Arc 7 Healthy Green Glow, Chapter 1

I lounged about on the junior’s couch still, recovering from having my torso reconnected, or at the least I would like to, however there is a strange person sitting there with the rest of the gang. So for now I crept in the shadows of my room, observing the situation. Physically everything was peachy and I was more or less just using this as an excuse to goof off. Apparently, quite a bit changed while I was out. Which brings me to the unidentified life form that might be taking my place, Gnome. Honestly, I don’t know if I should feel threatened by her presence or not. The vague notion that she was a coo coo bird invading our little nest of herolings came to mind, but the more that I thought about it the more that I realized that I was the coo coo bird that did not belong.

She arrived the day after the Glitter Kitten incident resolved and this was the first time I actually got to get a good look at her. Poking out from her hood she had short sandy, blond hair and by sandy I meant literal sand. Like there were little granules stuck in her hair and every time she moved too quick or scratched her head some would flake off like dandruff. The hair itself had been recently cut, which made her look a little butch. Currently, she was wearing a gray hoodie and sweatpants. Speaking of sweat, she reeked of it since she had just come back from the training room. I don’t particularly know why, but just smelling her was making me a bit antsy. Maybe, I am just nervous?

She glanced my way and I saw the dark blue eyes, they did not look normal. It reminded me of an old veteran’s eyes who had see some shit, lost some good friends, and done some terrible things to survive. Me? I would prefer it to not even get involved with somebody like that. I closed the door wearily, breaking eye contact. I don’t have a suit any more, so I just sat here, alone, in the dark. Sunshine isn’t even paying attention to me, too busy floating around Gnome. I thought we were friends. I glowered, twirling my finger on the ground restlessly.

Am I jealous? That might be what this is. It would explain my current bad mood. When the hell did I turn into such an attention whore? I get the feeling my stay with Glitter Kitten has rubbed some bad influences off on me. I keep having weird lapses where I see things… me doing dirty things. It is not like a fantasy it felt like I was there and really doing it. I might have a vivid imagination, but not to that degree, to taste, and smell and feel everything. Well, besides with Sub, but that is different. I can’t remember doing them though, and Sub has stone walled every time I asked her about it. Something tells me it was her. I am not really mad or anything, just worried. What if it happens again? What if I do things that hurt people next time?

Stop whining. What if this, what if that.

‘But, Sub, I am scared.’

Stop being a bitch. I am here for you.

‘Thanks, Sub. At the least, I know that I will always have you.’

Oh? Is that gratitude I hear? Hey, if you really feel that way, my dick could use some appreciation right about now.

‘Sub! Control yourself. I am not in the mood. My place on the team is being usurped and here you are wanting to bust a nut in my throat. I think your priorities are a bit out of order here.’

I don’t see the problem, replied Sub, coiling around me.

‘Stop trying to seduce me, will you?’

You know I love you and I know you like this. The attention.

‘Now is not the time. We can do that tonight. Help me here. I am really worried.’

Fine, Sub rolled her eyes, separating from me, Remember though, you promised. Tonight we are getting freaky. So what the fuck is the problem? Why are you being so sketchy right now?

‘Sketchy? What are you talking about? That gnome bitch is getting entirely too comfortable with the rest of the team.’

OMG, bitch shut up! Here you are being a creepy stalker, spying on them instead of just walking out there. You are just jelly. Who knows, she might be a nice fucking person! If you would actually look at that bitch you would realize she is shy and the team is poking at her to try and befriend her. Stop being so fucking paranoid, not everyone in the world is out to get us. Hell, most of them don’t even care that we exist. Grow a pair and deal with your problems.

‘That is harsh, Sub.’

Well, it is the truth so deal with it.

‘Don’t you flip this on me. You are usually the paranoid one.’ I did not believe it. Wearily I peered out at her, surrounded by them. Well, she did not look like she was enjoying all the attention. She just sat there with a deadpan look, ignoring them. Wait… then Sub is right, ‘sorry.’

See, trust me, will you?

I nodded a little and Sunshine looked over here. She lit up with glee, waltzing toward me. ‘Uh, oh. I had been spotted. What should I do? What should I do?’

Calm down. You are being a weirdo right now.

‘I am?’

Totally.

I took a deep breath and she opened the door, letting the light stream into the dark room, she smiled, “Nee-san? Why are you hiding? Come on out and meet Gnomie. We should all be the best of friends. She is sharing our room, you know.”

She is? Oh god, she was right! I did notice some random stuff that was not here before. Like that cot bed over in the corner… wait a minute, that is my corner! My nest has been compromised, oh the humanity! Or would it be vespidity, or waspality? At any rate that don’t matter. Here I was thinking that somebody was all nice and bought me a bed. But then that means that I have been sleeping on her bed all day… Oh. Oh man, this is going to be awkward. I was wandering why it smelled like dirt. Wait, why did it smell like dirt? This is just bringing up more questions.

She dragged me out there and everybody seemed cool about my appearance, Squeeze was positively groping me with his eyes. Hey, knock that off will you? Gnome gave me a glance, then she did a double take. Her facial expression, which had been neutral, turned to caution in the form of sharp eyes and a tight scowl. It was such a drastic change that it took me by surprise. After the initial shock, I realized it was kinda cute really. She reminded me of a small animal, trying to look dangerous.

I waved as non-threateningly as possible, “Eh, hey, Gnome. I am Mecha Fairy, rank 5 regenerator. I guess we are going to be roomies.”

That was a lot more awkward than I thought it would be. Ah, shit. Her face hardened even more, looking at my raised hand or rather claws. Oh boy, seems she perceives me as a threat. Wait, then basically we are scared of each other? Although, I am not really scared of her anymore. Then again, I have not seen her power yet, I heard it was strong though. She is a bit taller than Sunshine, but Sunshine is just a shorty so that is not really a good point of reference. Hmm, I guess she is average height. Looks about 5 foot 5 inches. Nevertheless her dimples are absolutely adorable. I kinda want to squeeze her cheeks and hug her. Maybe, we have more in common than I thought? Then again, I know nothing about her really. She might not like that.

“Gnome, rank 6 Geomancer,” she said, quiet as a mouse. If I did not have enhanced hearing I might have missed that. This little thing! It is totally cute and looks so squishy and huggable. Can I pet her? I wanna pet her. Can I dress her up? She would look good in punk rocker stuff or even goth loli dress or at the least that was the feel I was getting from her.

She stared me down. What? Is there something on my face? I patted my face down, nothing feels weird. No giant spider or scurrying cockroach. So we all clear. Wait, what is that? Never mind, false alarm just my wide smile… oh, that would do it. Bad! I slapped myself. Bad Vesper! Don’t you go scaring people.

She looked a little shocked at my behavior, enough so that she actually spoke up, “Why did you hit yourself?”

“Cause, I forgot that I scare people, sorry.”

Sunshine rained glitter on our parade, “Nee-san, Nee-san let’s all be friends with sparkles and rainbows and happy cotton candy clouds!”

Gnome looked at Sunshine like she was crazy, which I will admit she kinda is, so it was understandable. It took her a moment to brush off the glitter that had stuck to her sleeve, “I will pass on that,” she said, standing and leaving us.

Sunshine, you are not helping things here. You might be kawaii as fuck, but that don’t mean everybody likes that. Wait, I thought that she had a whole week to get acquainted with everybody already, except me. Dawh, is she just shy? Let’s see how to get through to shy people? Well, we could try to brute force it. That could go a few ways, either we keep poking her enough that she crumbles under the pressure and lets us into her little world or she would reject us and think we are annoying. I sort of want to pry her little shell wide open and pull her vulnerable little self out. Kinda like a hermit crab. Although, that might hurt her. There are those who just want to be left alone. Damn, this is harder than I thought. Why does making friends have to be so fucking complicated? Oh, right cause I am a monster. I was getting too used to being around other monsters. I mean shit, even they were scared of me. So it is completely and utterly understandable that normalish people would be apprehensive, to put it mildly.

I guess presuming that I am friendship material is over rating myself a bit. Lowered expectations, let’s go! I will aim for acquaintance, I think that is within range. If not, there is always the creepy bug lady under the bed open. We are going to be on a team, so we should at the least get along. Or minimum not shun one another. Well, once I get my new suit I am sure it will be fine. After all, appearances are everything, right? Huzzah superficialism, who cares what is on the inside, what is on the outside matters more. Who cares if you are a total bitch if you look hot? Yeah, fuck society. Speaking of the new suit, I heard Chief had made some upgrades. I wonder exactly what he did to it? I bet it is pretty neat. No telling what stuff he came up with.

Maybe I could sneak down there, to Fire Chief’s engineering bay and see what is up? Seems like a good idea. I stopped myself in front of the door. I probably should not go running around naked. Something tells me I would draw a few eyes. Oh god, what if some of the Fire Station people were at the Sparkle Kat and saw me being a total skank? So embarrassing. I hope nobody saw that. Ugh, I don’t got any clothes! Wait, is that really the problem here? I don’t think a skirt is going to cover up this fugly. Vents it is, I guess. I pried the cover off, getting ready to worm my way through my own personal escape tunnel. I wiggled my abdomen in anticipation. I don’t why, but I certainly do love small dark places. Makes me feel safe. That was when I felt them, the pointed stares.

I glanced over my shoulder, looking back at the four people gawking at me, “What?”

“What the fuck are you doin?” asked Glide.

“I was going to go check out what Chief was up to.”

“Through the vents?”

“Yeah, how else would I?”

“You are being a fucking weirdo,” said Squeeze, though he was not particularly opposed to my, shall we say revealing pose? You are giving me mixed messages here… Ah, he had been looking at my ass. Hey, don’t ogle my abdomen like that. He kept talking and broke my train of thought, “Just go down normally, hell we would go with you.”

“Besides,” said Astro Glide, “There are fans and stuff in there. You might get hurt. The image of a blender comes to mind.”

This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

“I have dealt with those before. You, you guys would?” I asked in disbelief. I mean, I could understand if I was wearing my suit, but I am currently a bug monster, who moon lit as a stripper for one night. For god sakes, they brought me home in a crate with holes punched in it that said “Live Animal” on the side, just to avoid suspicion. I glanced at Sunshine who was laying on the floor, flapping her feet excitedly.

“Sunshine,” I said, looming over her.

“Nee-san?”

“Could you change what I look like with your powers? You know, like make me look human, with some clothes on? Or one of your knights I don’t care,” I asked, staring at her, rolling across the floor. Is that fun? Should I join you? I was very tempted to flop down there with her, but my shag rug was in my room.

“Nee-san wants a Super Mahou Shoujo transformation!? Leave it to Sunshine, desu!” So declared the sparkle obsessed Moon Sailor Scout.

I stopped myself from voicing my doubts, she worries me a little bit, but really what is the worst that could happen? Looks like I was about to find out. Something tells me it would end badly, but I wanted to see where this train wreck was going to take me. Call it morbid curiosity. She posed and did the Moon Sailor V for victory before fist bumping the air, usually two people would do this in sequence right before a magical shounen transformation from the show. The beginning theme came on, Power of Love! Ah, right, I forgot that she could do auditory hallucinations as well.

With a fufu laugh, she twirled and glitter shot everywhere. Gyah! My eyes, oh god, it got in my eyes! Dammit Sunshine, I get that you are excited, but don’t blow your load on people’s faces like that. I was not ready, tell me first if this is going to become X rated! This is how you make people go blind, you know. Why is it sticky? And warm too. This isn’t what I think it is, is it?! Sparkle bukkake, now I have seen it all. This is why we can’t have nice things, Sunshine! What is… what the fuck is going on? The scenery shifted unsteadily, tinting and swirling with a torrent of petals. Slowly it settled down and I looked around uneasily. The pop music had stopped and everybody was looking at me with wide eyes. What? It is spiders, isn’t it. Should I be screaming and running in circles? Please tell me it is not a Space Australia spider. Oh god, does it have a health bar!?

Thankfully, my worries were unfounded. Well, the first thing I noticed was my hands, they were gloved and non clawed. Assuming they could see my face, then they would see my wide eyes. I have hands! Like people hands. Although my suit had hands too, so I should really not be so excited about this. What else changed I wonder? I stared at the mirror by the kitchen wall and what stared back was, well, not me. I appear to have become a bonified Magical Girl complete with crazy black twin tails, tights, and a sailor scout school girl outfit. Naturally, like anything that Sunshine made, my outfit was pink and shiny. It feels kinda like I am submerged in warm goo though. Just going to ignore the implications of that.

Hair, I have hair again! It is so soft and silky. Oh man did I miss having hair. I ran my fingers through the faint strands, it dragged memories to mind. I remember my mom brushing my hair back in middle school, fussing over how I looked for picture day. Makes me a bit sad recalling how close we used to be, before this happened to me. I miss dad ruffling my hair when I felt down. A slight smile crept up my face, how nostalgic. Although, this form was certainly not me, it was much to cute. Actually, it was kinda cartoony with how perfect and soft everything was. Is this perhaps what Sunshine sees me as? Sunshine… don’t do this to me, I might fall in love with you over this type of stuff. Sunshine is best waifu, Rem has nothing on her. Hmm, I wonder if they make Sunshine body pillows? It would not be the weirdest thing I have made. Then again, I got the real thing.

So she could actually do this? I figured that she could only make things, not alter the appearances of things that already exist. Wait, that is right, her costume is made up of her power, well most of it anyway. Really, it should not be that surprising, this is only an illusion. For instance, though I appear to be wearing a helmet, when I feel around I find my elongated skull. This is still really useful, I mean being able to alter appearances whenever and however she wants, certainly has merits. We could easily infiltrate places if she ever got over the Moon sailor obsession. There might be a problem though, how taxing is this on her powers? I wonder how long the range on this is or how long she can keep it up? I should probably sit down with her and figure out all of her capabilities at some point.

You know, I kinda wish she had used this on me before I met Gnome. Maybe then I would have gotten a more favorable impression. Then again, I feel like it would be lying to her. So it was probably better to just get the bug out of the closet from the outset rather than hiding what I am. At the least now, she knows what she is dealing with. So if and or when she does decide to open up to me it won’t be based on a lie. At any rate, no use thinking about that now. What is done is done. Looking like this I could certainly get away with walking around, I mean, if anybody asks we could just say I am one of Sunshine’s illusions.

I really like this skirt though, it is just long enough to cover everything and yet just short enough to tantalize people’s hopes to see beneath it. Of course the leotard is waiting to dash said hopes, then again, it is a pretty nice combo and some people might find it even more of a turn on. Sunshine surprisingly knows about sex appeal. This power is seriously cheating though. Cosplayers the world over would boo and hiss at somebody who could instantly and perfectly recreate a character. It makes all our hard work and long hours of slaving away to get it just right meaningless. Well, not like she is ever going to break into the cosplay scene so I don’t think it would be a problem.

With my self image crisis over with there was nothing holding us back from venturing forth down into the deep dark workshops on basement level four. Still though, this illusion was strange. It felt like it was alive, wriggling, squirming all over my carapace. So this is what Sunshine’s love feels like? I smiled to myself as we stood in the elevator making our way down. At the least that is how I rationalized it. I found it pleasant, this might become habit forming. Hmm, wait a minute. Sunshine is like almost always surrounded by her power and it feel like this… then wouldn’t that mean that she is basically a closet pervert, exhibitionist? I mean, if I tried, I could easily get off to this. My eyes opened wide, staring at her in a new light. Sunshine might be more of a pervert than I am, or maybe I am just a super pervert and blowing this out of proportions, corrupting something that is innocent. Get your mind out of the gutter Vesper!

My head rocked side to side with the elevator music. It took only a few tens of seconds for us to arrive and the movement stopped as the doors opened. Come to think of it, this was the first time I had been to the Fire Station’s mecha workshops. I had been to the one in the HQ, but I think that this one is supposed to be bigger. I mean this is Fire Chief’s main haunt. The corridors were the same as ever, cold metal polished to a shine surrounded us as we walked along. The low dings of metal being hammered and hydraulics pistoning reverberated through the walls. The crackle of welding sizzled and sent shivers down my spine. Although, it was rather low so I might be the only one hearing it. There were quite a few branching hallways, I get the feeling I would be lost without the guys. Good thing I did not go it alone. At last, we arrived in front of Fire Chief’s engineering bay. The blast doors were a give away. The problem was they were closed at the moment.

We stood outside like lost children. The security camera turned, watching us. I waved excitedly and after a few moments a weird light blinked on over by the door. Curious, I stood in front of it, eyeballing it. The terminal reminded me of Hal from A Space Odyssey, with its black sleek rectangular shape and the deep red optical thingy. I wonder if this thing has an AI? I started poking at it, which it did not like. A light slowly went up and down my body. Is it scanning me? There was a quiet beep and the light flashed. After a short delay the door opened up. Well, at the least it did not start saying, “I can’t let you do that Vesper.” That would just be weird and creepy. How the fuck you know my name?!

What awaited us inside was a wonderland of mecha stuff. It was all pretty cool, but I had no clue what the fuck any of it was. I mean, I had seen my fair share of mecha anime, but the real thing was a bit different. Suits were lined up on conveyors, lifting them off of the ground several feet. It had a sushi bar feel what with how they rotated slowly, granted the selection was a little bland. They were all more or less the same, Cyber Swat suits or Cyber Fire suits. There were only a few differences in the designs. Cyber Fire suits looked a lot like the typical fire suits that are commonly used. The helmets were of the same layout with gas masks built in, albeit much more sturdy. These had tanks on the backs filled with various things I could assume it was the special powder stuff used to kill fires or it might even be a foam. They were a bit bulky and the arms had built in jaws of life directly under the mechanical hands, on top was the hose that shot the contents of the tank. The overall color scheme was red with yellow and black stripes.

Cyber Swat suits were very similar to riot gear, however, they had more armor plates and seemed to focus on defense. On the left side, they sported shields of some sort of clear material. On the right they had a variety of weapons, but the common ones seemed to be stun batons, tasers built into the hands, and flash bang grenade launchers on the shoulders. The heads looked rather tactical with gas mask fused with domed helmets. These suits were bigger than the Fire Fighter ones and I could easily tell why, they were meant to deal with more danger, IE Supers. The overall color scheme for these was a navy blue with black stripes. Also, I suppose that the siren light on the left shoulder should be mentioned.

The man in question, Fire Chief, was no where to be seen. Well, he has to be here somewhere. I can’t imagine that he would let us in to mess up the place if he was not here. For now, I resisted the urge to poke at things. It was very tempting, I mean there were so many buttons on things, especially that big red one over there, on the wall next to all the expensive electrical looking stuff, the one that says “Do Not Push.” You know, that thing is just asking for it. I wanna touch it. No, no, no I would get in trouble. What was that thing I saw a while back? How to not be a protagonist, don’t push weird buttons or open strange boxes and don’t eat food given to you by strangers. Also, there was that thing about not having weird hair. Uh, oh. I got weird hair right now. Am I, am I doomed from the start!? Well, if I was some stupid anime character I would have pressed that button… Oh god dammit! Sub!

Bottom righty had snuck on over and started jabbing the button. I did not notice it since it was covered by the illusion. Oh no, oh no! I pulled back the hand and wrestled with her over control. The lights flickered and finally, plunged the room into darkness. Things jarred somewhere off to the side and what sounded like a crash resounded in the dark. It was around the corner so I could not see the source of the sound. Oh man, I goofed. Sunshine started glowing and I did too, since I was a magical girl at the moment. Everybody was giving me dirty looks. It was not me!

‘We are going to have a long talk about this later.’

It is your fault for ignoring me, said Sub with a stingy face.

‘Hey, none of that now! I spoil you too much. I gargled your mayo like two days ago.’

Two whole days ago.

‘Besides, I let you tentacle rape me. Every damned hole, I even made extra holes just for you.’

It is not rape if you enjoy it! Besides, you were begging for it. Remember? The safety word was Bacon.

‘You are the one who pounced me while I was sleeping. That is not the point stupid! I promised that we would do stuff already, why are you acting up?’

I don’t like being ignored.

‘You are lonely again? Come on Sub, you know I love you. Who is my Subby wubby?’

I am, she said a little stubbornly. It was cute how reluctant she was.

‘See, so just wait for now. I can’t spend all my time with you, you know?’

That seemed to get through to her. Maybe now I can salvage this.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” asked Squeeze.

I sulked, “I didn’t do it on purpose, I eh, I brushed up against it.”

“Well, turn it back on.”

I pushed it again and the lights came back on. The conveyor started moving the suits again. The computer beside me flickered to life streaming with strings of code. This thing was not on before… I stared at it all. Everything seemed rather fragmented and looked kinda like mumbo jumbo to me. I can’t make heads or tails of this stuff. Maybe Disk would know, seems up his alley. Reminds me of that time I saw Dr. Arbor’s computer. Igh, just remembering that gives me the willies. All those half formed monsters in tanks. A hand clapped onto my should.

I screamed, “Jesus on ice skates!” nearly jumping out of my carapace.

I spun around, throwing the hand off and there was Chief, with a very disapproving look on his face, “Who the hell pushed that button?”

Everybody pointed at me, even Sunshine. Don’t sell me out like that guys! “My bad. You should really put glass over that thing you know.”

“Who the hell are you by the way?” he said, looking me over.

“It is me, Vesper. I had Sunshine use her power to make me not stand out. You can stop now, Sunshine,” I said and after a few moments the illusion faded leaving me exposed.

“Duly noted. So why are you guys down here?” he asked, eyeing me a bit harshly. Come on Chief, did I fuck up that badly? Ok, ok, ok, I won’t touch anything.

“Well, I wanted to see what you were up to,” I said, rubbing my head.

“Oh, right your new suit. I was going to show you today, wasn’t I?” he replied a little out of it.

Is something wrong with him? Lack of sleep maybe? Fufu, the missus probably got wild last night or something. Nah, he was likely up all night tinkering with Mechas. Knowing this guy, he probably got so caught up it was dawn before he knew it. At any rate, it is likely nothing, so I shoved it to the back of my mind before things started to take a weird turn again. Better safe than sorry. No telling where the gutter known as my imagination will sweep that to.

We walked along to a far corner, away from the near assembly line of lower grade suits. I really am special aren’t I? Hehe, Chief really does care. Otherwise, there would be no way that he would spend so much time making me my own personalized suit. There she was, my new suit and oh boy was she a beauty. Are those… Oh, Mi God. Wings, it has fucking wings! Christmas came early. Is it my birthday? I guess I owe Chief a mouth hug or two, it is really the least I could do. This thing is awesome, it looks so cool too… cat face? I stared at the face plate and there was a lit up acronym of the old cat smiley face. There were even whiskers. What the fuck. I mean it is kinda cute, but it is weird. I thought I was supposed to be a fairy, not whatever the hell this is.

“Chief… eh, I don’t mean to sound ungrateful, but what is the deal with the cat face?” I asked, pointing at it.

He looked at it for a moment, “Oh that. It had a positive reaction with polling, so we went with it. People found it more friendly than a faceless plate. Especially among the children.”

“Wait, wait, wait, children? I am not role model material. I curse all the fucking time and I am rude, and lewd. Clearly, I am not fit for that.”

“Clearly, you need to clean up your act.”

“Oh for fuck’s sake. What are you going to be sending me to schools like Scruff McGruff? Am I supposed to take a bite outta crime?”

“Well, it is not happening right away, but there is something of an image campaign scheduled for sometime later this month. Right after we clean out the sewers.”

“I don’t think that will end well.”

“Don’t worry about it. You will be with the other Juniors. Just keep your mouth shut and play with some kids.”

I grumbled, “Guess there is no helping it.”