Monster Breeder

Cottontail, Gale, Olindia, Flou, Chris, Jonny, and Brenda’s icons on my Partner Tracker start moving our way almost the second before I finally cave in to anxiety and mount a rescue. Heaving a heavy sigh, I lean back into my Lamia lover’s lap and allow her coils to squeeze away some of the tension with a firm massage. I let everyone know the Misty Grove team is safe and on their way home.

It’s dark by the time they return, but the Pavilion where we congregate is bright as day with Gabby’s Persistent spells of fire and light. Her magic has already started paying off in simple luxuries like that around Field Town. We’ve got water fountains, now!

Despite the ambient illumination, there’s no missing one particular celestial body in the evening sky. It’s a beautiful strawberry moon! The faint pink glow tantalizes with promises of a wild night. Wait, I thought the full moon was the day after tomorrow… and why are there two of them?

“That’s no moon!”

Olindia lands before us with the grace of a soap bubble alighting on the earth. Looking up at her jellyfish bell skirt from below, we’d mistaken her for a lunar phenomenon! Her dress is voluminous, pale pink, and it seems to float on a current that no one else can feel. Her glowing pink hat is equally eye-catching with its long, buoyant, blue-tipped tendrils. Olindia’s Slime body itself also radiates an even more delicate shade of light pink, making her into a jewel of the night.

In her arms are Flou and Chris, who each leap from her embrace onto the ground the moment she touches down. The two of them make for an equally splendid pair of ruby and sapphire!

Chris’s now-white Playmate teddy does amazing things to the bunny’s curves, sure, and the added angora fur lining yields something of a warm, cozy demeanor, but the main highlight is that incredible jewel embedded in her sternum. Something that spectacular hints at a powerful evolutionary path for certain.

And Flou… the former bunny has finally regained a semblance of herself! I find myself damp around the eyes as I note the self-assurance in my ruby Slime’s crystal-clear expression. She meets my gaze directly and smiles. My heart flutters in my chest, and I know she’s alright, now. The promise I made to her back then has been fulfilled!

Cottontail descends by throwing carrot daggers at the bundle of balloons bearing her aloft, popping them one by one until she’s gently set down. Gale, Monal, and Rosie drop Jonny/Brenda beside the Slime duo for symmetry before digging their talons into soft soil and preening beneath our expectant eyes. While Brenda doesn’t show any outward signs of advancement, there’s definitely a subtle heaviness to her presence that clues me into her progression. The Harpies, meanwhile, have a little something to show for their day’s work.

Monal, the pheasant Harpy, has a single bright red peacock feather with a gold eyespot sprouting from the crown of her head. Rosie, the ebony-skinned flamingo Harpy, has a tiny pebble embedded in her cheek like a beauty mark at the corner of her eye. To top off the trio, Gale is sporting a streak of white next to a green cowlick in her dark blue hair.

“Evolution Tokens!” Gabby exclaims, having recognized the signs immediately. A mental cross-reference brings the mechanic in question’s details from the Book of Monsters to mind. My girls must have had some close calls today to awaken their elemental affinities! While the tokens themselves don’t offer any tangible benefits currently, they mark their holder for bigger and better things in the future. Anyone holding an Evolution Token when they progress to the next Tier is guaranteed to get a rarer, higher-Ranked evolution.

Everyone is suitably impressed by the obvious rewards the Misty Grove team reaped for their efforts today, even before a tiny figure reveals herself by fluttering out of hiding behind Jonny and onto his stony shoulder.

“A Fairy,” Gabby identifies with interest.

I bottle up my reaction with masterful restraint. Getting a Fairy girlfriend has been a lifelong secret ambition of mine, dating back to a more innocent time when my father read me fairy stories before bedtime. As I entered my teenage years, quite a few of my wet dreams and increasingly perverted fantasies involved size-play with a tiny, sexy partner. When I set out from my Home Town as a Tamer, I set my sights on more realistic goals, but finding a Fairy Grove or some such has been on my bucket list from the beginning.

However, tripping all over myself to impress or seduce one of the Fae folk who is apparently already enamored with Jonny is not how I do things. Maybe she has a cute sister, or a hot mom? No, no, no, bad Alex! Focus.

My beloveds have returned safely, and so I shall shower them with attention first and foremost before getting all the details on my boyfriend’s latest monster girl companion.

Megan the Denki Nezumi still beats me to it with a speedy dash forward that leaves a mouse-shaped afterimage on my retinas as her brightly shining blonde hair streaks past. She hug-tackles Cottontail, whom she’d worried about so intently until now, before zipping over to embrace her wife, Gale, and back to her sister, and forth to her Harpy lover over and over while kissing them until the two trap her in a group embrace.

I scoop all three of them up in my arms, an easy feat given my Orc Stature, and soundly plant a kiss on each of their mouths, lingering especially on Cottontail’s sweet lips. “You gave me quite a scare when my Sympathetic Link ability triggered,” I say after ending the kiss. “I’m so glad you had it equipped when it happened!”

Cottontail swoons from all the affectionate attention, but sobers at my grim reminder, “Me too. I’d have died for certain if you hadn’t healed me.” I hadn’t told her that yet, but I suppose the truth of the situation must have occurred to her with some thought.

“You’re getting so much pussy tonight for saving my sister,” Megan promises me with heavily lidded bedroom eyes as she wiggles her cute mousy derriere. Rescuing the ‘father’ of her baby must be a major turn-on for the sexy little blonde.

“Gale did a good job using the Summoning Token you gave her. Praise me! Praise me!” the Rainbird chirps excitedly.

“Alright, alright,” I grin as I set my wives down and pat Gale’s head to congratulate her on a job well done, “I’m certain your performance today was amazing—and I want to hear every last detail the second I finish telling everyone else how incredible they are.”

When I turn, there’s Flou before me.

Her blood-crystal flesh glistens in the firelight like cut ruby. She’s no moving statue; there’s a slight malleability to her brilliant gemstone body that yields a semblance of life. Her eyes gleam like crimson stars. Her fur bikini reminds me of her secondary nature, her ‘Form.’ She wears fur on her bunny legs and fuzzy paws like stockings and exotic slippers. Three Cores visible through her transparent form occupy places of prominence in the depths of her pelvis, chest, and head. Nine more smaller Cores group in trios at her wrists and neck.

As for Flou’s shape, she is what everybunny strives to be—lithe and supple with curves in all the right places. Her powderpuff tail draws the eye to a round, juicy bottom I’d love to grab and hold while driving my rod into the softness between her legs. Damn, she already has me fantasizing.

“Alex, be honest… how do I look?” Flou’s confidence falters a moment as we both recall her disastrous attempts to reassume her bunny form back when she became a Second Tier Slime. Her perky ears twitch slightly in a manner I’m certain is in fact an automatic reflex. Those subtle gestures, her mannerisms and posture, they must all be from memories of her original body. There’s no way she can be doing all of that and maintain the shape of such an intricately carved, beautiful face consciously. It’s all so natural.

I kneel before her, tilt that crystalline chin up with a finger, and kiss Flou’s soft, ruby lips. Then I do put my hands on her ass and squeeze to show my eager lust.

*Whistles* “Ow, ow!” Suka howls.

“Damn, girl, get some!” Olindia catcalls.

We end the kiss, and Flou rolls her eyes at their antics, but it’s no secret she’s loving the attention after the past few days as a Slime. Cottontail and Megan come over to congratulate their cousin on regaining her original body shape, having not had much chance before during their flight home. Flou seems happy.

“Hey, like, what about me?” the Pink Slime girl waggles her eyebrows suggestively at me, then proceeds to withdraw a book, a letter, and some papers from an ancient plastic purse—which Spindle takes into her nimble grasp to sew shut the wide gash in its side. “I think I did pretty fucking good today.”

Stepping forward, I grab the loot from her hands and toss it at Gabby, who deftly catches the book and snaps the loose paper and sealed envelope from the air before poring over the documents with her eidetic gaze. Then I take Olindia by the waist and pull her to me. The shapely Jellyfish girl’s new lunar aura makes her practically weightless; her hair and Slime clothes float as if we were underwater as she clings to me while searching my face.

“You are incredible,” I say, cupping her luminescent face in my palm, fully intending the not-so-subtle double-meaning she reads in my words—praise for her accomplishment as well as a compliment to her beauty. She closes her eyes in bliss when I lean in to press my lips against her soft features.

“I am totally gonna fuck you up so good tonight,” Olindia says in a husky, strained voice when we part as if she can barely restrain herself from taking me here on the grass.

“Promises, promises,” I tease while releasing her to check on the other new arrivals.

“Gale, baby! Monal, Rosie, the three of you… Is that?!? Are those…!!! Waaahhh!” Aello the Harpy Matron clucks over the returning Rainbird and her handmaidens like a mother hen inspecting her chicks. “Oh, my! Oh, my, my, my! These markings—you three are going to be the first elemental Hawks in the Region at this rate!”

Flipping through the various Harpy evolutionary branches described in the Book of Monsters, I can think of a few possibilities. While Harpies evolve into Matrons, Patrons, or Greater Harpies at Third Tier, Second Tier elemental Harpies that have the ‘X’-bird type (like Rainbird) have slightly different designations. The Rank above ‘Harpy Matron’ is ‘Greater Harpy,’ and the Rank above that has the various ‘X’-Hawk types: Blood Hawk, Frost Hawk, Flame Hawk, etc. Another possibility for Third Tier monsters is the ‘Young’ prefix for mythological archetypes, but those are supposed to be stupid rare.

““Mistress Gale is amazing!”” Monal and Rosie agree.

“Hehehe, praise Gale more~!” the Rainbird giggles and coos in appreciation.

Meanwhile, Lois the Dormouse Matron is standing on her tiptoes to get a good look at the sapphire adorning Chris the Snow Bunny’s sternum. “My word, I’ve never heard of such… not on a mouse or bunny at any rate.”

“Fu-fu-fu,” Chris chuckles with pompous presumption, “That’s right. When I evolve, I’ll put all these bitches in their places. I-uh, I mean, I’ll make everyone feel so safe because of my powers that they’ll want to make me the Mistress of the New Warren!”

I approach the Snow Bunny, look her up and down, and ask, “So, are you part Slime, now… or?”

“I’m not a Slime!” she says as she stamps her foot in protest.

“The Snow Bunny has to have a least a little Slime in her, or else, as a smallfolk prey monster, she should’ve evolved to Third Tier by now,” Gabby casually throws out with her nose in that book Olindia brought home. As expected, talking monster evolutions is the only thing that can temporarily break the greedy Gobliness away from studying magic.

“Hmph. Well, maybe just a little bit of Slime is fine. It could even elevate a bun, as long as she’s only, let’s say, an eighth Slime… or a hundredth…”

““It doesn't matter how much Slime you have in you,”” Jonny/Brenda says in their merged voice. I suppose they’d be an authority on the subject. ““We wouldn’t have made it out of there alive without your quick thinking and bravery, Chris. You have our gratitude.””

My eyebrows shoot up involuntarily. Those two descriptors are the last things I’d have expected someone to pin on the little bunny bully. I sort of expected to find out she evolved through dumb luck and riding Jonny’s coattails.

“I have to admit, we worked surprisingly well together,” Flou reluctantly agrees. “I doubt I could’ve gotten to the Mimic Slime in time without that last-second throw.”

“And, outside the Library, that snowball saved my life! Otherwise, that mean Elf would’ve skewered me through the heart!” Cottontail chimes in.

Megan’s eyes nearly bulge out of their sockets as she stares at Chris in awe, “Is… is that true?!?”

All this genuine praise takes the Snow Bunny off guard. “I umm, well, you see… heheheh.” Chris gets dizzy and swoons from having so many sexy monsters fawning over her accomplishments, slumping to the ground if not for Megan catching her in a princess carry. It’s kind of hilarious seeing the larger bun being borne about by the diminutive mouse girl.

“Don’t you worry,” Megan starts, “I swear I’ll take good care of you tonight, honest.”

“Ahem, so, Brenda, you evolved too, didn’t you?”

Jonny and Brenda separate before our eyes in a somewhat gross display of the young male ejecting his Slime lover in a stream of vomit, but we forgive these things. Jonathon’s true body reappears as stone skin and green goo slough off him to reform Brenda, the Green Stone… something.

“You can tell?” she asks.

I shrug. It was a solid guess to begin with, considering how her peers advanced. “It’s hard to say for certain, not a smell or visual cue, but there’s a different feeling about you. It must be my monster instincts talking or some such. But come on and tell me already, what can you do now?!?” Gabby glances up at our conversation, too. Brenda was already an anomalous existence to the Book of Monsters, so her evolutionary path should be equally riveting.

The stone-skinned woman ponders a moment before answering, “I think my, you’d call them ‘base stats,’ have gone up a bit over the past few hours, but the main thing is that I can merge with multiple monsters now. No clue what my limits are, though.”

That could be really powerful. I remember the potent rush of gaining ten Slime mark tree abilities when we did a test-merger last night. If I’m understanding her correctly, getting even one more monster into that combo could easily double that number. Not to mention the possibilities of combining abilities for additional effects and the boost of additional Multitasking Focuses.

“Well, I for one,” I begin while hooking my lower-left arm around Jonny’s waist, then my lower-right around Brenda’s waist, “Can’t wait to update my Mark system and find out what kind of monster you evolved into.”

I place the palm of my upper-left hand on Jonny’s pecs, feeling the naked strength in his bare chest, and tilt my head down to kiss him. He playfully grabs my ass as our tongues tangle. Then we unlock our lips to both go after Brenda, who practically melts with giddiness as we attack her mouth from either side, passing her back and forth between us.

Finally, I can’t take it any longer. “Hey, Jonny, not trying to be awkward, but are you going to introduce us to that lovely-looking individual hovering over your shoulder or leave us hanging all day?”

“I already would’ve,” Jonathan replies, “But Tink told me not to attract attention to her while she was ‘scouting.’”

The exquisite little blue-glowing blonde Fairy sheds a constant stream of ethereal glitter as she hovers there, watching me. Her expression as she takes in my exotic monster features mingles shock, awe, fear, horror, lust, and wonder, “A-are you the Demon Queen?”

“The what?!?”

“Jonny! Somehow, we skipped through the ‘Road of Trials,’ the ‘Meeting with the Goddess,’ and landed on fighting the Final Boss! Quick, where’s the blade of demon’s bane?!?”

“I’m not a Demon Queen!”

Tink squints at me and asks, “…You sure?”

So much for making a good first impression on the Fairy of my dreams…

“Tink,” Jonny interrupts, “I’m happy to introduce you to my girlfriend, Alex Vermillion. Alex, this is Tinkle Erminlinda Bell, daughter of Jing Leanan Bell of the Bell-clan Fairies. Tink for short.”

I try again, batting my eyes seductively as I say, “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Tink.”

“Hmm, likewise,” the Fairy responds, but gives me the ‘I’ve got my eyes on you,’ gesture when no one else is looking. I sigh in temporary defeat, although I haven’t given up on living out my Fairy fantasies just yet.

“Jonathan’s team won the bet,” Gabby interrupts our moment as she shuts the book with a loud *whump*. It only took her this long to memorize the whole thing.

“Oh! May Spindle?” She says while gesturing to take the leatherbound tome from the Gobliness’s custody.

“Of course,” Gabby politely responds, handing over the book. She then adjusts her spectacles in contemplation while mulling over the contents. Spindle immediately begins flipping through the book while muttering excitedly, though the Webling’s reading speed is nowhere near that of the Witch’s.

“There was a bet?” Cottontail wonders aloud.

“More of an informal contest, really,” I say. We didn’t exactly agree to this when divvying up the tasks.

Suka jumps in to explain, “Whoever contributes to Alex’s cause the most during the day gets to Top during the night’s orgy.”

“Oh, how fun!” the Showbunny claps and squees.

The others seem equally willing to abide by these rules. I can’t help but surrender to their momentum, considering it fosters a healthy spirit of competition. Despite not slouching in the slightest with my efforts today, I certainly didn’t tackle a task expecting to yield multiple Third Tier monster evolutions on our side. Maybe knowing I don’t stand a chance of winning today is boosting my girls’ eagerness to go along with Suka’s suggestion. I do sense a lot of leers being leveled at the bulge in my panties. “Just remember, we’re going light on the orgy tonight. There being a war tomorrow, and all…”

“Yeah, yeah,” the Flamestalker dismisses, “But shortstack, explain why the heck Jonny’s team wins already. Spindle was in the lead until they showed up, so it should be close, right?”

It’s the Wicked Webling herself that speaks up, “This is a book of magical theory for basic Rituals. It even has a few minor Rituals thrown in for good measure! With this, the Hybridization Ritual from Vermillion’s Hometown, the esteemed Witch’s prowess with Dark Magic, and Spindle’s own humble talents… all sorts of incredible things suddenly become possible~”

Gabby nods. “Add that to their other accomplishments, and even I have to admit it. Proving that I’m the strongest Third Tier monster here wouldn’t change a thing. This book on Ritual Magic is simply that potent. Granted, it’s only valuable because I’m here…”

“And Spindle.”

“Yes, yes, the Weaver does have some talent in the field.”

Hearing Gabby concede just that much is a powerful testament to Spindle’s acumen. Personally, I’m not 100% convinced yet, but, “That brings us to listing our assets for the war tomorrow before planning our strategy. First things first, though—I need to hear about what happened in the Misty Grove!”