This is still a story of the Becoming Monsters series by Ai Loves, setting used with permission. All canonical and mechanical errors are my own. The yarrb is the creation of FelisRandomis, used with permission.

 

Chapter named after the emotional Boss Battle music from Undertale. If you have that song playing in the back of your head, you’re in my mindset for this.

 

—-

 

Chapter 18: Hopes and Dreams

 

I found out something else over dinner. The ladies had agreed that any of them who hit 90% Hunger storage would have their chance to be plowed by me that evening to help get my stores of energy back up and ensure they didn’t waste charge. Gloria had been doing well before the church service, but it came with a rather hefty lunch afterwards. One which she obliterated eight servings of, citing Race needs.

 

This is why she was nude, on her back, head hanging off the edge of the bed, mouth wide open. “Now, Jay, I told you. I don’t have a size limit, so the bigger the better.”

 

She was helping me top off, and helping me practice shapeshifting right with it. Multitasking, right? Thing is, I was to the point where I could reach an enormous amount of directed growth. At maximum size, I would only be able to hold the form for a few minutes. After shoving three feet of dick as big around as my biceps down her throat, though, the sheer power of sensory overload was enough to make sure I would be done with plenty of time to spare. It once again felt like her soul grabbed me by the (now bowling ball sized) balls and pulled directly from the source. When I came down her throat, it took more than a minute at full force before it tapered off, constantly streaming jet after jet without pause.

 

I shrunk as I softened, back to my normal size. My mana pool was looking quite slender afterwards, but the incredible length of time I was orgasming meant that I pulled what would have been three full Feedings out of her. Gloria seemed almost dazed, before she burped, a roaring kind of sound. “I still have not found a limit, Jay. Maybe next time. Definitely got further, though!”

 

You know, if I hadn’t been so big I could have completely speared a Human woman through? I might have been insulted. As it was, I was truly wondering what I’d be able to do once I got my levels properly trained. She left, Lucy came in, and asked the details. I explained as best as I could.

 

“So that’s what you did last night! You say you got to three feet?”

 

“Yeah. I could probably push it further, but I need more practice.” She looked excited. I had a feeling I knew what I’d have requested of me next time she had enough in her tank to spare. We cuddled, though, and slept well and deeply. I awoke well-rested, feeling better than the day before. No sudden changes, but at this rate I would be my old self again. Eventually, over the course of weeks or months, I could make it. I was glad for the sheer amount of recovery ability I had these days, without it that rate would have been measured in years. I could have hope, now.

 

We had a lot to do, though. Starting with looking through the brief resumés everyone had assembled. It was sometimes hard to remember, these ladies all had lives before being delivered. 

 

“Whitney, you didn’t mention you had a degree in kinesthesiology! That’s a really big deal!”

 

“To be honest, I wasn’t sure if I’d gotten it until the lawyers told me. I blacked out between finishing my Senior finals and learning if I’d passed them, and those were a freaking bear. I’m no doctor, but I also have a minor in Athletic Training. The sports programs took a dive when the Change hit, but trainers are needed everywhere. Physical Therapy certification is next in line.”

 

Well, THAT simplified things. I had worried where she would be applied in our little scheme, and as it turned out she was probably the best suited of all of us to go work at the hospital. “Feel like putting together training plans for the team? I know what combat skills we need to put in time with, but I’ve got nothing on you for body performance.”

 

Lucy had child care certifications and an early education degree still aching to be used along with a motherly instinct fifteen miles wide. She didn’t get to show it often, but it was there. Sarah still had her Enchanting, I had my IT years and Cursebreaker. Gloria couldn’t do anything until at least next week, and Amber was still getting her own life back in order to go to college herself. Emily, of course, was already fully employed and would be taking me to speak to whomever I needed to convince today. 

 

Given that it would be at the administrative building, I could have a baton. Not my physical shield, but that was why I had asked Sarah for the energy one. It was even fully charged, and looked like it could be a particularly ornate wrist brace. Yes, Lucy, the unmodified baton. I didn’t quite trust myself to be swinging the heavy one yet, all things considered. I knew my slacks were around here somewhere, but the still-remaining jumble of bags and piles we had yet to have time to deal with hid them more effectively than one of Emily’s illusions. Good denim jeans and a polo it is.

 

It was a bit of a new experience not taking the bus to the hospital. We were immediately adjacent to the administrative building, and in fact the two technically had an indoor hallway connecting them. Were it twenty degrees cooler or raining, I might have taken that route. As it stood, though, I needed a moment under open skies to calm my nerves.

 

I mean, I’ve fought demons from the depths before, but corporate bosses were a different league.

 

“Alright, Emily, talk to me. Who am I about to talk to, and what can you tell me about them?”

 

She seemed nervous. “Doctor Jarrod Rogers, both PhD and MD. Senior biologist before the Change, real recluse now, he sleeps in his office most nights, but his word is law on hiring. Nobody ever talks to him directly, I’ve never met him personally.”

 

“And yet, he wanted a face to face with me?”

 

“Between the fact that you gave me my fourth tail and the sheer number of oddities with the request? I guess so.”

 

“More oddities. I don’t like oddities.”

 

“From what I hear, neither does he. We’re here, go time.”

 

The admin building was not the sterile place the hospital was, quite the opposite. People who worked here tended to be more important folks, paid the salary of such, and afforded the little luxuries due their station. It honestly felt more like a library hallway, soft carpet and wooden doors. The one Emily brought me to did not have a nameplate on it, nor any indication as to the position of whomever might work inside. She knocked three times, and a soft female voice bid us to enter. There was a small room there, four chairs along the walls, and a table. On that table was a receptionist’s desk… but one sized for a child’s doll set. At it was a Pixie, about six inches tall, calmly recording information on the smallest computer I’d ever seen. She gestured at us to sit down without bothering to look up. 

 

Perhaps thirty seconds later, the same soft, female voice came again. “Dr. Rogers will see you, now.” It was from a box next to the tiny desk on the table, which I now realized was an accessibility speaker. Neat. 

 

We stood, only for the Pixie to suddenly zip up in front of Emily’s face with the sound of silvery bells. She shook her head, pointing back at the seat. Emily dropped back down into the chair with a helpless kind of look on her face. It seemed I’d be doing this alone.

 

The Pixie (I realized I never got her name) led me down a short hall in the back of the room, to another door. This one was of a much heavier and more ornate wood. She gestured at the door, and it swung silently open. She gestured at me to follow her, and we stepped inside. 

 

If the rest of the building reminded me of a library, this room was even more so. Bookshelves lined three walls, and an enormous desk was not far in front of the fourth. There was an ornate chair behind it, and papers stacked on the desk, with another ornate chair facing it. It was to this last chair that the Pixie gestured me towards before leaving.

 

When the door closed, the room was dark and empty. The only light came from the fireplace behind Dr. Rogers’s chair. I took a seat, the air of the place slightly creeping me out. Above the fireplace hung a sword, a Roman Gladius, blade pointing down. I did not see the Doctor here, which was odd. Emily said he often slept here, and there was neither a bed in sight nor any obvious door to another room. I noticed a small tablet computer and stylus on the desk, almost invisibly blending in with the papers. The fire in the fireplace wavered in a draft. A chill crawled up my neck. Something was wrong…

 

I dove out of the chair and to the left as an enormous ghostly claw passed through the chair, its talons where my heart had been a split second before. I reflexively clenched my fist to bring up Sarah’s new shield as a second strike came from above, deflecting off of it.

 

The stylus I had spotted on the table was suddenly moving, tapping the screen. A robotic voice sounded from it. “Good reflexes. Good adaptability. You came ready. Mr. Kithkin, you are off to a good start today.”

 

“Doctor Rogers, I presume? I will admit, not the interview I thought I was walking into.”

 

“You offer a team of Delvers, an entire guild, and didn’t expect this? Disappointing.” The fire burned down lower. It was harder to see. “Anybody can offer the skills for those positions. I see them every day. I have since before I left my body behind. Convince me to hire your bunch.”

 

The fire snuffed itself out, I immediately ducked and raised the shield in the suddenly-dark room. A metallic clang told me that the sword which had been hanging on the wall just bounced off of it. It would not have bounced off of my flesh. “Fine, that’s how you want to play it.” I called on Gloria’s ability and lobbed a Firebomb into his fireplace. I don’t care how badly he wanted to snuff it, that burned like napalm and would stay lit for a while. “You’re a Poltergeist, bound to something here. It’s why nobody ever gets to see you. If I judge correctly, it’s either a sheet of paper on your desk or one of your books. So here’s the deal. Every attack I have to dodge or block means I light one of your bookshelves on fire. One of them will find what your soul is stuck to, then I ask your boss for your suddenly-vacant position.”

 

There was absolute, utter silence. 

 

“You asked for a Delver solution, Doctor. What you forgot was that I lead a Guild of Surface Hunters. We find problems and assault them without quarter. Any hesitation means people die, starting with us.”

 

In the dim light of the fireplace, an icy blue light coalesced into a vague approximation of a person. A hissing, breathy kind of voice came from it. “You are… refreshingly direct. Tell me, Jeremiah. One thing, before this interview ends.”

 

“What is it?”

 

“Why did you give up your name? Kithkin is hardly typical… at least, not until five years ago. You took up a new name, severed yourself from your past.”

 

The dam holding that piece of memory back from my conscious mind held fast. “Only one person in the world needs to know that, and she already does.”

 

“So it goes, I’m afraid. Fine. Tell your team to move upstairs to your new apartment. Cycle them through onboarding. We will begin scheduling your talents as necessary. You will, of course, be allowed and expected to respond to monster attacks.” The cold figure dissipated. The door swung open. I walked out, shaking.

 

Emily was there. She gave me a hug. “How did it go?”

 

“I threatened to light his office on fire. He gave us the positions. Probably the oddest interview I’ve ever been in.”

 

“Probably? What could compete with that?”

 

“You’ve obviously never dealt with senior security analyst interviews. Let’s go, we have a lot to move.”

 

Getting back to Emily’s apartment with news that we were to immediately move upstairs kicked off another massive flurry of activity as we got ready to take things to the new place. Up on the sixth floor, just below VIP places, was our new home. Meant to hold a family with teenaged children, we had three distinct bedrooms and good closet space. It was heaven.

 

Lucy was mad that I had gotten into a fight, and that I was doing a lot of the hauling. Thing is? I was one of two people present with access to pockets of space I didn’t have to physically carry. Thus, Amber and I ended up doing a lot of going up and down stairs and elevators to get everything moved. Gloria claimed kitchen setup, Sarah the equipment storage closet, and Lucy the bedrooms. Whitney took Emily to get the last bits from the old apartment. You know, what we got distracted from when we found a demon in the kitchen.

 

As you might expect, that took all day. The new place came with basic furnishings. We were not, to put it lightly, a basic arrangement of folks. This was more than twice the room we were used to having as a group. That didn’t make it especially spacious. In the end, one of the bedrooms got two queen beds in it as the “sleeping room”, the other lined with various dressers as a “changing room.” Everyone present had seen everyone else naked, and enjoyed it, so the only room that was really offset was the Master Bedroom. I was expected to be there, along with whomever was topping me off. 

 

Lucy was still the one getting my snuggles overnight, but she gave in and admitted that some of the others might want cushion under them while getting railed. It was easier now that it wasn’t on our nuptial bed. Today, two of the ladies got over 95%, so after a pause for lunch I found myself positioned behind Amber. We had sent her to acquire the keys for us, and it proved to be an enormously powerful gift. Her system had opened up and taken a gulp from the building manager almost without his realizing it. 

 

“I have more support than most like this, and I’m rapidly becoming literally designed for anything you want to do to me, so don’t worry!” She had, in fact, continued to change over time. Her breasts were getting bigger, her hips more broad, her muscles better defined. It was all aesthetic, none reflected in her Ten, but man was it ever an aesthetic. She was holding herself on all fours… er, sixes?… as I pounded into her from the back. I could feel with every stroke, her vagina was literally designed to perfectly sheathe me, and given that one of my favorite parts of having sex at all was feeling my partner climax often and hard, well, she was having a much better time than she could remember ever receiving before. We finished, and left the room to help the others keep setting up. 

 

Lucy looked up at me and simply stated “I should be so lucky next time. Seven?” 

 

Given that the team was working well together, with clear jobs, and happily applying every applicable Class ability to the task, getting everything at least roughly where it belonged was a job of only a few hours. While Gloria was christening the new kitchen by starting dinner, assisted by Lucy and a distracted-seeming Amber, Whitney almost literally dragged me to bed.

 

“I’ve swallowed multiple loads from you and seen you plow almost everyone here. It’s my turn to be the one walking funny for once, so strip!”

 

I did mention she could be direct, right? With a Strength rating high enough to be able to juggle me, she almost literally threw me down to the ground, pulled off my pants and underwear, and mounted me for her pleasure. She let me do exactly nothing, every time I tried she would grab the offending limb and none-too-gently push it back to the ground. When she came, the force of her contractions was enough to cause pleasure and pain to mix, pulling a matching orgasm out of me.

 

I was tired. Three times in under 24 hours wasn’t a record for me (even if you included the fight), but I was still recovering. I slowly cleaned up and she got herself back together and headed out, wobbling only slightly. I checked my Status screen again, sure enough my SP was getting pretty perilous. A couple of other things caught my eye, though.

 

First: I was certainly making rapid progress on the Abilities I had acquired from the ladies. Even accounting for the heavy use I was putting them through (especially that workhorse Regeneration, which hadn’t gotten a rest since I picked it up), they were way ahead of where they should be. That wasn’t all, either, I was well over 10% in my Progress towards level Ten in my class, and given that I had only had one real fight since leveling that could only mean that the sex itself was progressing me. My Hunger was also doing well, registering 18%. It was still draining faster than usual but nowhere near the burning pace from my near death experience… um, experiences. 

 

More data. The percentage marker next to my Health had never gone above zero before, the only one that refused to. Now, though, since acquiring Amber, it was at 16%. That didn’t make sense? If they were ticking up when I had fun with an Acquired lady with that as a Class Attribute, why hadn’t that? And why had my Charisma shot forward so fast that it rolled over? Maybe it had to do something with my own scores.

 

Dinner itself was a comfortable time. The food (a stir fry that utterly ruined me for Chinese takeout forever) was just the setting. We planned, we chatted, we bribed Nibbles into laps, we flirted. We breathed.

 

“So, Jay, how’s your Hunger doing?” Lucy seemed intent on this.

 

I glanced again. “Seventeen percent. Draining about twice as fast as my normal, but that’s still enough for a few days at the current rate.”

 

“Okay. Well, I need to do a bit of math, then.” She was actually doing it. Applying algebra to my sexual exploits. With a pad and pencil. “Let’s see, about every other day for each of us, means about three daily for you, minus two for maintenance, divide 83 by that… about twelve? Alright.”

 

“Dare I ask what you just mathed out?”

 

“I talked with Emily. The best way for you to get back on your feet is to make sure all of your meters are at max, and keep them as close to it as possible. The way I see it, that includes your Hunger. So we will be working as a team. I just did the math for how long it is going to take us to ride you to a full tank for the first time in your life.”

 

I stared. “Oh… kay… I’ll make sure to stay hydrated and eat a lot the normal way, my SP is going to be utterly shot at that pace.”

 

She pitched an eyebrow at me. So did Emily, who added “I happen to know you have demonstrated the ability to do that in an hour, then walk away with a smile. That was the baseline, more will happen if we are charged up enough for it.”

 

…oh. Oh! Well, if I have to be dropped into a teenage fantasy, so be it. “I’m assuming that is going to be alongside onboarding at the hospital and helping the twins get started?”

 

Gloria quirked her head. “Twins? Someone else joining the Guild?”

 

I laughed. “Not like that. I didn’t quite get around to it yesterday, but I subcontracted a couple of teenagers from a different guild. Social media managers, we went viral from that chase so they’re making sure we can message things right.”

 

Gloria squeaked. She actually, legitimately squeaked. “Oh, that sounds amazing! Can I… be the person on our side for it?”

 

I just had a hunch. A quick search for her name found a few blogs and social media accounts. Pictures, videos, writings. I would never have known. “I really should have asked you first, huh? Well, now I know, and three is better than two. You go ahead and interface with them first thing tomorrow, I need to call them to visit our new place anyway. Anyone who isn’t occupied at the hospital needs to be talking to them so we get ourselves properly set.

 

*PING*

 

I pulled up my Status reflexively, found nothing, and realized my phone had updated overnight. There was a text from Chaske. 

 

“Accounts all set! Just need pics/bios!”

 

I asked if they were available the following day to come by to fix all of that. They weren’t in the morning due to class (right, college, that thing), but the afternoon would be. 

 

“Oh, and take a look at the accounts! Trust me, but only look.” There were a bunch of little pictures after it which I had as much hope of decoding as I did Hieroglyphics. 

 

I’m an experienced professional. Do you have any idea how much “trust me” scares me? Still, I glanced at it. The pages had followings now, enough for them to be abbreviated with a letter K. On all of them. Even the ones I hadn’t heard of before yesterday. The crowdfund site had ten times as many people on it now, and comments asking for bios and videos of fights. So far, the only full bio and photo up was mine. Made sense, they got my info directly yesterday, and they knew what to leave vague. The twins had introduced themselves in brief, and promised another bio each day.

 

“Huh. Okay. The twins will be over tomorrow. Everyone needs to be here after lunch to make sure you get interviewed and set up what you want them to say about you. Plus pictures. Um, let’s see. Lucy, Whitney, Sarah, you three come with me to see the hospital onboarding first thing in the morning. Back here to eat, then play it by ear?”

 

They acknowledged. This was going cleanly, more so than even the best teams I had been on. No arguments, smooth integration with very little time to get familiar, essentially no infighting despite more than one potential point for it. While I was thankful for it and didn’t want to look a gift horse in the mouth, I was getting the feeling that its teeth were filed. I understood Amber integrating so smoothly, but that was a literal Wish-powered transformation. There had to be another external influence of some kind.

 

The possibilities were a very, very narrow list. Most of them started and ended with me, personally, despite not consciously invoking any such thing. Even as we finished dinner, and Sarah was taking me by the wrist to the bedroom, I knew this particular conversation was going to be a difficult one to have. Lucy deserved to know, first. I promised her, as soon as I knew I would tell her. We would lay it out for the others as soon as we figured out roughly the theory.

 

I could only hope this wouldn’t shatter this precious and wonderful thing we had begun to build. As I thrust into Sarah, though, I knew for fact that trying to conceal it would lead to nothing but pain and ruin, even if it extended the brief period of bliss before the storm.