MGS Chapter 27: Let's Clear Some Things Up

Aldon and I darted at full speed to the patch of earth immediately outside of Tater Town's imaginary borders, just outside the locus of all the surrounding farmland. It was a distressingly short jaunt, and it was even more unsettling to know that Darkmaw was comfortable approaching so near to the Sanctuary without a thought to hesitate. Was I that unthreatening? Last time I'd seen her, I left her in pretty bad shape, as I recalled.

Worry singed at me as she came into view, sitting in Great Wolf form, glowing eyes fixed on me. And then Aldon. And then back at me.

"What do you want?!" I shouted. "You dare to come here in broad daylight, threatening my home? Speak!"

She shifted almost instantaneously into her human form. It might've been the first time I got a good look at her in broad daylight. She looked to be a flawless woman in her thirties, with wide, sexy hips, and evenly tanned skin. 'Olive' seemed an apt descriptor. Her breasts were heavy but perky, likely owing to the obvious muscles she possessed throughout her feminine figure. To that end, her hips were wide and her thighs were thick and loaded with rippling muscularity as well. Her long, lovely raven-black hair extended wildly down to her lower back. The only lingering wolf features were paws and claws in place of her hands and feet as well as a fluffy wolf tail and wolf ears. All black.

Her yellow eyes gazed at me in a look that signaled some degree of disappointment. She stood in silence for a moment, her gaze flitting between Aldon and me, confusion in her expression, too. "Who is he?" she asked. "I don't like this."

"I bet you don't!" Aldon said, and he uttered some strange, alien sounding words and a lancing beam of green light shot at Darkmaw which she took on the shoulder without a blink.

"Tell him to go away," Darkmaw said to me.

"Why the hell would I do that?" I growled. "I'm defending my territory, and he's here to help."

She frowned. "Oh. I'm not here to fight today, Apex Hero."

I tensed up. Not here to fight? The fuck was she after? I cast a sideways glance at Aldon, and he, too, was clearly captivated.

"What do you want?" I growled at her, ready to shift into my bloodthirsty unicorn form if necessary. "If I hear a single threat against one my girls, you're dead."

She... pouted. Even from her distance, I could see her lip curling outward at me in protest. "Tell him to go away," she whimpered, nodding at the goth wizard.

"Absolutely not."

"I just wanted..." she sighed. "Tell him to cover his ears." Her voice was finding its power again.

Aldon looked at me, maybe for permission to cover his ears, but mostly in blank confusion. I shrugged. He clasped them shut. "This is insane," he mumbled. I couldn't offer much in the way of disagreement.

Darkmaw spoke quietly. "I was wondering if you wanted to play."

The breath that I didn't realize I was holding was let out in a single exhalation of surprise. "Play!?" I exclaimed in shock.

"Shhhh," she said, furrowing her brow. "We shouldn't let everyone know we're falling in love. Neither of us have a single companion that would understand."

I almost shit my pants. "We're what?!"

"Send him away." There that was again. "I am not interested in him. I am only interested in the Apex Hero."

"He's an Apex Hero, too," I said, correcting her, unsure why I was bothering.

"He's not my Apex Hero," she growled. This time she begged. "Please, hero. Please! Send him away. Let's play in the forest!" She was like a broken fucking record.

This was starting to sound weirdly sad. "There is no way I'm doing that right now." I looked over at Aldon, who was looking incredibly impatient and irritated. "And I need to be clear with you. We aren't falling in love. I'm not your friend. You killed a girl of Tater Town."

"The satyr," she nodded. "Not me. It was my wolf. I didn't mean for it to happen."

I returned an angry, unforgiving look at her. "Nonetheless, it's pretty much non-negotiable for me to take you as a lover or even a friend."

"The sister doesn't need to know," she suggested, her eye darting to the sorcerer. I could tell she wanted to be more expressive with her body, but the other hero watching, she was actively reining in her emotions. "She's just a satyr. She is not a warrior like we are."

I sighed. She wasn't going away, and I was running out of time. Aldon was definitely on the verge of uncovering his ears. "Meet me here tonight. We need to set things straight, once and for all. I'll be out here after everyone else is asleep."

She grinned, shifted back into her wolf form, and practically frolicked away like a teen girl who'd just gotten a love letter from her crush. As she shifted, Aldon lowered his hands and grabbed his wand, but when she ran off, he just looked at me in utter confusion.

"What the fuck just happened?" he asked, eyebrow cocked.

"I honestly wish I could make sense of it myself," I sighed.

He stepped in front of me. "Are you really just going to let her run? We should kill her!"

I felt a pain in my belly. Guilt for letting her go? Or revulsion at the idea of killing her? "No," I said. "I think there's another way."

"What," he scoffed, "Make her one of your harem waifus?"

My silence spoke volumes.

For a moment he looked like he was about to explode at me, and I honestly couldn't even defend myself. From his perspective, there was no argument for my case, and yet I was sure of it. But he didn't blow up at me. His face eventually settled, and then he asked me, "So how does it work? Your power over them, I mean."

I looked up at him in confusion. "What do you mean?"

"I mean--" he started, trying to put it delicately, "there's no way one mortal man could command the devotion and love of so many beautiful women. We've been here like, what, a month?"

"If that," I nodded.

"And you have a fucking army of hotties. That's not natural charm."

"You aren't getting treated like that wherever you go?" I asked. It was an honest question. I had assumed that all the heroes and breeders were treated like rock stars. I figured it was cultural, maybe. Or just an aspect of their personalities, here. Or I'd hoped as much. But what he was saying made an uncomfortable sense. Mercer wasn't ever that popular, after all. Most girls chose not to have kids with him. Some never even slept with him from what I'd gathered.

"No, dude. Fuck, no. I've had a few girls throw themselves at me, but not like what I'm seeing here. And am I to assume that General Darkmaw just made a pass at you?"

I made a sour face of embarrassment.

"Fucking hell. So you have some kind of hypnotic sex magic over the women of this world," he reasoned. "That's nuts."

"I... certainly hope it's not that."

He shrugged. "You're not ugly, and you seem like a good enough guy, but there is nothing natural that I can attribute to what I'm seeing."

These words were like daggers in my gut. This was the last fucking thing I wanted to hear from him or anyone else. The idea that my girls didn't love me--or worse, were somehow compelled to love me because of some power I had--was the most disgusting, heinous twist I could imagine. The notion that I had been taking advantage of... magically induced Stockholm Syndrome was beyond awful. If what he was saying was true, I was a rapist. I couldn't even reply to him. I couldn't speak.

He pegged my discomfort and changed the subject, but that was all I could think about now. We walked back to the Sanctuary in silence, and when my girls came to greet me I smiled weakly and dismissed myself, not letting any of them touch me.

"I need to go think," I said.

"Think about what?" Autumn asked, her eyes huge and full of worry. "What happened back there?"

"Nothing. She just wanted to talk. But I need to think."

Autumn reached out for my hand, but I dodged it. She gasped. "Bucky, talk to me." Others were around. May Belle, Daisy, and Ivy looked at me as though I were on my deathbed. Sprinkle just looked confused.

"Only you," I said to Autumn. "Everyone else needs to leave."

"Are you mad at me, Bucky-Baby?" May Belle said, her eyes welling up. "What did I do?"

I shook my head. "Obviously nothing. You're all amazing."

Winter shot an accusatory look at Aldon, who was shrinking off in the periphery of the crowd. "What did you do?" I heard her seethe, just as Autumn and I broke from the throng.

The wind smelled sweet, blowing the scent of flowers and grass through my nostrils. Ivy had recently watered the crops, so a bit of pleasant petrichor hung in the air as we walked along the edge of the forest, not quite venturing into it. My girls--my victims, I thought--watched me leave, and even as I was over a hundred yards away, a quick look over my shoulder revealed that they were all still staring at me in worry.

"Tell me what happened," Autumn said.

"I raped you all," I groaned. She flinched at the coarse words. "You all have some kind of magical, fake attraction to me. Aldon was explaining that the other Apex Heroes do not get treated like I do by the monster girls of this world. Neither do the breeders. You don't love me. You don't even like me, probably."

Autumn sighed a breath of relief. "Is that all?" she said.

"What do you mean by that?" I asked in disgust. "It's a huge deal."

"It would be if you knew what the fuck you were talking about," she giggled. "Oh, Bucky, you're too sweet. See, this is exactly why you deserve our love." She leaned in to kiss me, but I pushed her away. She laughed outright, making it a game, a wrestling match, and used her superior catlike agility to climb onto my shoulders and bend over to kiss me on the forehead before I managed to pick her up and set her back down.

"Stop that," I said, trying to maintain my sulkiness. "Explain what you mean, first, at least."

"The magical attraction isn't in you, it's in us," she said, gesturing to herself and back over her shoulder to where the rest of the girls were still watching. "Monster girls possess the ability to pinpoint ideal matches based on very little exposure. That's why May Belle was so forward with you the moment she met you. That's why many girls are. It's just that you happen to be a match for so many of us, our ideal mate." She clung to my arm, pressing herself up against my side. "Strong, brave, sweet, funny..." she paused. "Pure of heart."

"Is that a reference to Sprinkle?" I asked.

"Yes. There is no mistake. Your unicorn girl isn't broken. Well, she is, but not like that. You could only see her because you're you, Bucky. We fall in love with you so fast and so deep because we know it's safe to. Because we feel it."

"Daisy didn't fall in love with me right away," I pointed out, though I was starting to feel better in spite of myself. With Aldon over there looking like a Hot Topic edgelord, I almost laughed to realize I was the emo one.

Autumn scoffed. "If you really think that then you know nothing about women. Daisy is just a nervous wreck. She fought her own instincts because you were too good to be true. She'll kill me for saying this but... she's told me as much in private."

"So I'm not a monster?" I asked, cautiously hoping.

"No. You're a hero. The genuine article. More than that, you're just a good man. And I've met thousands of hero candidates. I landed on you for a reason."

"And Aldon?" I asked. "What do you think of him?"

She giggled. "Honestly? I think he's mainly just my sister's type. But he seems like a decent guy."

I didn't say anything. I agreed with that assessment. Aldon definitely seemed to take the hero thing seriously, arguably more seriously than I did, at least as a job title. He was certainly more proactive. More importantly, I could tell from their brief interaction together that he did indeed have feelings for Winter, and he was pretty easygoing. When he found out he was manipulated into marking her, he accepted the truth immediately without further question. He knew where his bread was buttered and he wasn't about the mess with that. I can appreciate a guy like that.

I decided not to bother myself with what Aldon thought. Eventually Autumn and I made our way back to the bonfire where, yep, everyone was staring at us as we approached. It was Aldon and Winter that approached us first.

"Say it," Winter said, her claws out at her sides.

"I'm sorry for what I said, Bucky," he muttered, not making eye contact, though he didn't sound insincere. "I didn't know what I was talking about, and I was wrong. I imagine Autumn just set you straight, too."

"It's alright," I said, smiling.

"Aww that's nice," Autumn grinned. "Now, tell us what happened with Dark--"

"My Bucky!" an overly saccharine high-pitched voice signaled my downfall as I felt the force of unicorn girl titties smashing into my face and a soft, feminine body pinning me to the ground with a violent thud. "You looked so sad before. Let me give you pleasure."

"Is this the unicorn?" Aldon asked.

"Can you see her?" Autumn gasped.

"No, but I can hear her now, just barely. She sounds like fun."

I struggled to free myself. "No pleasure! There are people around!" I shouted, trying to push her off of me.

She frowned, her lip turning outward at me in protest. "I don't understand these rules. They seem so arbitrary, like someone just made them up one day. No pleasure in front of other people? Give me three reasons why."

May Belle appeared above us, and I saw her grinning down at me sweetly. "Your mood seems better, Bucky-Baby. Sprinkle, honey, let's let Bucky talk with his visitors for now."

My unicorn girl whined and stomped her hooves as she was led away by her wrist. "But I want to ride his cock and taste his flesh."

"Seems like a tough lifestyle you've got going on here," Aldon said, nodding solemnly. "One is enough for me."

Winter beamed at him. Autumn cooed. "Is my sister that one to which you refer?"

"'Fraid so," he said, pulling Winter in for a side hug.

"'Fraid so?" the white-haired catgirl seethed. "Oh, that's sooo sweet. You piece of shit."

"It was meant to be," he shrugged, and he kissed her on the forehead. Winter melted easily against his chest at that, purring slightly.

Autumn leaned in and whispered in my ear. "I never thought I'd see my sister so domesticated. She was always the feral type."

"Runs in the family, then," I chuckled.

"You dick."

The evening progressed as evenings do, time ticking on and on endlessly until everyone else was settled into bed. I sneaked out when they were all asleep, except for Daisy, who felt me crawl out from behind her. "Where are you going?" she asked.

I wanted to tell her. I really did. "I need to go out. It's about Darkmaw. I just want to make sure everything is alright."

That was the closest to the full truth I could offer, not  a word of it a lie, but it wasn't as transparent as I wanted to be. Still, she nodded, but her eyes watched me wide like saucers as I disappeared from view into the night, studying me as I closed the sliding door behind me.

I walked Blue to the meeting spot, wanting his backup and a means of rapid travel back to the Sanctuary if things got ugly. The sounds of night birds and crickets filled the air, the moonlight glinting off the water in the nearby brook as I walked along its banks with Blue by my side. Soon we reached the exact spot where I'd stood earlier that same day, talking to Darkmaw. I stood there, waiting, and for a minute I thought maybe she wouldn't come--or maybe it was a trap. But those fears were allayed when the naked figure of the general appeared walking out from a thicket of trees.

"You came, Apex Hero!" she announced excitedly. "Good. Now, let's play!"