Swarming Sovereignty

As Ophelia crested the ridge, a chill ran down her spine. Something strong was nearby, strong enough to make her detection Skills trip. This wasn’t the first or even the fifth time it had happened, but it was something Ophelia had to take seriously every time. Not only was she searching for a cerberus for Nailah, she needed to determine what monsters were along their route, so they could prepare.

She diverted her course, briefly setting aside the map she was making using her body at home as she grabbed another sheet of paper with which she would make notes on the monster. That settled, she followed the directions of her Skills, moving as stealthily as she could. It took her roughly ten minutes to find the monster, and when she did, she couldn’t help but smile widely.

It wasn’t a cerberus, but it was the next best thing; a hydra. They were nasty pieces of work, ones that forced you to approach fighting them differently. And…if she could make the heads into separate bodies like she currently had while maintaining the more…annoying properties of hydras, Nailah would become significantly stronger.

That wasn’t to say she was giving up on the cerberus, though. She definitely wanted to keep Nailah a wolfkin, that was the point of matching, and including a cerberus or, if she was lucky and found a mated pair, two, would almost guarantee that. But she would have to think about that in the future. For now, she had to deal with the Hydra, and that started with identifying it.

That was…about what she had expected. While the stats paled in comparison to Ophelia’s unbound stats, that was somewhat to be expected; the cerberus she had been converted with was extremely powerful, and even were that not the case, she would expect the stats of a cerberus to be greater than the stats of a hydra.

Of course, were she to pick between fighting the two, she would pick the cerberus every time. Much like with Ophelia herself, the stats of the hydra didn’t paint a full picture of how strong it actually was. In Ophelia’s case, she had three bodies, effectively tripling her Mana and Stamina and allowing her to execute team-based tactics alone. In the hydra’s case, it had extreme regenerative capabilities, and instead of dying when its head was cut off or damaged severely, it got stronger.

It was an impressive trick, but it wasn’t perfect. For one, it did nothing against other ways of killing it; if its heart was crushed and kept from regenerating, or if its HP hit zero, it would die. Second, hydras could only support a limited number of heads; once they reached that limit, heads killed would stay dead for quite some time, and massive damage would be dealt to the hydra. This was, of course, a risky strategy; each head grown increased the hydra’s stats, and often you didn’t know what the limit was until you reached it, meaning you’d be dealing with a buffed hydra the whole time you attempted it.

Fortunately, Ophelia was confident that both of these weaknesses could be overcome by the swarm. If they could make the hydra’s extra heads translate to extra bodies…well, that just got rid of the first issue; if the body was killed and wasn’t prevented from regenerating, it would come back.

It might even solve the second issue, too. If it worked like Ophelia’s bodies worked, the other bodies likely wouldn’t take recoil from there being too many bodies, or if they did, the body that was kept safe could be healed back up and there would be no issue.

But she was getting ahead of herself again; she’d have to beat this hydra first. Looking at her own stats, she was, unfortunately, outmatched.

She did, technically, have an edge in most of the physical stats, but the only substantial difference was in Dexterity, and the increased Strength and Defense didn’t mean much when it had so much more HP than her; it would win if they just exchanged blows. Fortunately, she didn’t have to just go blow for blow, and she didn’t even have to go at it with only the one body.

Two of her bodies were currently at home, one teaching a class of kids, and the other making the map. She set aside the map, and wrote out a quick message to Mary on the paper she had been going to use to write details on the hydra. That finished, she grabbed her gear, hurried out of the house, then ran out of the world tree, before activating a Skill, teleporting that body to the one near the hydra. She would have done it at home, but the World Tree seemed to have the dungeon’s innate anti-teleportation property, so she had to get out first.

The teleport itself was one of her newer Skills, and it ate up almost all of her Mana across both bodies, but that was fine; she didn’t have many uses for the Mana, and having the second body to help deal with the hydra was going to be vital. Immediately, she sent a body to get behind the hydra, watching the hydra carefully all the while.

It was big and brown, with a squat body covered in tough scales, on top of which sat five long necks ending in heads full of vicious teeth. It was currently in the process of eating a kill, two of the heads gorging themselves while the other three scanned the surroundings for threats.

Hydras weren’t known for being smart, though, which meant she could outsmart it. Once both bodies were in position, Ophelia sent out the body that was in front of the hydra, drawing the attention of all five heads to it. She began to fight as best she could, dodging attacks from the heads using her superior Dexterity, and occasionally darting in for quick blows against the hydra with her spear.

As she kept it distracted, she began to stack Skills on her other body’s claws, increasing their penetrative power, length, and, most importantly, coating them in fire. The fire was something the cerberus apparently had an affinity for, and it came in rather handy in times like these. While the hydra wasn’t intrinsically weak against fire, the fire would cause burn effects, and that damage over time would prevent the hydra’s regeneration from working.

Once she was satisfied, she carefully lured the hydra into a favorable position, then pounced with her other body, striking into the body where she hoped the beast’s heart was. Unfortunately, she had no such luck, as the damage message didn’t say the strike was a critical hit, but even so it dealt almost ten thousand damage, almost a third of the creature’s health.

In response, one of the hydra’s heads snapped backwards lightning-quick, bending far back and catching one of Ophelia’s arms, the one that had been stuck in its body, in its jaws, teeth glowing for a brief moment before snapping shut, completely severing Ophelia’s arm.

A lance of searing pain ran through her body, forcing a cry of raw pain out of all three of her throats, but she had the opening she needed. Using the remaining arm on that body, she grabbed the hydra’s head, jumped on, and began to excrete modeling wax. The head thrashed about as the wax spread, the hydra’s attention now focused solely on the one head as the foreign substance began to cover more of its body.

All four remaining heads lashed out at the body on top of the other head, Ophelia’s other body completely forgotten. Ophelia jumped off of the head, landing squarely on the creature’s shoulders, while her other body leapt up at the tangle of heads, large globs of modeling wax in her palms. She hit two of the heads, swiftly covering them before moving on to another, while her second body went for the last.

And, finally, the struggles ceased. She got the beast fully cocooned, then began to bandage up her missing arm. It was unfortunate, but Rose could almost certainly regrow it, and, worst case scenario, she would just kill that body and wait a week.

“Mrs. Sylvain, can you hear us?” One of her students asked, bringing her attention back to her third body before she had a chance to celebrate. She…had been in the middle of teaching them, when she suddenly cried out in pain and went unresponsive. The students in the class all looked highly anxious, Anna, Ophelia’s youngest daughter, the most nervous of all.

“I’m fine.” Ophelia said, forcing a smile. “My other bodies were in a fight and I got hurt. I just won, so don’t worry too much, I’ll be bringing the cocoon back as soon as my Mana regenerates.”

“With what, Mom?” Anna asked. “What could hurt you?”

“A hydra.” Ophelia replied. “They’re very dangerous, so never fight one unless you have way higher stats than them, or have prepared very carefully. If you do see one, make sure you come back home immediately and tell a grown-up; they’ll get the people who will be able to fight it and take care of the problem.”

“What’s a hydra?” One of the kids asked.

“Good question. A hydra is a massive monster that grows a new head each time one of its heads dies. They regenerate fast, and are hard to kill. While hydra tracks are pretty similar to most other large predatory monsters, you can generally tell when one is in the area due to their horrible smell…”

Ophelia sat in front of Nailah, Titania, Mary, Lia, Amelia, and Rose, feeling more than a little chagrined. “I didn’t think it would actually be able turn its heads around in time to hit me.” She admitted. “I had almost four thousand points of Dexterity on it, so I figured I’d be fine, but its heads were a lot faster than its Dexterity suggested.”

“Ophelia,” Nailah said hesitantly, “are you sure you’re not pushing yourself too hard? You must admit that this was rather reckless behavior; you could easily have gotten Amelia or Rose to help you.”

“I didn’t want to bother them.” Ophelia said awkwardly. “This is my goal, so it wouldn’t feel right burdening them because of it. Besides, I thought I could take it, and I was right; I even got the bindings removed from everyone but Amelia and Rose!”

Rose sighed, placing a glowing hand on the stub of Ophelia’s arm. A pleasantly warm sensation filled her body, and the stub tingled, followed by the rapid regrowth of Ophelia’s arm. “Ophelia, please ask us next time.” Rose instructed. “We’re more than happy to help out with things like this, and while it might have worked out this time, it might not next time.”

“You should know better than this, dear.” Mary said. “I thought you of all people would be more careful. Just because you’re much stronger now doesn’t mean you’re invincible, and if this goal of yours gets you injured again, I’m not so sure we should follow through with it.”

“Is it that bad to sacrifice for the people I love?” Ophelia countered. “Every time I went out on a dangerous mission before, I did so because I knew it would help protect you all, and this is no different. I can afford to take a bit of a risk, I’ll come back even if I do get both those bodies killed. So…why shouldn’t I want to offer the same to my best friend?”

“I never said you shouldn’t, dear.” Mary replied. “I love Nailah and Titania just as much as you do, but I’m worried for you.”

“That’s right.” Titania said. “We don’t want you to hurt yourself on our account.”

Titania shot Rose a look, and Rose nodded at Lia and Amelia. “We’ll let the four of you talk this out.” Rose said. “Ophelia, next time you fight a powerful monster, get Amelia or myself, and that’s an order, okay?”

There was a pause, then Ophelia nodded. “Understood.” She said.

Rose and her lovers left, leaving Ophelia alone with her wife and her friends. “Um…did we…need privacy for some reason?” Ophelia asked.

Nailah laid a hand on Ophelia’s knee. “Ophelia,” she said slowly, “Mary came and talked to Titania and I the other day.”

“About…?” Ophelia prompted.

“Well…after our foursome the other day, Mary said she wanted to take our relationship further.” Nailah said. “She said she had talked with you about it, too?”

Ophelia couldn’t help but shoot her wife a surprised look. Mary had indeed floated the idea of trying to get together with Nailah and Titania, and Ophelia had said she would be all for it if they were, but she hadn’t actually expected Mary to be this proactive. She knew Amelia had done away with hesitations towards polyamory, she just…hadn’t expected Mary to be so into it. Not that she was complaining, she did love Nailah and Titania, she had once pursued Titania romantically and Nailah had only ever been a compatible sexual orientation and political status away, it was just…surprising.

“Yeah, we talked about it.” Ophelia said. “And I said I’d be willing to give it a go.”

“We said the same.” Titania replied. “And…if we’re doing this, we want to make sure that you’re taking proper care of yourself. Even if you’ll come back from your bodies dying, the experience is no less painful or unpleasant. We heard about what happened in your class today, and we’re worried you’re getting cocky because of your safety net.”

Ophelia looked down. “I…yeah.” She said. “I probably have been.”

“How do you think we could fix that?” Mary asked. “We don’t want a repeat of this.”

“I…could take video of my explorations.” Ophelia suggested. “Or, at least the important parts, I don’t have the Mana to keep recording the whole time.”

“That’s a start.” Mary said. “I’d like recordings of when you go to bed and when you wake up as well, to be sure you’re giving that body enough sleep.”

“And every time you sense a strong monster, I would like to know.” Nailah said. “At least until we can be sure you’ve returned to your old caution.”

“That’ll be soon, then.” Ophelia said, rubbing the arm Rose had just regrown. “I’m not in a hurry to repeat this.”

Nailah nodded in satisfaction. “Good. Now, before we make any decisions on what to do with the hydra, do either of you two want it?” Nailah asked.

“I’m fine with the one body.” Mary said. “I don’t have enough to be doing to warrant more right now.”

“I’m in the same situation.” Titania said. “Please, use it for yourself.”

“I was thinking we’d wait until we had a cerberus for her, try and mitigate the hydra’s influence on her appearance.” Ophelia replied. “And, besides, it’ll make for a more powerful base for the reconversion.”

“I can wait.” Nailah replied. “Take all the time you need.”

“I have just over one hundred experience left before the Skill evolves.” Ophelia replied. “Give me three more days, and I’ll have the cerberus.”

“It could be farther than three days away from us.” Mary pointed out.

“And we just so happen to have an obscenely powerful mage who I’m sure would be willing to teleport me there.” Ophelia countered. “Three days, mark my words.”

“Let’s talk about that later.” Titania said, grabbing Mary and Ophelia’s hands. “For now, I think we should go celebrate our new relationship, what say you?”

Nailah and Ophelia blushed fiercely, but Mary gave a smile. “I’d love to, if everyone else is fine with it.”

“I…yeah.” Ophelia said. “I’d like that.”

Nailah gave a shy nod, and Titania grinned. “What are we waiting for, then?”

Fighterman481

So, I really wasn't sure how fast I wanted things with the four of them to move, and I'm still not totally convinced that it's not too fast, but I decided to send it. They may not have had a lot of on-screen progress, but they have lives outside of what we see, so it's not quite as sudden for them.

Um, I don't really have much else to say, though. Next time we're probably going to deal with Amelia's old family, so look forward to it, I guess.

And, as always, thanks for reading!