Capture Target

Okay!  Now we… uh…

…J-just a moment here…

…No, did that… covered that… got an A… Aha!  Wait, fuck, we did the more thorough version…

…No, no, nope, no, done, redundant, not required…

…Hey, I don’t suppose you’d be up to swap bodies for a bit?

…Yeah, thought no.

Hokay, then, uh…

…

That’s it.

I’ve got nothing.

I mean, nothing left to teach you.  What you have is sufficient -- more than, actually, I wanted to be thorough -- and what’s left goes into minutia that would be confusing, or is related specifically to being me, in my body.

So, uh.

…Yeah.

…I guess we just… move on to storytime…? 

---

Right, uh.  Yeah.  Last time -- yeah.

…I was still feeling the effects of my addictions -- settle, for lack of a better word, a week later.

It was a strange sensation, feeling what I enjoyed become even more enjoyable, what was essential to my days becoming essential to my body.  Not an unpleasant one, but a strange one.  Slow enough that I could easily miss it, but fast enough that every time slot I felt like a new ‘me’.

It really made me think.  I had changed -- so much, since I first arrived at MISSY.  I wondered if I would even recognize myself, and… didn’t think I would.

I wasn’t sure how to feel about that.

That’ll actually come up, later.

Because things were about to get out of our control.  

---

While me and my allies were busy every day trying to get every scrap of an advantage that we could, practically diving through garbage cans for spare gun parts, our enemies weren’t sitting idle.  Unbeknownst to us, the City of Alchemists was preparing for something massive, and the chief god…

…Honestly, the best way to put it is how Argenta, apparently, put it for Modesty millenia ago.

‘Never get complacent regarding our Lord God.  He's an idiot, yes… and that's exactly the reason why you should never trust him to do what you expect him to do.'  

We were running around the final landmass, making a mess of the Kingdom in the process, reality bugs were everywhere and the Evil God of Chastity and Purity was about to rise up from the ocean.

Until this point, the chief god had done nothing.  He’d just been enjoying his own porn, watching the world he made work out like he intended it to.

So, naturally, we assumed that he would still be doing nothing.  Past behavior predicts future performance, right?

Well.  Yes.

But also no.

Technically, he didn’t do anything to make things worse.  Arguably, he did even less than we expected, which should have been a good thing!

…Except, uh, it wasn’t.  It really wasn’t.

According to Modesty at the time, presuming that everything went right… I got a shard from the chief god and all three from the evil god of Chastity and Purity, the mission for Pandora went well, things like that… the final vote, presuming Argenta betrays the chief god, would be one in our favor.

We would win by one vote.

Just one shard.

If Argenta, with her two shards, didn’t betray the chief god, then we’d be losing by three -- but as it was, her votes would be the critical ones.

But that one vote was predicated on everything going perfectly.

So, naturally, as the rules of every reality seem to dictate --

-- something went wrong.  

---

See, after that week spent adjusting to and obtaining my new addictions, the chief god summoned me to his -- eurgh -- ‘man cave’.  Goddesses above, I wish he wasn’t so hot, it’s demeaning to slobber over him!  In a bad way!

Anyway, he summoned me for the ‘So You Want To Be A Goddess’ talk.

Only… it didn’t exactly go as planned.

First off, I, uh, didn’t have all twenty-seven blessings.  I only had twenty-six.  I was still missing Chastity’s.

Second off -- well.  He decided to forgo the ‘test’.

The ‘test’ being how he usually inducts new goddesses into his ‘divine harem’:  By determining how loyal they are.

…By fucking them for as long as they can last, and then longer, and saying they passed if he had enough fun.  

I was prepared for that.  I was, frankly, looking forward to that -- it would have been a great test of my endurance!

But he decided it wasn’t necessary.

Why?

…Because, as he said, I was the ‘one in charge’.  The one ‘leading the forces’.  The ‘unifying factor’.  The ‘hottest pair of tits in the Kingdom’ and the ‘only bimbo for the job’.

At least, I was regarding the Evil God of Chastity and Purity.

I was the one that brought everybody together, I was the unifying factor, and so when the Evil God of Chastity and Purity was destroyed -- I would be there to obtain the three shards that it would hold within its being.

And in the chief god's words, ‘You get your shards, I keep my shards, everybody wins!’

Except no!  No, that wasn’t part of the plan!

By having him just not do what he’s done twenty-seven times in the past, means that our vote count -- with Argenta -- went from one in our favor, to one in his favor!

I didn’t express that at the time, of course.  I knew well that any panic I had could wait until later.

I was just a happy bimbo ditz that of course was in favor of anything the hot guy said!  Why would I think anything different?

…Okay just because it’s a hot act doesn’t mean that it wasn’t an act!  I can see that smug look still!  It’s in your mind, don’t think I don’t know!

Hrmph!

Regardless, even with that revelation -- and it was one I needed to inform Modesty of as soon as possible -- he still asked if I wanted to get fucked by ‘the god of men, the ultra cock, the legendary Dick Dickus Supremus’.

….Though he had a lot more dramatic posing and shouting when he told me his name than I did just now, the words and impression were the same.

I couldn’t bring myself to say no, which is -- something I actually regretted.  I knew it was just his aura that was messing with me, but I just wanted it so badly that I thought with my pussy instead of my head.  Again.

And that delayed me in getting the information to Modesty.

In the end it didn’t matter that much, but I didn’t know that at the time.  It’s just -- I felt bad, you know?  I had something important to do, and I blew it off for sex with that guy.

…To make matters worse, the sex wasn’t even that… good.

Oh, physically, there was nothing quite like it.  He was the god of my reality; he always knew, or could know, what to do to make me scream in pleasure.  How to hold my orgasm back by a single thread of hair.  And if he didn’t, he could just change my body until he did.

But there was no -- It was artificial.  Everything about it was fake.  The tension of the sex, the rise and fall, was almost mechanical.  As if the chief god had downloaded ‘top sex skills dot exe’, and never bothered to use it for anything other than its most basic setting.  Even my own emotions felt… 

Fake?  It's -- okay this is going to sound weird, but they felt brainwashed, I guess?  I don't know.  Bad, empty, shallow brainwashed.   

I had learned from my time in MISSY that the best sex comes when your emotions are as strong as your sensations.  

It didn’t matter how physically skilled the chief god was; I felt nothing for him, he made no attempt to make me feel for him, so the sex was just… empty.

It was fine.

But nothing more.

And I kind of hate that that was what delayed me from informing Modesty of his decision.

…At least I got the final blessing I needed shortly afterwards.

[Rare Blessing:  Chastity’s Gift -- Elizabeth Variant -- Bimbo]
[Requirements:  Convince our Lord God that you would best be put as goddess of Bimbos.]
[Effects:  For every name you go by -- birth, nick, assigned or granted -- you may now have a separate aura that adjusts how everybody perceives you.  Under one, you’re a reliable coworker, but on another, you’re a useless slut!  These perceptions are per-aura and per-individual, so work to obtain the reputations that you want!]

So there was that.

Yay.  

---

Modesty’s reaction was -- um.  Delayed, I guess.

Don’t misunderstand, I went to her right away.  The moment after the chief god was done with me, I half ran, half stumbled towards her temple, hoping that she’d realize I was looking for her quickly.

I had every intention of informing her as soon as I could.  This was important.  The math for our vote was suddenly off, and we needed to fix it as soon as possible, or at least figure out a new plan to keep MISSY stable -- somehow -- long enough to figure out a solution.

Fortunately, Modesty did realize, when I was a block away from her temple, where I was heading.

Unfortunately, she didn’t exactly give me time to ‘speak’.

There was an emergency Argenta situation going on, and I needed to deal with it.

Which was just -- a fantastic addition to what was going on.

I did try to tell Modesty what the chief god told me, I tried to, but she was clearly panicked by what was going on.  She kept running over my words, not letting me get a word in edgewise if it wasn’t an agreement or a question.

Which -- well, honestly?

…It was kinda a fair reaction.

Turned out that Argenta had shown up on the fifth landmass, with an entire army from her City of Alchemists, and they were taking down the walking monster-cauldron problem hex before anybody even realized they were there.

And as I was the only one on Modesty’s side with a ‘better than terrible’ relationship with Argenta, I had to be the one to ask her what the fuck she was doing.

Because, seriously.

That was not the time to start causing problems! 

---

There’s something important to note here:

While we were exploring the fifth landmass starting from the continent, the alchemical army was exploring it, but starting from the ocean.  While we were looking for the Problem Hexes, they were looking for them, too -- or, well, uh.  A specific one.

Specifically, the one with the massive, living alchemy cauldron.

And while I was having my brains fucked out by the chief god, they had managed to find it, and destroy it.  All to get one item:  Argenta’s first Alchemical Codex.

Or, well, that’s what it’s technically called.  It doesn’t actually have much to do with alchemy.  What it is is her ‘MISSY bug notebook’.  It’s where she stored all she knows about the massive bug the first five goddesses were going to use against the chief god, along with key elements that allowed her to use them.

Bugs like what allowed her to appear in the fifth landmass herself, without needing to worry about hexes or barriers or anything like that.

As the designated ‘crazy goddess spokesperson’ of our entire colition, I was the one that rushed towards her to ask her what the fuck she was up to.  She was standing right near what I quickly identified as the arrival hex for the Evil God of Chastity and Purity, and reality itself was feeling increasingly -- flimsy, as she did… something, while reading her codex.

Her answer was… to say it was ‘worrying’ would put it lightly.

To be more precise, her answer was, and I quote, ‘I’m speeding up the clock, so I brought some volunteers to help make up the difference’.

This was a very, very, very scary thing for her to say.

My mind kinda -- blanked out, for a few moments.  It flatlined, as I processed that.  Because there was only one ‘clock’ I was aware of that an army can help with.

By the time I managed to reboot my mind, reality itself was --

…Take a piece of paper.  An average piece, from a printer or whatever.  Now crumple it up into a ball.

Unfold it, then repeat.

Do not rip it, do not tear it, just crumple it up again, and again, and again, until it’s softer than tissue paper.  Tiny holes can be spotted all over it.  flakes of -- paper-stuff -- seem to fall from it like snow when in the right light.

That is what reality felt like.

It was at that point that Argenta seemed to realize I was still, you know.  There.  She said, ‘...I do get you enjoy the whole ditz thing, but you really shouldn’t be here.  You’re welcome for this.’

And then she teleported me a few hexes away, which… uh..

…Frankly I am thankful that she did that, because what Argenta did…

…I won’t call it an ‘explosion’.

To call what happened an ‘explosion’ would both undersell and oversell it.

It was like part of reality suddenly didn’t exist -- and so it dragged something up from somewhere to fill the void.  Except it pulled in too much, and was forced into too small an area, resulting in it exploding out with a loud boom.

It wasn’t an explosion per say.  It was much -- subtler than that, though a ‘boom’ did occur.

It just happened to be much more terrifying than one.

I later learned that several goddesses -- the older ones in particular -- were literally stunned by whatever Argenta did.  It left her a few moments in the chaos, which was just enough time to grab a familiar looking, bright, sparkling shard.

She had a -- ‘satisfied grimace’ is the only way I can think of to describe the expression on her face, before she vanished.

Argenta had just claimed her third shard.

By the time Modesty realized what happened, she was cursing up a storm. 

---

Okay, so.  A lot of things happened in rapid succession -- and I’m not even done yet!  So I’m going to take a step back, and explain things from a more -- knowledgeable perspective than I had at the time.

Trust me, you want this instead of floundering and trying to understand.

So, first off:  The vote.

With the chief god refusing to give me one of his shards, and with Argenta stealing one from the prematurely-revealed Evil God of Chastity and Purity, the math for the shards was off.

Which was bad.

The math needed to work, or there would be no coup -- and with no coup, it was entirely possible the chief god would run MISSY into non-existence.

Now, that combined with the fact that there were no more loose shards, and how the goddesses couldn’t directly help against the Evil God of Chastity and Purity -- for similar reasons to how they have trouble killing each other -- meant that Modesty, once she had a moment to collect all the information and think, changed her goal drastically.

She shifted from helping with the strategy to going to talk to Sevens.

Sevens was an axiomanager; she could decide to stay in MISSY, and by doing so she would, effectively, ‘produce’ an extra three shards.

More than enough for Modesty to feel confident about the vote again.

So that’s that.

Now.

Argenta.

What she used was the original ‘glitch’ in reality that was, initially, intended for the chief god.  He patched it -- mostly -- but he’s terrible at what he does, so there was still something left that she could do.

Of course, doing so heavily damaged reality.

To the point where doing it twice could break everything, and to the point where even doing it once woke up the Evil God of Chastity and Purity early, but doing it once was -- safe -- ish?

Yeah.

Safe-ish.

Very ish.

However, Argenta doesn’t exactly want reality to be destroyed -- so she got volunteers from her City of Alchemists to stay and help the fight against the Evil God of Chastity and Purity.

Which was thoughtful-ish, but in a very -- blind way.

We had plans, plans that if she bothered to pay attention to and learn, she could have worked with.

I mean I guess she tried but the -- those City of Alchemists diplomats she sent the Kingdom were just…!

…Okay.  Imagine the kind of person who, after hearing that your goddess had a second priesthood she founded specifically to do evil things, your goddess gives an ultimatum.  Go with her to her secret city and get personal instruction in alchemy and the secrets of reality, or be abandoned by her with the rest of the world.  

I mean, yes, trusting your goddess is reasonable, but that kind of trust is still a kind of fanaticism!  Imagine the kind of person that accepts that as rote?  Even if they’re otherwise reasonable, the level of faith they have is something extreme.  

Now take that person, fast forward through a couple months of being told they're going to save the world and they're one of the most important people in the world, and then send them as a diplomat to a place where the Front King is somebody whose son is dead because he joined your goddess's cult schemes.  

It… didn't work out.

At least nobody died, I guess, before the City of Alchemists diplomats were thrown out of the palace.  It was all so stupid, the -- it was the Evil God of Chastity and Virtue, we should've been allies, but it just --

Grrr.  Nevermind.

In the end, the army stayed, but only because the Kingdom wasn't in any position to evict them from the fifth landmass.  They stuck around poking at things, gathering materials, and rapidly building fortifications that were clearly intended for plans to fight the First Tentacle Monster.  

In the end, I'm not sure if they helped more than they hurt.

And then…

…Then there’s the Evil God of Chastity and Purity itself.

That’s --

…Haaaa.

…It wasn’t a fun fight.

I’ll get into it, uh… next time.

Or maybe the time after.

We’ll get to it, I promise, just --

-- I don’t wanna.

…Sorry.  And thanks.