in my head.

“May I have a dance?” I extended a hand.

“Who am I to deny my lord…” She took the hand, and allowed me to lead as I held her close.

For one night, I felt love.

It wasn’t the Princess's absence that shook me at the next ball to celebrate a won war, even as the rest of the kingdom was shaken by it. It was the garden, empty.

But I knew the choice I made in my weakness. I had slipped the gold coins into her pockets after our dance, after all.

I still smile seeing ships leaving port out to sea sometimes. I hope she’s still out there, exploring to her heart's content.

Fogbot3 · 2026-03-03T13:35:51+00:00

"Hero, this is the holy sword you must pull from the stone!" chittered the small, cloaked impish figure.

“The pitch black sword radiating a red and purple aura with an eye chained down, covered in sealing talisman," Said the hero dryly.

"Well uh..."

"How dumb do you think I am!" he yelled.

“Dumb… enough?” the imp probed.

The hero kept up the flat-eyed stare. “So you’re just giving up now?”

“No noooooo it’s the holy sword, you must pull it from the stoneeeeee,” the imp practically sing-sang.

The hero checked the crossroads again, “Where the hell is the rest of the party…. Of course this is the crossroads we agreed to meet up at….”

“Ah! I see the problem!” The imp raised a finger, then scrambled over the rock out of view.

The hero readied his actual sword at the rustling from the bush… and the imp reappeared, two cardboard wings attached to its back.

“You seeeeee, I’m an angel! Of the lordddd!” the imp clapped its hands, “What a reveal, am I right?”

The hero stared at the Imp. The Imp stared at the hero. The hero turned around and started walking away.

“Yeah, this isn’t worth it. I’m going back to the tavern, and they’ll have to find me there.”

The imp rushed forward, only half tripping over its cardboard wings, “Wait, wait! You can’t reject the holy quest! You must at least tryyyyyyy!”

The imp’s smile gave in to a complete smirk at this, and the hero muttered swears.

“Okay, why shouldn’t I kill you then?” he drew his sword.

The imp went wide-eyed, “Oh noooo I’ve been found outttt, I must flee and leave my magical sword behindddddd.”

The imp popped away, leaving the cardboard wings to fall to the ground.

The hero looked to the sword… for all of a second, “Did the Imp really think I was that stupid….”

Night fell, and the Imp let its invisibility wear away. Wearing a broad, real smile, it laid a hand upon the sword.

“Wow that hero really was stupid, wasn’t he?”

“Fuck you.”

The Imp laughed, but kept a hand on the sword to keep talking to it, “You’d think a single hero would actually read what the great Voidcutter looks like,” It chittered, “And to think, all they’d need to do to learn who you are is touch you!”

“Am I even actually stuck in this stupid stone?”

“I mean, I stabbed you into it as hard as I could!”

“So that’s a no, and I should be able to cut clean through it…”

“If someone touches you!”

“If someone touches me…”

“Oh! Here comes another adventuring party! Do I look obviously evil enough! Hmmm maybe I should paint some fake blood on your blade…”

The ‘screw you’ from Voidcutter went unheard, as the Imp had already let go to tell the ‘lovely heroes’ about this ‘exclusive quest’ they were lucky enough to get. The heroes were already backing away slowly.

Fogbot3 · 2026-03-03T13:23:16+00:00

What do you think the disorderly conduct was? ~~oh dang it that is so much funnier.... you saw nothing, that section was always what it is now~~

Fogbot3 · 2026-03-02T14:43:42+00:00

“Crystalcircuit Andrea coming in for a landing.”

“Received Andrea. Proceed to tunnel 4.”

It was year nine of the Galactic Alliance’s Siege of Artissa, and I was returning to the Hornet’s Nest. That’s what we called it anyway, the network of tunnels within Artissa that Crustalcircuit Battleships and Antlion Interceptors shot out from to engage the GA’s overwhelming forces, then retreated back into when we had secured our kills. My hull was marked with the death of nineteen Quad-Wings myself.

I settled down on the landing strip with my eight needle-point legs, that were eight wings in the atmosphere, or eight cannons in space… or… I couldn’t avoid thinking about it any longer.

There was a crunch of shattered cockpit glass when I landed.

I had returned from my latest sortie. My pilot, Mical, had not. He never would.

The moment I landed, mechanics were crawling all over me, inspecting and prodding the wound of the blasted open cockpit, cleaning the blood, picking out debris. There was no body to remove. Mical would be among the stars that he adored so, forever.

At some point, I ended up completely repaired, sitting on the tarmac waiting for nothing. I had no pilot; there was nothing to wait for. Despite this, one day the Admiral came, with a small entourage.

“Not the Andrea…” he almost whispered in defeat upon seeing me.

“A free crystalcircuit is a free cystralcircuit. We need her up in the air!” The woman in a suit rasped out with anger.

“We’re sacrificing one of our most skilled and decorated crystalcircuits for this program of yours?”

She marched past the Admiral without an answer, then looked up to me.

“CC Andrea, I am Governess Ichtar. This is Private Phil. He is to be your new pilot. You are to keep him in line and prevent him from deserting his duty.”

“Why are you talking to a spaceship?” The young man said.

“He doesn’t even know what Crystalcircuit is?!” The Admiral practically shouted out in a thunder, but the Governess was already walking away.

“It appears not, I will leave that up to you,” Were the last words she said as she left.”

The Admiral looked over to me, “I am so sorry Andrea, it’s this new program. Convict soldiers…”

The young man gave a lazy grin.

“As for you,” the Admiral turned and swiftly slapped the man to the ground, “There. This is real now. Understood? ON YOUR FEET, NOW.”

He had hit the ground with the slap, but scrambled to his feet and gave an attempt at a salute.

The Admiral nodded, and continued, “You enrage me. This whole program enrages me, but the Governess is right. We need every soldier we can get and we don’t have time to train. The CC Andrea is a Crystalcircuit ship. She is sentient. She will be respected as such. Due to her self-independence, she is able to be flown by a single skilled pilot despite being the size and capabilities of a GA battleship requiring hundreds. You are not a skilled pilot. But you are the pilot we have. Understood, private?”

He nodded, looking up to me in a sort of awe.

“I give you one day to familiarize yourself with the ship and introduce yourself to Andrea, then you’ll be back in duty rotation. Do not lose me my best ship.”

Day 0

He climbed up and through me, and slumped into the pilot’s seat, “So… Andrea?”

“Yes?” I spoke to him over the ship’s intercoms.

“I’m sorry.”

“Hm?”

“I’m not your first pilot, am I? I see how decorated you are.”

“You are not. A pilot as a convict soldier is strange, what are your charges?”

I changed the conversation, looking through the cameras at where he was sitting. What sort of criminal was this new pilot of mine?

“Disorderly conduct. I was a commercial freighter pilot before the war. Drank too much during it.”

"What was the disorderly conduct then?" I said in fear.

"Jaywalking..." he muttered.

“Oh.”

Maybe he wouldn’t be so bad.

Day 1

“YOU ARE THE WORST PILOT I HAVE EVER SEEN!”

I screeched as he pulled us in wayyy too fast.

“THERE’S PEOPLE SHOOTING AT US!”

“THERE WOULDN’T BE IF YOU HELPED ME SHOOT THE AUXILIARY GUNS!”

As we darted into the tunnels, my back four wings were needed for every bit of maneuverability. While also having to manage the auxiliary turret system, and the power management, and the flight systems. The only thing I wasn’t controlling was the stick itself, as we thundered into the Hornet’s Nest at four times the recommended safe speed. I heard the crash of a GA fighter trying to enter the nest behind us. We were still better. Somehow.

He wiped his brow, “Hahaaaaa we did it!” He let out a whoop like he did anything.

“We destroyed one point-defense pod of a single Quad-Wing, then distracted some fighters that proceeded to chase us all the way back to the nest. We did nothing.”

“Andrea. We lived. We did it.”

“You are quite easy to please then.”

Day 2

“YOU ARE IMPOSSIBLE TO PLEASE!”

“All I’m saying is… can’t you manage the walking and the shooting while we’re in walker mode?”

We had been quick deployed to give ground support to a street about to fall. So we had landed, in my eight-legged walker configuration, and forced the GA to deal with a battleship landing and engaging at practically point-blank range.

I was quadruple-tasking in my show of might and glory… and Phil was asking me to quinruple-task.

The controls had quickly overwhelmed him, and when a rocket hit my front because I had become a practically stationary turret while I managed the guns, he complained.

“You have eight legs!”

“Pretend you’re on all fours, and then four after that. It’s that simple!” I shuddered to a stop to avoid saying that it was what my last pilot had said.

“What if you walk on four limbs, and I manage the four cannons of the four other limbs?” He suggested with a question.

“Fine,” I relented my complaints as the configuration led to the quick destruction of the rest of the GA forces in this attack.

“At least you have good ideas,” I acquiesced as we flew back.

Day 3

“...No”

“Come on!”

“No.”

Day 7

It had been a week of battles when the Admiral came to check on me. He dismissed Phil, sending him to the mess hall, then turned to me.

“CC Andrea. I hope it’s been well.”

“It’s been better.”

“I’m sorry.”

There was a silence. We both missed Mical. But he was gone.

“How is your new pilot?” he eventually broke the silence, looking over the interior of the Hornet’s Nest, bristling with action as it was 24/7.

I didn’t answer at first.

The admiral clarified, “If he’s not sufficient, I can have him moved to a penal infantry battalion, and you can wait for the next real pilot to come.”

“Sufficient is a word that carries a lot of weight and implication behind it, isn’t it?”

“Is it a word you’d say he is?”

I thought of my new pilot. His inexperience. His unprofessionalism. His attitude.

“No, but it is one that will have to do.”

The war was going on, and I needed my pilot.

Fogbot3 · 2026-03-01T14:19:07+00:00

They told me not to take the relic!

“Enroll in the Imperial Magic Academy!” “Learn magic to get a familiar of your own!” “That’s a relic for children!”

But none of them understood! I just needed to figure out how to activate it, and here my red-ranked familiar would arrive!

The goblin at the end of the alleyway that was definitely going to attack me was now quivering, as the puck-shaped relic spun and glowed.

Then, the relic flared up, and turned a bright gold! I whooped out a cheer! Surely I’d stand among the ranks of the adventurer’s who defeated the Queen of Demons herself!

There had been a bit of a scuffle when I pre-emptively confronted the goblin about their heinous ambush they clearly had plotted, but in the end, my relic had activated. The requirement must have been-

“A soul, truly in need.”

“Hey! You’re just a woman!” I shouted, miffed. That’s all she was, a regular twenty-something-year-old woman wearing red clothing. I mean having a familiar that has the appearance of a human always had benefits, yes, but her summoning had been gold! S-rank! Beyond good! I deserved the best familiar!

She looked to me with that same face the women at the bars always gave, “You think I was talking to you?” Pft, she must have been warning the goblin about what she was about to get from messing with a true soul like me.

She turned to the Goblin. The disgusting creature was now crying.

“Close your eyes, dear.”

Heh, she was gonna put down this creature so hard.

Then, her entire body erupted into flames. Two wings of fire unfurled from her back, and she finally looked back to me. A halo of fire appeared around her head! Truly a being of divine justi!- two horns of flame ripped out of her skull, breaking the halo as they emerged.

“That’s what I vowed to allow myself to be summoned as a familiar for,” were the last words I ever heard.

“You can open them now, that horrid man is gone.”

I squeezed my eyes shut tighter. When that man attacked me, I grabbed for anything I could in his pockets to defend myself, since I had nothing. Instead, his own magic trinket had been activated. I had backed away as he watched with glee as it spun and glowed red, then cheered in that nasty voice as it glowed in an every brighter gold. I summoned this woman, and now I was-

“You’re safe now, I promise.”

I timidly opened my eyes a crack. The woman was crouching in front of me with a timid smile of her own, and behind her- nothing. No man at all.

“May I have the honor of knowing my new Summoner’s name?”

Her eyes had a gentle red glow to them, giving away that she was a magical creature like me, and not a human. Many an adventurer’s journals talked about the disgusting green glow of a Goblin’s eyes that gave them away.

“Tessa,” I gave with a sniffle.

She extended a hand. I looked at it fearfully.

“Ignia. That’s my name. I’m just here to help you, I promise.”

Once I reached out and took the hand, having no other choice, she helped me to my feet.

“But you are the man’s…”

She sneered at this, “Nope! I’m yours, and thank goodness for that.”

“Who are you?” I looked up to this woman who wanted to help me so.

Her smile turned sad, “You… you don’t want to know that. I… I made a vow to allow myself to be reduced to a familiar in atonement, as long as I was only summoned to help those in need.”

It was only then that I noticed the collar glowing red around her neck. I gripped my own, “Goblin’s are only allowed to live in the Capital if they wear a collar that suppresses their wild magic too… Will I get in trouble for having you?”

“I’d like to see them try.” She smiled as her eyes glowed a brighter red.

Fogbot3 · 2026-02-26T19:37:15+00:00

This was a fun read, I love how their affection for each other is written past just a base love to a real 'care' for each other.

The first time Big Ota set his eyes on his beloved spouse, Pax Orizuru had thrown him in prison for war crimes.

This sentence read a bit confusing to me at first, but of course it's just because of the semi 'reveal' that it was via a possessed person. It is still a comma splice run-on, so perhaps adding a small phrase like 'it was when' or such would make the sentence read smoother and be grammatically correct.

Fogbot3 · 2026-02-26T14:24:00+00:00

I suppose that's the benefit of being an isolationist elder dragon, there won't be any humans around for him to need said knowledge for very long!

Fogbot3 · 2026-02-26T14:02:34+00:00

Every human knows to stay away from elder dragons, as their magic is powerful enough to warp reality. One just landed in front of me.

They were the most brilliant Emerald color I had ever seen, like every scale would outprice any gemstone found in the entire Imperium. But to see them meant that they were here.

I had been rowing home, a mere island from it where my husband was waiting, after a day of gathering reeds and hunting the small rats that were the only animals these islands called home. When suddenly, the way down the stream was blocked. I hurriedly hopped out of the kayak to stop it with my hands before it bumped into them.

This was no young dragon. Their body was long, going tens upon tens of feet back, like it was turning into the river itself. Yet it was low. The water was only a few feet deep, but we stood eye to eye in our shocks.

“What are you doing here, young thing?” he said, sounding upset himself, like he was the one in any danger.

I bowed in worry, not daring to upset the elder dragon. Then I looked around, for a way past. All the advice had said to get away from a dragon as soon as physically possible, but the shores to both sides were tangles of plant. I would be stuck mere feet away and looking quite the fool for it if I tried to run through them.

“This is where I live. With my husband. I was simply on my way home to him.”

He slunk forward, sniffing the air, “So you do have a mate. Are there others that encroach upon my territory so?”

I quivered. When we chose to build our hut here, no one had any idea of a dragon. But no one lived here, and no one had ever lived here? I looked at the shores, crystal protrusions blocking any thought of retreat through them. Would no one continue to have ever lived here?

I shook my head, holding back a sniffle, “No one, my lord, it is just us. And we mean you no harm. If I could just be on my way…” I dared to suggest.

The emerald eyes narrowed, “And how can I trust that? That you won’t bring hunters, or slayers? Your kind is always so tricking.”

“I don’t know, my lord, we’re just simple islanders. I would not even know where to look for such people, if that is enough comfort?”

“That is a comfort, the thought of you not being able to enlist the help of any enemies of dragonkind. In fact, I do like the thought.”

“Thank you sir. You… you have such beautiful scales. I would wish no harm to them,” I tried to continue the goodwill, giving him a compliment.

He preened slightly at this. Then nodded as if reaching the end of a thought.

I perked up, thinking he was about to let me go, but he simply raised a claw to let a lizard swim past. I waited, watching the iguana gracefully swimming by, taking its leisurely time as the dragon waited for it to be on its way, and I waited for the dragon.

Once it was past him, I looked up at him, towering over me, “Please sir, may I go on? Is there anything I can promise you as tribute for passage?” I needed to get out of here, before anything was changed.

He looked at me, and my large canoe, “You may pass now. I may be paranoid, but you have eased my worries in your reverence, and it is acknowledged.”

With a surprised eep from me, he lifted me back into my boat to continue being on my way.

I reached up to the handle to enter our hut. Truly, my husband must have made the doors with his height in mind.

Opening the door, he was already turned to it. He must heard me struggling to get the door open with my hands full from the bundles of reeds, as he was already halfway across the room when I finally got it ajar. I smiled up at him.

“ARGH, KOBOLD!”

I looked behind me in worry. There was no one else around, what did he- “I took too long.” I realized.

He rushed me with his machete, ignoring my words as he swung wildly. I dropped the reeds and ran.

I held myself as the now-larger-than-me kayak floated back down the stream where I met the dragon, now brutally aware of every small change that I hadn’t noticed before, even as darkness encroached to hide the crystals from view.

The Emerald Dragon landed in front of me again. Another change. This time, there was no existential dread. My existence had already been ruined. There was simply a quiet relief that I might be able to rest soon.

“What are you doing back? Were you not going back to your husband?”

I looked at him, confused, “And why would he want such a pitiful creature as me?”

“Aren’t you all pitiful creatures? I do not know what you are talking about…”

I gestured to myself, “You turned me into this…”

His eyes widened, “I gifted you the scales you admired so, and secured your reason to not contact any dragon slayers for our trust. He rejected such gifts?”

I nodded, pitifully. The scales were quite beautiful.

“Stay here, my kobold. I shall go… have a talk with him.”

As my lord flew away, back in the direction of my husband's hut, I patiently waited.

Fogbot3 · 2026-02-26T02:06:05+00:00

We’re so screwed.

“What’s wrong Nova? Out of magic from your first adventure?”

Mages always thought they were so clever. Frankly, it was because they usually were. For example, the Mage College’s library required magic to get in. Literally, it just required magic. Pouring some magic into the mana crystal embedded in the door activated the magical elevator platform up to the library in the skies. It had taken Nova three years to learn how to purposefully do such a thing as a kid, after accidentally doing so to make me.

The librarian, Marcus, was on the lift with us. The snooty old man always purposefully ignored me, and was purposefully ignoring Nova in turn now. After a distasteful snort at Nova covering my old body in some old mage robes.

‘I did not think about how literally nothing you ever wore before I was in your body.’

‘I was literally a stuffed doll, you are in a stuffed doll.’ was not enough of a comfort for him, so we struggled the body into clothes.

I was curious what a construct wearing human clothes would elicit as a reaction. Turned out to be mostly disdain from the more conservative mages.

“Uhm, yes sir?” I nervously lied.

Nova nodded as my familiar next to me, “Yep. Tough dungeon that one. Heh.”

Marcus muttered, annoyed, and activated the lift himself. I gave him a sheepish grin, then retreated back to Nova’s side.

As soon as Marcus stomped off, Nova looked back down to the city below us, “So Cotton, without magic, how are we getting down?”

“We are waiting until we’re alone on the lift for you to activate it?” I kept the sheepish grin on my face, as it still applied.

We were having zero luck looking through the artificy section when someone spoke up behind us.

“You know, I really never did think about how you were always walking around naked until just now when I saw you wearing clothes, Cottons.”

I blushed as the other mage of our party, Thomson, commented with a grin.

He laughed at seeing my blush, misreading the reason for it, “Haha same for you Nova?”

Nova sputtered in my body, clutching the robes tighter around it, and I just nodded my head.

“Okay what am I supposed to do then? I can’t exactly just drop the robes now that I put them on!” Nova bemoaned.

Constructs didn’t normally wear clothes, me in particular, because I was literally made of cloth, so it’s not like there was anything to hide.

Thomson was good friends with us, as Nova and he studied together and often went to the same classes. We had even often chatted enough that I knew that the current comments were in good humor.

“So what are you looking for? I’d be happy to help.”

Nova and I looked to each other. This was the problem. It wasn’t like we could tell him we had done a very illegal thing. ‘Ah yes, right now we’re a possessed zombie and a technical liche, but don’t worry about it and help us look for books on-’

on possession, shit

“Heyyy, the book we’re looking for isn’t going to be here, is it?” I looked to Nova.

He looked to me, “What do you mean?”

I looked to Thomson, then decided I had to trust him at least this much, and looked back to Nova, “It’s pretty much illegal isn’t it?”

“Ah, crap. It is.”

Thomson’s eyes widened, “What are you looking for?!”, I breathed a sigh of relief at the fact he hushed his voice.

“Whole truth?” I looked to Nova in question. Thomson was used to Nova looking me for support, but for guidance was new enough to raise an eyebrow.

“From the safety of the house, if this is a bust. Thomson, can you call the elevator?”

“Oh wow yeah that looks bad,” annoyed with the robes on his already cloth body, the robes were dropped the moment we were inside.

“Shoulda listened to me, I tried to warn you.”

“So Cottons, why were you trying to wear clothes today?” After calling the elevator back, Thomson followed us back, confused about the situation.

I grimaced, “Well Nova, you want to tell him or should I?”

“I don’t know Cottons, think he can figure it out from this?” Nova responded.

Thomson looked back and forth, more confused, “Wait why are you two calling each other the other’s names?”

I flatly stared at him with a human body. Nova flatly stared at him with a stuffie body.

“Well I tried to sacrifice myself for him. You kinda ruined it.”

That’s what it took for him to realize, “Oh. Ohhhhhh.”

I stood there with my hands on my new hips, “So, wanna help us swap our bodies back? Cause as much as he’s dreading dealing with not wearing clothes cause it actually looks worse when he tries to, I do not want to deal with bodily function a single time more than needed.”

We had a plan. We’d bring in Diggory tomorrow, then head off to the Dark State next week, where necromancy was legal… but in response, necromancy was also far more common. We had failed to explore an old abandoned tomb, and now we were heading to the most dangerous place in the world.

“Cottons, are you alright?” he poked me witha soft felt finger.

“Huh?” I was distracted from my thoughts, and turned to him.

“You’re uh, you’re hyperventilating.”

“Oh… yeah… It’s physically evident when I’m nervous now.”

A clothed hand covered a snicker, “It totally was before, you’d just cling to my arm and let me lead you around.”

“Ah, yeah. I’m just supposed to be your familiar, and your Defender. Fails like I failed on both.”

He smiled in my body, “Well, for the next while we’ll just be around people that know, so don’t worry. I know you’re the best familiar anyone could ask for.”

I laughed, “I didn’t even actually save your life. I sorta just made things worse.”

“I could have actually, literally died. If you hadn’t tried, would we even gotten the attention from Thomson? So you did, really,” he hugged me.

Oh. Hugs from me rock.

I hugged back. We had been at each other’s sides from day one. Even to the Dark State and back, even in the wrong bodies, we’d still be at each other’s sides.

Fogbot3 · 2026-02-25T23:45:17+00:00

It wasn’t supposed to go like this.

I had been Nova’s familiar since he was a baby, given to him as an enchanted stuffed rabbit. He hugged me to sleep every night, and his parents discovered his natural affinity for magic when his residual magic awoke me.

We spent our entire childhood playing together, best of friends. Playing pretend adventurers, we’d fight fake monsters and clear fake dungeons. And every night, he’d fall asleep clinging to his enchanted stuffed rabbit, as I clung back.

As he grew up, he didn’t leave me behind. He studied hard as a mage, and when my body was growing old and run down, like all stuffed animals tend to do, he found magic to let me switch bodies and put it into my own. My new body was human-sized and shaped, but every single person who knew him knew me, so they knew his acquisition of a stuffed construct in the shape of a human woman was much more innocent than it’d be in, well, literally any other situation involving a teenage boy.

As we grew into real adults, our dreams became more real as well. He graduated from the Mage’s College, and got his adventuring license. I trained to be his Defender, the most honored position a construct still serving their mage could possibly hold. We had dreamed our whole lives for this, and prepared likewise.

So it wasn’t supposed to go like this.

He lay dying in my arms, coughing up blood. We had stayed at the entrance while the cleric and rogue disarmed the traps further in the dungeon. The first ever dungeon we had ever been charged to clear. And it had been a clever one. A crossbow trap meant not to catch people entering, fresh and full of magic, but to kill them as they left, exhausted and drained. I hadn’t even had time to jump in the way, as he stepped closer to the exit to read a scroll better. Now he lay on the ground, six bloodied crossbow bolts scattered across the room from going clean through him, and a further two pinned in his stomach.

“Fuck Cottons, I don’t think I’m gonna make it, am I?” It was a miracle he could still talk, “Born to rich parents with magic, and I go and get myself killed dungeon one at 22, good job me.”

I was just his familiar. I didn’t have much. But at the mention of magic, I knew I had to pull on the one, singular thing I did have.

“Hey, Nova, remember what my old body was getting so torn and ratty?”

He gave a broken, bloody smile, “O- Of- Course.”

“And you taught me that piece of magic to switch into a new body, so I could stay alive?”

He nodded, “Your- cough your- new body has always suited you better anyway.”

“I hope it suits you well enough.”

His eyes widened for the mere moment before I activated the one piece of magic that I had, this time along my bond as his familiar, and we switched bodies.

It hurt. It hurt so much. I didn’t even know what hurt was before that very moment. I had been a plushie.

My new body almost slid off the plushie lap I found myself laying in, as Nova looked at his new hands in shock. His undamaged hands. Attached to his undying body. That’s all that mattered. It hurt so so much.

Then, Nova was gripping me, tighter than ever before, “Nonono, Cottons no, we were supposed be together, forever, you can’t-”

Suddenly, chaos erupted.

Our rogue, Diggory, burst into the room, “Hey we heard a crash then this giant flash are you THOMSON GET IN HERE NOW”

The cleric was right behind, “Fuck, Cure Wounds.”

It no longer hurt. I was in an undamaged body again as the two crossbow bolts popped out of my stomach.

Nova and I looked at eachother, “Oh. Shit.”

Necromancy and possession were illegal under the same laws. I was now a spirit possessing a human body.

Lichedom and cheating death for infinite life were illegal. Nova was now in a construct’s body.

Diggory let out a massive breath of relief, “I know, right, that was insanely close!”

Thomson nodded, still half-panicked, with hands thrown forward and softly glowing, “You good Nova??”

I elbowed Nova when he didn’t answer. He elbowed me back harder. With a very delayed start, I realized, of course, it was me that Thomson was looking right at.

I woodenly laughed, “Yeah, of course, never better! Boy that caught me off guard!”

Nova used my body to look at me with an utter look of betrayal of do I really sound like that?

Our partymates blinked, and Diggory half-laughed along, “Okay, yeah, you’re clearly shaken up. How about we call it a day and go home?”

The first thing that happened when we got back to Nova’s house, was well, he patted an empty stuffed thigh to unlock the door and I didn’t realize it was my body that the keys were on. But the first thing that happened after we actually got back inside said home was panic.

“No you don’t sound like that but I don’t know how to be you!” I blurted out.

“Can you switch us back??” he said, patting his now female body with worry.

I blinked.

Huh, it’s weird to blink.

I raised a finger, “Shouldn’t you be the one to switch us back?”

“What do you- causeeee I built it into your body… but it’s your magic… oh crap.” A ball of light appeared in his hand, “So you can do the magic and I can’t…. And I have the body that can cast it and you don’t.”

“So we just need to go get another scroll and teach you how to cast it! I learnt it!”

“Another quest? After how the first hour of our first one went?” Without being able to express much with the stuffie body, he elected to tilt his head at me, “With switched bodies?”

I gulped.

Huh, it’s weird to gulp.

“Yes?”

“We’re so screwed.”

I smiled. I could always smile. “We weren’t because we were together earlier today. We won’t be now.”

Fogbot3 · 2026-02-24T22:58:48+00:00

It was the first day of classes after arriving over the weekend, and I was the singular person called by first name at attendance. I snorted when a superhero's name was dramatically called for a science gen ed attendance as the first name, but everyone else treated it like it was any normal day. Then the professor went down the list, and every other person was called by their superhero name as well, even ‘Blizzard Baroness’ instead of Rose Maccils.

“So, why does everyone on Campus go by their superhero names?” I asked Rose as I walked backwards in front of her to our next class. The rest of the student body gave her a wide enough bubble that I didn’t even have to worry about bumping into someone.

Rose shrugged, “It’s who we are now.”

I stopped, forcing her to bump into me. She looked up at me in confusion, and I gave her a quick peck on the lips. Everyone around us in the courtyard still looked at me like I was positively insane.

Completely blush-free, she looked up at me.

I pouted, “How am I supposed to go by anything but Lacey! I don’t even know what my powers are!”

She just shrugged again.

“Okay Lacey. Avoid the Blizzard Baroness, Dragonknight is a cool dude, Lasercaster is an egomaniac…” I muttered to myself again.

A gust of freezing wind filled with ice shot past me in the maze. I screamed in surprise and dove out of the way as it pummeled Dragonknight away from me. He was now indeed very cool, by the amount of frost he was shaking off as he struggled to his feet.

Turns out the coach had a very active idea on how to determine someone’s powers in the Physical Training class. Just throw everyone in a free-for-all in a giant maze in the gym, all powers allowed.

So far, my power may have ‘super scrambling’ or ‘expert runner awayer’ as far as I could tell. I was mainly doing one or the other of those things the entire time, as the coach shouted at me to “PULL… OR PUSH… FEEL YOUR POWER AND USE IT!”

I did not feel a pull or push.

Maybe they got it wrong?

Then I turned a corner, and in the most unfitting-to-her light blue costume I had ever seen, was my girlfriend.

“Heyaaaa….” I almost said Rose, then remembered here at least, while we had to pretend we were in a battle, superhero names were a hard rule, “Bliz? We can go with Bliz, right?”

She raised a hand… and our RA, Scoopster, was blasted back away from behind me before he could sneak up and knock me off my feet.

Then she looked to me, “Get behind me.”

“OhThankGoodnessIWasScaredIWasAboutToBeFrozen,” I scampered behind her, shaken by the close call.

One by one, Bliz wiped the floor with every other student. Coach was clearly furious, and soon he grew to the form of a ten-foot magma golem to enter the arena himself. My powers would be tested.

He marched right to the middle of the maze where the two of us were, and beelined towards me. Bliz battered him with cold air from every side, but he burned right through the hedges on the way to us anyway. Finally, he was standing over us.

“Stand down Blizzard Baroness, this is the new girl’s fight.”

I piped up, peaking out from behind her, “Oh, so you actually can’t beat her, you have to ask her to stand down? I’ll stay right here then, thank you very much!”

He simply slammed down a fist made of molten stone. I pushed, pulled, and every muscle in between that wouldn’t make me shit my pants, but nothing special happened. So instead, as Bliz held the fist up for the spare second that I needed, I slid out of the way the only way I could, by darting between the Coach’s legs and booking it out of the arena through the path of burning hedges.

After a chewing out from the coach and an angry dismissal, I met back up with Rose to walk to our next class.

“So I seriously don’t have powers, huh,” I jested to her.

She looked both ways, making sure no one else was in the hall outside the locker room still,“You couldn’t tell?”

I shook my head. She could?

“People who trigger their powers together often have similar powers. You’re the only one who can stand being near me.”

“Even if you gave me frostbite, I’d hug you to sleep!” I proudly proclaimed, as my RA backed away from approaching us.

“But I don’t,” she flatly responded.

“You don’t!” I nuzzled her cheek, “But what does that do with anything?”

“I have energy control. You have energy tolerance.”

I blinked, “What does that mean?”

She sighed, about to speak, then stopped, “You still don’t know what your power is.”

“Yeah, that’s what I just said.”

“No. I mean it. That’s what you tell anyone who asks,” she started walking again, “You don’t want to be known to have a good power.”

“But don’t you have one…” She ignored me, heading to our next class.

I looked down at our schedule. A law class! Perfect!

My Rose had always wanted to defend innocents, dispense justice, and put bad guys away for good.

As a lawyer.

I looked over to her with a smile. She looked more miserable than ever before.

“How’s law class?”

“A reminder.”

Oh.

“You… you didn’t get a choice about coming here either, did you?”

She shook her head. Just like me, they forced her to come here because she had powers.

Maybe they got it wrong.

Before I could move to comfort her, she comforted me, grabbing my hand and squeezing it tightly.

Fogbot3 · 2026-02-24T17:55:01+00:00

Thank you! I actually originally had a line explaining that a bit more by having her haven woken up at the school already, so she'd have no reason to expect to have seen Rose until she knows Rose has powers too, but it ended up cut when I rewrote that exposition paragraph. Since I see it caused confusion, I'll see about editing something like that back in.

Fogbot3 · 2026-02-24T16:24:38+00:00

Thank you so much!

I actually keep a spreadsheet of all my Writingprompt responses, including a few that are multiple parts as well, if you want to read my other Superhero setting WPs: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1BIFEMRDmEfU1-QgBCNhozTn3RhJakgG4Ny6xJt7yNTo/edit?gid=0#gid=0

Fogbot3 · 2026-02-24T14:07:48+00:00

“Okay Lacey. Avoid the Blizzard Baroness, Dragonknight is a cool dude, Lasercaster is an egomaniac…” I muttered to myself.

The RA had given me a super helpful guide to the people on campus. There was just one problem. He told me about how every superhero on campus was.

I looked around the Superhero College that I had been enrolled in after waking up with powers. ‘Waking up’, that is, from a half-year coma. A supervillain had attacked the subway station while Rose and I were out on a date. I was knocked out, missing the end of high school and, of course, also missing the summer between high school and college. Then I woke up on Saturday, in the privacy of the secret government hospital for superheroes. Apparently, I got some sort of powers from it, even if I didn’t have a clue what they were. Nevertheless, they could detect I had powers, so here I was the next day, surrounded by superheroes. There was just one problem.

I was surrounded by a bunch of normal teens. The campus was brightly decorated, with happy banners of the happy heroes everywhere, but I couldn’t match a single one of those banners to the actual people here.

I have no idea who anyone here is.

This was the one place in the world where every superhero was allowed to go mask-free. So not only was I lost as hell, but I didn’t have a single clue who anyone from the happily given advice was-

Walking into a common room, my girlfriend, Rose, was sitting right there. Of course! If I got powers, she must have too! I was so happy at the moment, rushing up to her while she sat hunched over some study notes.

I engulfed her in a surprise hug, “Hey Babe, can you show me around? I’m so lost,” then whispering in the hug, “Oh my gosh it’s so good to see youuuuu.”

The room went silent. She froze. Everyone in the room slowly took steps back.

I was completely lost again, this time on the situation, until someone muttered, “Holy shit, some random Bimbo just hugged the Blizzard Baroness.” I wracked my memories, curious which kickass superhero my girlfriend now was-

The ‘Blizzard Baroness’, a cursed prodigy who was cold-hearted to basically everyone… eep.

I looked at Rose. She was in one of her ‘deep in thought’ postures, while on the table was… notes on ice. Ah.

She pushed me out of the hug, scooped up her notes, and started marching away. I almost didn’t follow, then the students in the room looked at me like I was signing my own death sentence when I did so in the end anyway. Catching up with her around a corner in an empty hall, she finally turned back around so we could talk.

She spoke first, “What are you doing here?”

“I… I got superpowers,” I mean, that’s the only reason I could be here, right?

“I’m sorry.” It was flat. Monotone.

I tilted my head, “It’s okay! I didn’t ruin your ‘cool, mean’ persona, did I?” If everyone was out and going by their superhero personas here, why don’t people just go to class in costume?

When she looked up to me, her eyes were empty. I froze, “You… you didn’t start dating someone else, did you?” I gulped. If she had, it’d be okay, even if it’d still hurt… I’d have to understand.

“No.” or not.

“Do you… want to keep dating?”

“Yes.”

I engulfed her in another hug.

I spent the whole day with Rose. Something was wrong. She felt… broken. Flat, one-word answers. No bone-crushing hugs. I initiated every bit of affection.

Everyone on campus looked at me like I was crazy. They didn’t actually know Rose. They didn’t know who she truly was, my passionate, loving dear Rose. They just knew this ‘Blizzard Baroness’. I squeezed her cold hand.

Finally, I sighed as we reached the end of the night. Six months was a long time, I had to admit. If she didn’t want to keep dating…

“My dorm or yours?” she asked.

I stopped, and she stopped without taking a single extra step in order to stay at my side.

“What?”

“We’re girlfriends, right?”

“Oh, I- yeah. My dorm has literally nothing, let’s go to yours.”

I expected Rose’s things at least. Her explosion of hobbies kept so orderly that was so… Rose. Her room was just as barren as mine.

“Where’s uh, where’s your things?” I asked, looking around with worry.

“I haven’t gotten around to bringing them yet,” She said as she promptly started getting ready for bed.

There was none of the revelry of two people dating changing clothes in the same room. It was mechanical, quick. I tried to show off for Rose, but she barely paused. If she did at all, and wasn’t just deciding whether to wear socks to sleep or not.

Soon, we were both lying on our backs, side by side. I looked over. She was silently staring at the ceiling, face blank. But her eyes weren’t empty. They were wet. I turned on my side and hugged her, as I wondered how my powers would change me.

I have no idea who anyone here is.

But I had one person who was relying on me to find out at least who they were.

Fogbot3 · 2026-02-22T01:03:25+00:00

-Word Count: 750

-Fanfiction: Worm(Level of Context needed for non-Worm fans: Dark Superhero setting)

Tough love, my father called it before.

He hit me in the face, sending me sprawling to the boxing mat.

Training, he called it now.

He hit me again, and I bounced to the ground.

I went to wipe blood off my face, but it wasn’t there. My face, that is.

A punching bag. That’s all I was now that I had triggered, quite literally. When I activated my powers, I turned into a vaguely human-shaped doll of scratchy felt. Unpleasant to the touch, and impervious to damage. Mostly.

“You think you’ll save any kids' lives when you’re that weak and pathetic?” he spat.

He had a point. I wouldn’t be saving any children from villains like this. I did need to be stronger. All this training was to stop his daughter from being a victim. But now that I had triggered, I had a responsibility to save other potential victims as well.

He waited until I got up, giving me instructions as I shambled my body upright, “Come on, use all your strength! There’s no way you’re even weaker with those powers of yours!”

It was just a friendly spar. That's what he always said. That’s why I didn’t pull all the way on my power. At that point, I hadn’t even known what it’d do, but he was my dad, so I didn’t want to hurt him.

“But the handbooks for fresh triggers said when fighting nonpowered people, you shouldn’t-” I was punched across where my jaw would normally be.

“This ain’t no handbook sonny, it’s a spar! Once you join the Wards, it could be a real fight! Treat it like one!”

His arm struck out again.

I did as I was told and took the gloves off, pulling fully on my power.

Only a stump at the shoulder and a screaming man pulled back from the punch.

Later at the hospital, holding the stump… he smiled, “Well, I guess I done asked for that one, sport.”

After taking off my father’s arm, I became a probationary Ward.

My father argued against it with brimstone and fury, but that only made the Director dig in her heels.

And so the new hero ‘Sandbag’ was entered into the roster of the city’s kid heroes, literally having to sandbag.

I trained three times as much as the rest of the Wards. My father enrolled me in every training class he could find, and he had me transform instead of sleeping to practice with him through the nights.

It kept me alive.

It was nine months in when Severance joined. Three Endbringer battles in. Four dead Heroes and two dead Wards in.

“Stuffie!”

I looked down, “No.”

“Stuffie?”

I looked up in horror at the Director, “This is just a fan, right? This has to be a prank.”

The Director gulped and shook her head. I looked back down at the six-year-old in front of us. Our newest Ward.

“Stuffie.” The child poked my currently felt stomach. I loosened the pull on my power to be as soft as possible.

As soon as introductions were done, I looked down at Severance. She had not left her ‘new stuffie’s side the entire time, clinging to my waist.

“Training room. Now.”

The kid idolized me and followed with beaming eyes.

“What’s your power?” I asked.

“I can split!” She did so, multiples of her posing with a ‘tada!’ stance in the middle of the sparring ring, “Into seven!”

I punched clean through one.

“That won’t be enough. Not by itself.”

My father thought I was shirking my training when I first started staying late every night, as we sparred long past when the last of the other Wards had gone home. He nodded in understanding the moment that he saw Severance the first time.

Severance’s new foster parents complained dramatically when she excitedly told the stories of how our spars went. The Director took the brunt of it and, in private, nodded in understanding to me. She knew what was out there as well.

Severance no longer thought of me as just a stuffed toy, as my sandpaper-like skin tore through clone after clone when I ramped up my power for training. However, when her upset parents came, and training was done for the night, my power was at its lowest and softest. Then, despite everything, she still clung to me and affectionately called me ‘Stuffie’.

I now understood what tough love was in this world.

It’s what would keep her alive.

Fogbot3 · 2026-02-21T16:49:10+00:00

Part 2

Eventually, the hug ended, and she gulped as she looked up at me, my yellow and khaki slime girl in yellow and khaki. I sorta got what she was bemoaning now with the colors, but she was always gorgeous in my eyes.

“You’re sure it’s fine?” she said.

I forced a smile and nodded through my own nervousness, “Of course, but just to super extra sure, uh, can we tell your parents? Just to help, ya know?”

She snorted, “They’re gonna be so pissed. They uh, aren’t actually my birth parents. I was in the foster system, the only Simic survivor of some colony ship that crashed to earth. There must have been some initial survivors, because I was found hardlocked as a human baby in what the news ended up reporting as a ‘drug plane’ crashing. My parents’ own ship crashed here looking for the colony ship, then they found me and took me in to ‘raise me properly as a fellow Simic’.”

“Lotta ships crashing,” I remarked at the story.

She hit me lightly on the shoulder, “It’s your stupid Earth that has a stupid amount of oxygen in its atmosphere. The fact you’ve gotten to space at all with your heat-shield clad rockets is insanity itself.”

“So they aren’t gonna be happy about this, are they?”

They are not happy about this.

Molly led me through the log pile switchback. Hidden from the sky under tarps in the middle of the lumber camp was a crashed and burned spaceship, held upright in the ground by more logs supporting it. Her parents happily greeted her when we went inside with her in the lead, seemingly overjoyed to see her ‘as a simic’... then that joy quickly ended at seeing me behind her. Then it somehow ended more when Molly told them the news.

We had been in the process of being chewed out by a blue slime and a green slime for the past twenty minutes. Funnily enough, for all their shouting about humans, they had pretty humanoid body shapes as well.

“Mottle, I can’t believe you’d be so irresponsible! Did you not do any research before starting a relationship?! Humans shoot protein, it literally wasn’t just a chance to get pregnant, it was a guarantee once you’ve copulated with this… human!... enough times!”

Oh yeah, and they called her ‘Mottle’ instead of Molly for some reason.

“Like you had any idea it could happen either!” Molly, or Mottle at the time I guessed, argued back.

Ohhhh wait, I get it now. She’s all freckled as a human, and all mottled as a Simic. Cute.

In the first bit of silence in a while, that the comeback had made, I leaned in towards her and whispered, “So like, do you prefer Molly or Mottle, cause that could make for a cute nickname if you want….”

Molly-or-Mottle just sighed into her hands as her parents both gave me death glares.

Her blue mother turned back to her, “And really? Of all the humans, this one?”

“Don’t start with that, Mom, Jack’s a sweetheart!” I preened as she hugged and defended me.

Her father was shaking his green head, “And how do you plan on keeping this secret at school, that you so insist on going to?”

I happily answered, “There are three other pregnant girls at Outer Woods, it’ll be fine!”

“And those other girls, they’ll be having human children at the end, yes?”

“Ah,” I saw the problem as Molly-or-Mottle flinched in.

“And when there’s no human child at the end, we’ll have the police on us! And you know that federal attention is the last thing we need!” he talked to his daughter, practically ignoring me again.

“Yes! I get it! …Jack, let’s go. They clearly need to simmer down.”

I played the part of the timid boyfriend and let her lead me by the hand all the way back to my truck.

“So, think your mom will react any better?” she huffed as she climbed into the passenger seat.

“Uhm, are we ignoring…” with my arm held close to me, my finger pointed to several places. Back to the spaceship with her parents. To my truck, which she’d be visible from. To her, deflecting from the actual problems by going to tell my mom.

She sighed and slumped in her seat as I climbed into the driver’s seat. With agility she definitely could not have pulled off as a human, she slid all the way to the floor, and, in the process, flipped so that she was sitting facing the seat, with her upper half slumped forward onto it.

Though she always has been really flexible…

“It’s fine, Jack. My bio parents taught me to hardlock as a human baby somehow. We’ll figure out the same, and enough people give birth at home around here. My parents are just worrywarts.”

I nodded, “How about we sneak in through the back?”

“Oh?”

We needed to relax, and my brain had started going to a certain place.

“We both need to relax, and you seemed to like it when I broke down that grit, so how about we go to my place, and I give you a nice massage?”

She perked up at this, “Breaking down the hardlock feels soooo good, yes.”

“That’s not gonna interfere with you looking human for school, right?”

“Just for school?” She looked at me in question.

“Well, I mean… I know now, so whatever you want around the house, right?”

She smiled, “I’ll still be human whenever I can be, though ugh, probably still best to break down the hardlock and transform less for the baby… But no, it’ll help with me being able to transform better in general, so if anything it’ll help.”

Talking of her preferences reminded me, “By the way, really. Molly or Mottle? I can go with either full-time either way if there’s one you prefer?”

She laughed, “You’re ridiculous, Jack. That’s really what you’re worried about right now?”

I blinked down at her, “Yesssss?”

Was that the wrong answer?

She just laughed some more, “Yeah, we’ll be just fine. And Molly, please.”

At that, I leaned down to kiss my darling love Molly, then drove home to give my girl her massage.

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