Year 2 – Shift 5 – Simone
Simone was suspicious of the forest.
The very air around her was questionable. The dirt? Fine. The trees? Fine. The water? Fine.
The whole thing?
Questionable.
It felt…fine. But the bigger question wouldn’t let her go.
“Something feels off here.” Kaori pressed a hand to the ground in the middle of the small clearing.
“I know.” Simone narrowed her eyes at the trees. “Blackenwald Forest? Where’s Mark’s stupid?”
“Huh?” Kaori shook her head.
“Like…” Simone struggled. “If this was called something like Gump Forest or Bette Midler’s Inconsistent Tupperware Cleaning Schedule or some shit, then I’d be totally fine. But Blackenwald Forest? That just sounds like a fantasy forest name.”
Kaori side-eyed her. “No. The animals. They’re hurting. But…”
Simone shook off the name and attuned herself to the forest. A great burden pressed against her senses.
The animals felt…wrong.
“Oh my god. What is that?” Kaori stalked through the trees, frantically searching and feeling, until she grabbed a vine and froze.
Using her insane Dexterity, Simone narrowly avoided crashing into her. She turned and scanned the trees. “Where are they? There are no squirrels. No birdsong. But…I feel them.”
Simone found nothing visibly out of place. It was just a forest.
“We won’t solve this by standing here,” she said. “Let’s find Motoh and hopefully figure out where the animals are.”
Kaori pointed toward a rise. “The cave entrance should be just over that hill.”
They trekked uphill, feeling the strange energy shift into something much more invasive.
“Be ready for any—” Simone froze as they crested the ridge. “What the actual fuck?”
Kaori gasped and slapped a hand over her mouth. “What…what is happening?”
In a clearing below, just outside a massive cave mouth, dozens of animals sat gathered together, docile and terrified. Motoh sat tied to a chair in the center of them.
“It’s a setup.” Simone scanned the surrounding trees.
“We have to get him.” Kaori nodded. “We have to help the animals too. Wait here.”
Before Simone could object to the obvious trap, Kaori shifted into a fluffy orange fox and bounded through the trees toward the gathering.
Simone crept down behind her, scanning the shadows until she reached the edge of the clearing. Kaori mingled easily with the crowd and scrambled toward a group of foxes gathered on the other side of Motoh’s unconscious body.
Simone kept her eyes on Foxori while continuing to search for threats.
Then she saw it.
A flash came from inside the cave. A lizardman emerged in tactical gear branded with a logo so vile that Simone wanted to puke. A team of goblins and kobolds followed him, carrying Earth cameras and filming the larger-than-life man who stepped into view behind them.
A wide-brimmed hat rested atop his buck-toothed face. The logo across his chest showed a cat biting its lower lip and crossing its eyes in an expression Simone had become very accustomed to avoiding since her transition.
“How would you like to win your friend back?” the strange, highly energetic man asked, staring directly at Kaori despite her fox form. “All you have to do is survive sex with all these animals for one hundred days!”
The animals began circling Kaori.
It was time to come out and play.
“Hey!” Simone whipped a rock across the clearing, striking one of the cameramen in his hard skull. “Who the hell do you think you are?”
The animals stopped. The man narrowed his eyes at Simone.
“We have two contestants!” he shouted. “While she’s busy with that, I want to talk about Recent.”
“What?” Simone stared in confusion as every camera turned toward him and he began monologuing directly into the lenses.
“Have you ever gotten to the end of your paycheck and thought, ‘Hey, I need more fucking gold’? Then you need Recent!” He flashed a manic smile. “With Recent, you can use FuckMe to get up to two hundred gold as much as two weeks before payday!”
He was doing a fucking promo.
Kaori dashed through the animals and returned to human form beside Simone. “What’s going on? He looks like—”
“And what’s better?” the man continued. “With Recent, you can also tip your bank! Recent works really hard to make sure you have access to just enough money to keep you stuck in our ecosystem forever!”
“Hey!” Simone tried to interrupt, but the fucker kept going.
“So, if you want access to additional loans that make you feel like you’re getting ahead when it’s secretly just fintech building walls to keep you trapped forever”—he finally turned toward them, an evil glare crossing his face—“use code BEASTMISTER to add up to one copper to your account for switching! Back to the show.”
The animals kept their distance as Beastmister slowly approached.
“Are you ready to have sex with all these animals for one hundred days to get your friend back?”
“Ew.” Simone shook her head. “Dude, just let Motoh go. He’s our friend, and we don’t want to make trouble.”
A sinister expression crossed Beastmister’s face. He looked at his cameramen and made a cutting motion across his throat.
“You gotta do the challenge to get him back. That’s just how it goes. You’re going to tank my views. Just play along. Millions of people want to see an elf and a human get gang-banged by a hundred animals.”
“Ew.” Kaori shivered. “They don’t like doing this! They told me you hurt them! You make them work hard with barely any food and dirt-poor treatment.”
Anger simmered behind Beastmister’s eyes. “They…told you? Handler! Get the lawyers!”
A tall, lanky lizardman lingering in the background snapped to attention. “On it, boss! I’ma go get Jesus!”
He sprinted into the cave system.
Simone stared after him as the situation fully registered. “You’re going to sue the animals?”
“Of fucking course!” Beastmister waved toward the larger animals waiting in the back. They began moving toward the women. “Right after I kill you for ruining my shoot!”
A large lion approached him. Beastmister ran behind it and grabbed its shoulders.
The lion’s eyes widened, and it groaned as Beastmister did the thing.
“Get them!” he ordered.
The lion seemed unsure how to attack in its current predicament, but Beastmister held on without actually holding on. The animal dragged him behind it as it charged, swinging wildly with its talons.
Simone easily dodged the swipe and watched the mass of traumatized animals closing in around them.
“I don’t want to hurt them!” Kaori shifted into a mouse and ran up Simone’s body, landing in her open hand. “Aim for him!”
Simone reared back and hurled Mouseori directly at the animal fucker.
Beastmister turned just as Kaori shifted into Bearori. He stood completely still, and Bearori struck an invisible wall, crashing to the ground before a swarm of smaller animals surrounded her.
“You can’t cancel me!” Beastmister shouted. “I’m too rich! Get them!”
Simone could feel that the animals hated being used like this, but hunger and fear kept driving them forward.
Why would they keep fighting two people trying to defend them? Why would they keep working for their abuser?
“Last one alive gets TEN MILLION GOLD!” Beastmister charged again, still being dragged by the lion. “Whoever brings me their head gets to eat today!”
Instead of dodging, Simone stepped forward and jumped. She planted a foot on the lion’s head, borrowing a move from her friends.
She pushed backward instead of upward, dropped her shoulder, and drove it into Beastmister’s sternum. The impact knocked him free of the lion.
Simone rolled through the collision and handsprang into the center of the circle, landing beside the unconscious Motoh Grayter.
“Wake up!” She grabbed him and shook him firmly.
“What…bwuh…” Motoh sputtered awake.
Simone drew her dagger and sliced through the ropes. “Can you fight?”
Motoh jerked his head to one side and cracked his neck. “I led the front lines. I can fight.”
“Did you get the piece you needed?” Simone searched for a way to reach Bearori, who now had animals climbing over her back and digging in. Kaori wouldn’t hurt them. Simone knew that.
“That fucker has it!” Motoh pulled the giant makeshift steel-coil weapon from his back. “He said he wants to give it to starving blind kids who are on fire. It’s in his bag.”
“Let’s get to Kaori!” Simone drew a specialized arrow from her quiver, ripped off one of its ribs, and nocked it. “Grayt them as soon as I fire!”
Motoh kicked away a pair of approaching wolves and slammed his weapon into the ground. It came to life with a deep hum and electrical buzz.
Beastmister stood behind a wall of animals with a tactical squirrel tail hanging from the front of his pants.
Simone aimed just to the right of him and loosed.
The arrow flew true. A thin wire attached to its end wrapped around Beastmister’s body, binding his arms and dropping him to the ground.
Motoh charged into the animals, knocking them back with the broad side of his weapon as he forced his way toward Kaori without killing any of them.
The move gave Bearori enough time and space to shift back and retreat to Simone’s side.
The animals tore the wire from Beastmister, and he climbed back to his feet.
“You can’t beat me!” he seethed. “I’m sponsored by Horrible Hal’s Hateful Haberdashery!”
“Go figure Hal supports…this.” Simone snarled as the animals began closing in again.
Beastmister slowly backed away from the far side of the pack, sensing that he was outmatched.
“Hold them off!” he ordered before turning and bolting toward the cave.
“Stop him!” Motoh shouted. “He’s got the part!”
“Kaori. Let’s do what we practiced.” Simone held out her hand.
Kaori jumped, shifted into a mouse, and landed in Simone’s palm.
Simone slung her bow over her shoulder, drew a dagger with her other hand, and pitched Mouseori over the animals.
Beastmister turned and smiled, expecting Bearori to strike the invisible wall again.
Simone cast before Kaori shifted.
“Benign Transposition!”
In an instant, Simone was flying past Beastmister. She slashed the strap of his bag with her dagger, caught it, and sailed past him before rolling safely across the forest floor.
The animals were on her within seconds.
“Benign Transposition!”
Simone reappeared beside Motoh, and Bearori materialized where she had been, tanking the smaller animals.
Motoh slammed his weapon into the ground again. With Beastmister gone, no cameras on them, and nobody promising food for one more attack, the dazed animals finally scattered into the woods.
“Are you okay?” Simone asked as Motoh shouldered his weapon.
“Am now,” he replied. “You don’t want to know some of the stuff that weirdo is into.”
“I’m sure I don’t.” Simone shook her head.
“Was he doing what I think he was doing?” Kaori asked uneasily.
“Yeah.” Simone headed back up the path toward home. “He was fucking his audience in more ways than one.”