Serenity, Please
by Director_DZ
The fourth tale in the Serenity series begins - check out Serenity Vs the RingMistress and Serenity, Be My Valentine and Feeling the CyberHeat, Serenity? if you'd like to see more of the world and characters, but it shouldn't be necessary to understand Magical Girls vs Monsters of the Week!
- Seven Months Ago –
The stadium was packed with life. Fans packed the stands, vendors selling food and drinks wandering the aisles looking for anyone who’d forgotten to grab a snack before trapping themselves in their seats. Security patrolled around, occasionally helping lost guests to their places, and occasionally breaking up tense conversations as people got overly invested in the upcoming match.
Nothing drew the crowds like Strikeshot, and tonight’s game was a special one. The Sapphire University team, the Blue Blitzers, were up against their rivals from Emerald Cove, the Sage Scythes. Both teams were at the top of their game, loaded with talent, and bets were riding high as to which side was going to win. People were lining up to see the match, all looking forward to seeing the sports stars of tomorrow proving themselves today.
And, of course, a lot of hype had been drawn up for this match specifically. After all, it wasn’t just a historic rivalry coming to the field today. There was a much more personal score at stake between the two teams. The fans loved that kind of thing.
All of which should have been the main focus of Coach Cathleen Weller’s mind, as the trainer and strategist in charge of the Blue Blitzers. This was the big moment for the girls going out there tonight, the make it or break it match of their careers. A good performance would guarantee them the chance to enter the top of the professional leagues, while a bad one might ruin them before they even got started. That should have been the main topic for her tonight, along with every other person in this locker room.
Instead, she had something else to deal with as the last few minutes towards the big game ticked down.
“Seriously guys?” She folded her arms, sighing in disappointment. “The night before the biggest game of your lives, and this is how you act? I thought I had adults on this team, should I have booked you for the kids league instead?”
“Oh come on Coach.” Pyra, one of Cathleen’s best defenders, and, occasionally, green haired pain in the ass, gave her a shrug as she pulled on her uniform shorts – white with blue lining, of course. “We just passed the recruiter and wanted to see. It’s harmless fun.”
Weller rolled her eyes. Young sports prodigies were the worst. All of the ego of their senior stars, but none of the brains. “It’s a distraction, when I need you girls five hundred percent focused. If you go out there and lose tonight, there’s not a single person who’ll ever let you forget it.”
“And that’s fine, because we’re not gunna.” Hailey, the redhead on Pyra’s left, chimed in now. “I mean, seriously, we’ve seen the team the Sages are fielding. There’s only one worth worrying about over there, and we have the perfect counter! They’re toast.”
“I swear to god, if I have to give you the overconfidence speech one more time…” There was a wave of groans and laughter from around the locker room. That was a well known speech.
And before it could be given, someone else leaned into the conversation. “Well don’t keep us in suspense, girls – what’d you get?”
Weller glared at her dark-haired assistant. “Christie, don’t encourage them.”
“Sorry coach~” She did not look particularly sorry. Cathleen put it down to pre-game nerves.
Either way, Pyra was of course far too happy to answer. “I’m not certain, but I think their detector test thing said I was way too self-absorbed to join…”
“Got that right.” Hailey grinned at her side.
“Hey!” Even Weller had to join in on the wave of chuckles at that one. She’d left herself completely open. Mockery was the only way she’d learn.
Hailey herself just shrugged as the eyes of the locker room turned to her. “Well, I got something about low affinity or whatever, so I didn’t get the machine telling me I was a narcissist.”
“What the hell Hail?!”
“Hey you said it, not me.”
Fortunately, the woman on the other side of Pyra spoke up, disrupting the building argument that the Coach was about to have to break up. “I dunno, I got self-centred too, which is dumb, because I’m, like, literally the least selfish person I know? So I think it was just broken or something.” That was Jennifer, who had never really done much to disprove the blonde stereotype. Still one hell of a defender, though.
Weller took a breath, glad this stupid topic was reaching its end. “Okay. Well. Good. Don’t feel bad, girls. From what I hear, people who qualify to become Serenities are literally one in a million. It’s not surprising none of you got it. Now if we could put this stupid idea behind us…”
“Hey – I didn’t say none of us qualified.” Pyra’s eyes innocently slid to the side – towards a player who had quietly been getting changed, and now that coach Weller thought about it, who had been suspiciously silent during this entire conversation.
“Haywood.”
The team’s star striker looked up, an innocent look on her face. “Yes coach?”
“Please tell me you were the responsible and sensible adult that I know you to be, as opposed to these idiots?”
The wave of laughter that rolled around the changing room answered that request far better than anything the brunette could have said. The strike player grinned, even as her coach sighed.
“Rosa. Did you take the Serenity compatibility test?”
The long-haired brunette blushed, rubbing the back of her neck. Embarrassed, but not really ashamed. “I mean, the machine went ding and they said I passed, so… I dunno, I think I might have?” She said it all with an air of indifference, but the hurried way she broke off to shove her kit top on over her head said that maybe she wasn’t quite as blasé about the whole thing as she appeared.
A small hush fell over the room, as the teammates who hadn’t been out with the girls last night looked to those who had. There was a general air of uncertainty. None of them had expected anyone to actually qualify. Now that one of them apparently had, they didn’t know how to react.
That wasn’t the case for their coach, however, who crossed the room to stare down at the increasingly uncomfortable player, frown clear on her face. “I do not want to lose my star striker to the Serenity Foundation, Haywood.”
“O-oh, no fear there, Coach!” Rosa grinned up at her nervously. “I’m not going anywhere. Blue Blitzers for life, yeah?” She raised a fist in solidarity. “But…” There it was. “I mean, after the league is over, it might be kind of interesting…”
The older woman sighed, before giving a stern eye to the rest of the locker room. “Get back to your prep, girls. Haywood and I are going to have a chat.”
There was a busy flurry as a room full of athletes busied themselves pretending they weren’t listening in. That was probably as close to privacy as they were going to get here. It’d have to do.
Weller took a seat next to her star player. “Rosa, I want you listen to me carefully here,” she said, speaking quiet and deliberate. “Becoming a Serenity – you becoming a Serenity, especially – would be a massive mistake.”
“I…” The brunette licked her lips nervously, fiddling with her armbands. “I mean, I know that. I know that. But… I mean, would it be, though? They help people, don’t they?”
… In some respects, it was the least surprising thing in the world that Rosa Haywood would qualify to become a Serenity. Despite the rough exterior, the girl had a heart of gold. She was exactly the kind of girl the Foundation wanted.
Now it was her Coach’s job to save her from them.
“Yes, they do,” the older woman said, nodding. “They help people. And that’s all they do. All they’ll ever do. Rosa, becoming a Serenity means saying goodbye to any hope you have in this industry, or any other. Those girls don’t get breaks or vacation days – they’re on duty twenty-four seven three fifty. The instant there’s a Desire attack during a game, you’d have to bail on your team then and there, and that’d be it for your striker career. That’d be it for any career. You’d spend your days as nothing more than cannon fodder for Desires, instead of being the star that I know you’re capable of becoming.” She clapped a hand on the brunette’s shoulder. “And you know you’re capable of it too.”
The striker looked down. The Coach could see her words were having the right effect. She was thinking now. Not just about the wonder of being a Serenity – but about the cost it would take on her life. About the sacrifices she’d have to make. The dreams she’d have to give up.
Hopefully it’d be enough. “I respect Serenities for what they do and all that jazz, but not a single one of them will ever amount to anything real,” Weller said, standing up. “You have promise, Haywood. Don’t throw it away over nothing.”
The brunette sighed, nodding her head as she tied her last shoelace. “Alright, alright, you’ve made your point. You’ve got nothing to worry about – I’m not going to go become a Serenity. I’ve got bigger things to do with my life, right?”
“Right!” Hailey chimed in from across the lockers, utterly demolishing the illusion that she wasn’t listening in. “You can be a selfish asshole like the rest of us!”
Rosa just snorted as she got to her feet, stretching her legs. “No one could ever be a selfish asshole like you, Hails,” she fired at her friend with a sharp grin. “But I’ll do my best. Besides. I have a lot more riding on this game than some stupid Serenity nonsense. Now who’s ready to play this thing?”
“Yeah!” There was a resounding cheer from around the locker room. A team united in their solidarity that none of them were good enough to be Serenities, and that made them better by default. It was a spiteful kind of unity – and honestly? The Coach couldn’t ask for better.
“Right then,” she said, glad that stupidity had finally passed. “Then let’s go over our strategies one last time before we get out there…”
This match was as good as theirs.
- Today -
The office of Heartman and Manhart Accounting and Business Consultants wasn’t the kind of place you’d expect to see aflurry with activity. It was a quiet workplace, usually. Nothing interesting happened here, beyond the usual office dramas. There were no big profits to be made, no lives riding on the line. It was a small company, really, with most of its work done in a little open-plan office building. The biggest thing to happen in these parts in the last year was the vending machine getting repaired.
It wasn’t the kind of place that attracted many Desire attacks, to put it bluntly. This was a slow, steady place of employment – where ambitious careers went to die. You showed up, you booted up your PC, and you sat around staring at spreadsheets for eight to ten hours, before going home.
That suited Maisy Gray just fine, of course. Standard, reliable, boring – these were words near and dear to her heart. She liked knowing that each day was going to be the same as the last. She loved being able to plan her itinerary to the second. Some people spent their lives yearning for excitement and attention – if such things crossed Maisy’s path, she would quickly be found walking in the other direction. The brunette loathed ‘interesting’, had done ever since she was a child. If she never had so much as a single interesting day in her life, she’d die quite content.
So when she came in to the office that morning – at exactly 9am, on the dot – she paid absolutely no attention to the gossipy mutterings of her coworkers gathered around the water cooler. Others might have been concerned at the tense atmosphere, their attention drawn as though they’d heard a discordant note in a symphony, or seen lightning crackling in their microwave. Most would sense the obvious element of ‘something isn’t right here’ that permeated the building. But not Maisy Gray. She had a schedule to keep, one absolutely unconcerned with other people’s nonsense.
She simply started up her PC, logged into the network, scanned through her emails for anything pertinent – nothing of note – and then got on with her work. Just like every day before, and with any luck, just like every day after.
So it was no small degree of surprise to the brunette when she suddenly found someone standing in front of her desk.
“Maisy! Just the person I was hoping to see.”
“Miss Peters.” Maisy raised an eyebrow, one hand frozen, fingers poised over her keyboard, as the other adjusted her glasses and slid them back up her nose. “Can I assist you?”
Dorothy Peters was one of the few people who’d been working at Heartman and Manhart for as long as Maisy herself – though, unlike Maisy, she’d been somewhat rewarded for her company loyalty with a couple of promotions, rising to the rank of department head. A woman on the cusp of middle age and aware of it, judging by her youthful and diligently applied makeup. She had shoulder length blonde hair that fell in waves around her neck, and grey eyes that had a habit of only seeing what they wanted to.
“Oh, I bet you haven’t heard the news,” she said, clapping her hands as she gave the other woman a charming and utterly lifeless smile. “Rex – Mr Heartman – retired last week. Oh, I miss him already…”
Mm. There had been something about that in some of the company emails. She’d read through and saw that there were no plans for changing operations in her department, so Maisy hadn’t paid it much mind. Was there a reason Dorothy had brought it up?
“Well, you see, we were fortunate enough that Rex’s son was able to step in and take his place as one of our business heads – all the more important with Alec (Mr Manhart) stuck down in Amber Quay with that whole mermaid business! But, you know, he’s fresh out of the academies, he’s not really too sure how things work around here, so…” The blonde clapped her hands again. “I need someone to explain the business to him! And you know, no one knows this place better than you, Maisy.”
The brunette frowned, her eyebrow still lifted. “I have my own work to do already, Miss Peters. The Penderson report needs to be filed by this evening, it can’t wait for me to instruct someone on how to run a business.”
“Oh, I’m sure he won’t take up much of your time. He just has a few questions. Can’t take more than five minutes.”
“Even so, my schedule clearly requires…”
“Maisy.” The blonde gave her a look that even she could understand. “This isn’t optional.”
Ah. Wonderful. Well then, maybe she could fit this silly chore in without issue. No one wanted this day to get interesting, after all...
-
Things had been a little bumpy in Sapphire City lately.
Like, not terrible. By and large, things were continuing as normal. Desire attacks happened, this was known, this was expected, this was prepared for. Everyone knew the standard operating procedure. If you saw evidence of a Desire in the region, you:
1: Ran like hell.
2: Reported it to the Serenity App or hotline (or now their convenient website!)
3: Waited for the Serenity Seasons, the Sapphire City Serenity team, to show up and deal with the issue.
4: Got back to whatever you were doing.
If you got transformed, then it might take a bit longer to deal with, but that was just how it was. As unpleasant as it might be, people tended to not remember what happened while they were under a Desire’s influence – and usually, once a Desire was defeated, all their transformations were undone. That was how it had been for generation upon generation. Human civilization had gotten pretty good at dealing with the problem, even if Serenities were still required to actually defeat the Desire.
And the Desires were still being defeated, that wasn’t the problem. Or, it wasn’t the problem exactly. Because the process wasn’t as smooth as it once was…
To put it simply? The Serenity Seasons were a rookie team. And a small one, given the size of the territory they were expected to cover. Serenities moved quickly, and Desires weren’t so common that dealing with more than one at once was likely, but even so, it was clear they were struggling with their responsibilities. Desires were being repelled, but it often took reinforcements from the Serenity Foundation, or from other nearby cities.
Nothing too unexpected for a rookie team, honestly – but for a city like Sapphire? Normally better protections would be in place. Normally the team would have mentors and additional training available.
And, indeed, this had been the case, before the former guardians of the city, the Serenity Saviours, had been called away to deal with an incident that the Foundation was still struggling to recover from months later. An incident from which they, like many other Serenities from across the continents, had not returned. This left the Seasons, only one of them even half properly trained, on their own.
Inevitably, this had had led to embarrassing defeats, like getting turned into a circus performance when their teamwork fractured, or chocolate succubi because they underestimated an enemy. Their record was still pretty good, especially for rookies, but these kinds of blemishes weren’t proud moments for anyone. And then there had been their latest battle, against a drone making robot woman, which hadn’t gone as they would have liked either…
“I still think the purification squad got it wrong,” a certain blunette muttered, trying to not look like she was checking out her own chest in the mall bathroom mirror. “I could swear I was smaller before the whole… pink… thing…”
“Mm, yeah.” Beside her, her blonde friend was nodding. “I bet they did. I think they left me shorter than I used to be as well. Do you think we can send in a complaint to HQ?”
“Oh come on, guys.” And to cap the trio off, a ponytailed brunette was leaning against the end of the sink counter, eyeing them both. “Get a grip. Sorry, Lexi – you’ve always been that short. And Sophie, one of these days you’re going to have to accept you’re just gifted up there. Now are we going to hide in here all day?”
The other two blushed.
“I’m not hiding, Rosa!” Sophia protested. “I’m just… Making sure I look presentable. Is my hair okay? Is this professional enough?”
Rosa squinted at her. “Tilt your head a bit? … Yeah, you’re fine. Of course you’re fine. You’ve got nothing to worry about.”
The blunette sighed, giving her reflection another look. “Wish I could agree with you there…”
The three of them, the civilian identities of the Serenity Seasons, were trying to keep in good cheer, all three doing their best not to look as nervous as they felt. Because that morning, it had finally happened. Each of them received a message saying that they would be receiving a visit from someone from HQ – and that they were to meet her here, at the mall, in ten minutes time.
Perhaps understandably, this had engendered a little confidence crisis in the girls, especially their leader. Sophia logically knew that their record wasn’t the worst – this wasn’t Crystal Heights, for god’s sake – but it also wasn’t the best. No, it was… kind of far from the best, actually.
She’d been doing her best to look after the city her mentors had left her, but had it really been enough? There were so many mistakes she’d made, so many slip-ups that had absolutely been her fault. Even now, as she looked into the mirror, all she could see was the reflection of a failu-
“Okay, enough of that.”
The blunette jumped with fright as Lexi suddenly bopped her on the nose. “Huh?”
“You’re doing that thing where you start blaming yourself for every little problem.” The blonde said, folding her arms, before looking over to Rosa, who was nodding along with her.
“Mm, yep, definitely.” The taller woman stepped away from the counter and slid an arm around her friend’s shoulders, gently guiding her away from the mirror. “You’re doing fine, Soph.”
“We’re doing fine.” Lexi nodded, pushing open the bathroom door and leading the other two out into the mall proper, gesturing at all the people wandering through on this totally normal day. “This city isn’t a pit of Desire, is it?”
“Exactly. No Serenity wins every fight.” Rosa grinned. “I mean, you proved-Oof!”
A certain blonde’s elbow had just jabbed into her stomach. “Rosa. Ixnay on the Awnday.”
“Uh. Right. Yeah.” She coughed innocently, before changing tracks. “So just try to relax, okay? All three of us are here. Us against the world, right?”
Sophia nodded slowly, finding it impossible not to smile at the support her friends offered her. “Yeah. Yeah, you’re right.” Another, firmer nod. “If the three of us are together, there’s nothing we can’t face.”
“Mm. Is that so?” A voice spoke up behind them. “I’d say your files tell a different story, but paperwork isn’t necessarily everything. I’m sure hearing your reports in person will paint a much more thorough story. Do you have all of your excuses lined up?”
The three froze. Slowly, they turned around. An older woman – in her mid-thirties, perhaps? Maybe older – was stood there, her arms folded, head tilted to the side as she studied the trio. She was dressed professionally, wearing an unbuttoned black jacket over a white blouse, coupled with sensible black pants and even more sensible shoes. She had neat, long pink hair, the fringe of which had been left uneven, covering the left side of her face, but failing to hide her sharp blue eyes, even with assistance from the woman’s square lensed shades.
“Excuse me?” Rosa was, of course, the one to speak up first, rounding on the new arrival and putting herself between her and her friends. “Who the hell do you think you’re talking to?”
The woman raised an eyebrow. “The Serenity Seasons, of course. Who else?”
A shot of cold ran down the brunette’s spine. She knew? But they weren’t transformed – it was supposed to be impossible to recognize them! There was some kind of, of magic thing, or-!
Lexi pushed in at her side, matching glare for glare. “Don’t talk about them like that! We don’t need excuses to justify ourselves!”
“Oh?” The woman smirked. “Well if Summer wants explain botching the attack in the theatre so badly, I’m all ears.”
Botching the- How dare she! Snarl already on her lips, Rosa opened her mouth to respond-
“Girls!” But Sophia’s voice brought both of her teammates up short. There was something unmistakably serious about her tone, something both of them knew not to ignore. “Stop.”
The blonde and the brunette looked back at her, confused. The pink haired woman raised an eyebrow.
The team leader stepped forward, gently reassuring her friends with a light touch as she moved around them. “I’m sorry,” she said, putting herself in front of the new arrival. “I don’t believe we know you. And I’ve no idea what kind of ‘reports’ you might be talking about.”
There was a pause. The air was inexplicably tense. The normal Sophia – the one who lived under a constant cloud of self-doubt – was nowhere to be seen, suddenly. Instead, the side of her that only came out when she felt her team was in danger was in full control, and she’d pointed herself at this person. Was she detecting a threat…?
Then the moment passed. The woman breathed a sigh of relief. “Oh good. At least one of you has some sense.” She nodded, reaching into her jacket and pulling out a white card, offering it to Sophia. “HQ, Monitoring Department. I’m here to assess you and your team. There was that whole pass phrase thing – eighteen cats on a red roof say what, or something?” The woman sighed, brushing her hair back with her palm. “But that spy nonsense is a waste of time.”
“They say ow when the roof collapses,” the blunette muttered the second half of the passphrase she’d been sent from HQ, taking the offered card. She scanned it quickly. “Nice to meet you, Miss… Morgan.”
The stern confidence she’d been showing evaporated. Behind her, her teammates looked at each other, hoping for help understanding what had just happened.
“Ashley Morgan.” The pink haired woman nodded, looking to the other two. “None of you need to give me your names, of course. I’ve dealt with plenty of Serenity teams, I know how you girls feel about your secret identities.”
Rosa snorted. “Seriously? You’re going to play the secret ID card bullshit now? Why bother, you can obviously see through ours.” She was still feeling twitchy from the ambush.
Morgan shrugged, her hands settling in her jacket pockets. “I can’t, actually. I just made a deduction, knowing that I’d be meeting the three of you here.” She looked around the group, seemingly bored of this conversation already. “You’re the only trio of girls to arrive in the past twenty minutes. And once I got close enough to listen in on your conversation, it couldn’t have been any more obvious. You were not being subtle.”
That… was kind of true. The three Serenities glanced away, not really able to deny it.
“In fact, I suspect that if your friend here hadn’t stepped in like she did,” the woman nodded to Sophia. “One of the two of you would have made the irrevocable mistake of telling me exactly which Serenity you are, and letting me through your perception fields entirely.”
Perception field! That was it. That was the name of the magic that kept people from recognising Serenities when they weren’t suited up! It worked on everyone, as long as you didn’t break it by telling them who you-
Oh.
Shit.
“…” Wordlessly, Rosa and Lexi exchanged another look. Had they really both been played so easily?
Suddenly, the brunette understood exactly why Sophia had gotten so serious out of nowhere like that. And why she’d gotten so depressed immediately after. They… really weren’t making a good impression on the woman here to assess them, were they…?
Judging by the way Sophia’s shoulders were slumped and Miss Morgan’s mildly pitying expression, no. No they were not.
“We shouldn’t talk out here,” the assessor said, turning and gesturing for the three to follow. “Come on – I’ve reserved a room. We can get things started properly in there.”
She walked, giving the trio a moment to recover amongst themselves. Naturally, Sophia took the chance to shrink into herself, the blunette’s expression darkening as her gloom really began to set in.
But she didn’t get to mope for even three seconds before she had a friend on each arm reassuring her.
“Rough start, but I’ve seen worse,” Lexi said, giving her leader a reassuring hug. “Don’t worry. We got this.”
Rosa was nodding as she reached out and gave the blunette a comforting pat on the back.
“I told you. It’s gunna be fine. And thanks for the save,” she whispered, grinning when Sophia gave her a nervous nod. Good. As long as she stayed outside of her own head, she’d be fine.
Now Rosa just needed to figure out how she was going to get through this herself…
-
It was, ironically, easy to see why Maisy didn’t stand out. The woman was quiet, reserved, and just got on with things, bothering as few people as possible day to day. Her appearance was as drab as one could get outside of laboratory conditions. She wore dark, unflattering sweaters, and always got the plainest glasses that the optician carried, preferring practicality over fashion or extravagance.
To be honest, she’d never quite understood the point of doing things any other way. Being ignorable was far better than being noticeable, in her opinion. The less you had to deal with other people, the less you had to deal with their nonsense. Other people were chaotic, unreliable creatures. She much preferred to not interact with them at all, if possible.
And that almost never been more true than right now, as she stood in front of Teddy Heartman’s new desk in the CEO’s office, trying to explain what the business he had just inherited did.
Teddy had clearly had the specific impression he wanted to make in mind when he came to the office today, but the effort had been somewhat sabotaged by the man’s own inner nature. Dressed in a sharp, newly tailored, and yet still somehow ill-fitting black suit, he wore his short black hair greased back so much it shone under the office lights, coupled with a trail of stubble around his mouth that one might mistake for a healthy beard and moustache growth if you squinted at it in the mirror. He was wearing sunglasses – indoors – so she couldn’t actually see his eyes, but she was quite certain that they were actually focused on his phone, rather than on her.
“So you see, Mr. Heartman, we manage the accounts of several major businesses in Sapphire City, and it’s very important that we-”
“Yeah yeah yeah, cool cool cool, that’s great, lady. Very nice, happy for you, say no more.” Teddy waved a hand, still not looking up. “Listen, you can save the patter. I’m not some stary eyed rookie you can just bore with a ton of details so I’ll let you do whatever you want. I came top of my class at the Cyan Academy for Business Distinction. I think I know a thing or two about how to run a place like this.”
… Maisy tried not to twitch. “I’m sure you do, Mr Heartman,” she lied. “So you’ll be pleased to know that we run a very efficient operation-”
“Mhm, mhm, hearing you loud and clear. I’ll definitely be looking over your ‘efficient operation’ in due time. I bet it’s as out-dated as my old man…”
The brunette couldn’t stop the twitch this time.
“… And bloated by wasteful spending too, no doubt. Yeah, so for starters, I’m going to need you to bring me the employment files of everyone who works for the company.”
“… The employment files, sir?” Maisy’s eyebrows knitted together. Surely he couldn’t mean…?
“Well, my dad, you know, he’s a softie at heart.” The new CEO leaned back in his chair, kicking his feet up on the desk. “Too gentle to do the things that need to be done. And a gentle touch weakens the product, as they say at Cyan. I’m thinking we need to trim the fat, streamline things around here, juice the profits properly.”
“I see…” This sort of talk was absolutely going to interfere with her schedule. “Well, I can find the files for you after I finish the Penderson report, but I really must emphasise how important all of our workers are for the efficiency of-”
“Waaaay ahead of you.” He waved her off again. “We’ll cover for any gaps in the system with AI, no problem. Anyway, go get me those files – who cares about any stupid reports? This is much more important.”
The brunette bit her lip, adjusting her glasses. “It’s just I’m on quite a tight timeline, and-”
“Abuh-buh.” He raised a finger to silence her, even as he went back to his phone. “Make some time then. And bring me those files while you do.”
It was clear that arguing was only going to waste even more time. Maybe if she just humoured him, she could still make her timetable.
“Very well, sir,” she said, her glasses flashing. “I’ll be right back.”
-
Ashley had been doing this job for a long time – longer than she really cared to admit – and this was still her least favourite part of it. No Serenity enjoyed being judged. They got enough of that from the public, thanks to the Foundation’s PR division. So of course, as soon as she showed up to assess them, their reaction was always going to be mistrust and suspicion. That was only human.
And despite what some Serenities might come to believe about themselves, they were only human. But when you could throw fire from your hands or turn day into night with a snap of your fingers, human mistakes could have inhuman consequences. She knew that better than most.
That was why this was her job.
So as she led the trio of incognito Serenities up the stairs, she tried not to take their worried stares or blatant irritation personally. With any luck, she’d be able to earn their trust in due time. And if there really was a problem that they needed to be worried about…
Well, that was why she was here, wasn’t it?
“Okay. So, first things first,” She said, sitting down at the table and gesturing for the three to do the same across from her. “I’ll repeat myself, just so you girls know I’m being as transparent as I can be. My name is Ashley Morgan, and I work for the Serenity Foundation, who I have worked under for two decades now. I am, as they say, a Serenity Lifer.” She paused, then gave the girls a suspicious look. “They do still say that, right?”
The trio exchanged glances, before Sophia answered, a little hesitant. “Sometimes?”
“Good enough.” The pinkette shrugged, opening her briefcase and pulling out a set of folders, each marked with high security seals – actual magical ones that glimmered with inner light, the kind that the girls had almost never seen before outside of Serenity Battles.
“These are your files,” she explained, laying them out on the table in front of her and suppressing a smile as she saw each Serenity’s curiosity turn to concern. “Containing all of the information that the Foundation has on all of you – your strengths, your weaknesses, your personal history and corruption record, things like that.”
Concern turned to dread very quickly indeed.
“But, as you can see, I can’t actually read any of them. Not like this, anyway.” To demonstrate, the woman reached forward and pressed her hand against the middle file – one marked with a blue snowflake. She tried to ignore the way that the blue haired girl’s eyes widened slightly as she did so.
But before her fingers could actually make contact with the file itself, a thin shield of energy crackled into existence, spreading itself between her and her target, refusing to allow her through.
“There’s only two people who can unlock this seal,” she continued, pressing her hand against the barrier and showing off how impenetrable it was. “The Head Archivist over at HQ, who created it in the first place – and you, yourselves. Your information is yours, to do with as you please. Well, I mean…” She paused, giving her shoulders a slight rolling shrug. “More or less, anyway. If you use it stupidly, someone from HQ is going to come down and smack you upside the head, because this stuff is important, but you get what I mean.”
There was a cluster of nods – eager and serious from blue, surprised but considerate from blonde… And entirely too casual, even distracted, from brunette. But maybe that last one was to be expected, as worrying as it was.
“Alright. So, with that out of the way, here’s the deal.” Morgan finally sat back in her chair, steepling her fingers as she looked at the girls. “None of you have to tell me anything you don’t want to. You can keep your names to yourselves if you like, and you don’t have to tell me which Serenity you are. I will do my best to respect those wishes as best I am able. But the more information you keep from me, the less I’m going to be able to help you – and helping you is the main reason I’m here.”
“Helping us?” Now it was Hayw- The brunette’s turn to pipe up. “I thought you were here to assess our performance? Give us a grade or something.”
It was interesting that she’d be the one to put it that way.
“That is part of this. Over the next few weeks, I am going to be observing you – both in battle and in your preparation for battle – to see how you handle things. And if I think that any of you are unsuitable to the field…” She looked between all three of them. “If you’re a danger to yourself or others, or if your powers are likely to do more harm than good, then I will be reporting as much to HQ, and they will decide how to handle things from there. If that’s an issue for any of you, best we discuss it now.”
“Oh, no, that’s fine.” Blue nodded quickly. “Of course you need to check that we’re doing our jobs.” She reminded Ashley of a straight-A student, fretful about the test itself, but entirely on board with its purpose. Hopefully she’d be easy enough to work with.
At her side, the blonde was looking fairly bright. Optimistic, even. “I’m not worried,” she said with a smile. “We’ll pass with flying colours, no doubt of it.” Hmm. Interesting confidence, especially given her performance earlier.
But of course, the one Ashley was really concerned about was the one on the other side of the table. “Yeah,” said the brunette, nodding slowly as she looked at her teammates. “Yeah, no, no issue.”
Somehow, she didn’t sound entirely honest. Well, they’d get to that in time, one way or another.
“Good,” the pinkette nodded as well, before pushing the files across the table – or pushing their protective shields across it, anyway. “Then here, take a look. You can share any of what’s inside with me, or keep it as secret as you like. But you should probably read up on what’s in your files yourselves, at least.”
There was some hesitation – mostly from Miss Straight As, naturally – but soon enough, all three picked up their various files. They even took a moment to grab them and shuffle them around under the table so that she couldn’t tell who got which. Good to see them thinking about that, secret identities were important.
Of course, since she’d been paying attention, she could easily guess which was which. Blue was clearly the most experienced one here, even if she had been eyeing the snowflake folder a little too closely – she was Winter for sure. The brunette… Well, she was Rosa Haywood, no matter how much Ashley tried to force herself to ignore that fact. And now that she knew Rosa was a Serenity, it was almost impossible to ignore that Summer had appeared in Sapphire City almost immediately after the girl had retired from her career as a Striker. The blonde was the only one who hadn’t really given herself away, but the process of elimination meant that she was Spring – and she certainly seemed to have the right attitude.
Still, she might be wrong. She hadn’t seen any proof, and until she had something solid to work with, her deductions weren’t going to break the perception field. That was for the best, really – a Serenity’s secret identity shouldn’t be so easy to pierce.
They lost a lot of their power when their identities were compromised, after all. That was one of the most fundamental facts of being a Serenity – one that was hopefully drilled hard into all of their heads when they were recruited. These three weren’t the subtlest she’d ever met, but they weren’t the worst, either.
“Um.” Ashley looked up. Blue was biting her lip, staring at her file. “Are you sure this is mine?”
The assessor blinked. It had to be hers. She wouldn’t have been able to open it otherwise. Not unless there had been a really bad error made back at HQ. “What do you mean? Does it have someone else’s profile?” That’d be the worst case scenario – handing her someone else’s information.
But Blue shook her head. “No, um. It’s more…”
That was as far as she got before Blonde peeked over her shoulder. “Oh wow! How come your file’s all blacked out like that? Lemme in on your secret, mine’s got waaaay too much on me.”
“Um…!”
“Nah, don’t worry, this is your file.” Brunette was leaning over her other shoulder now, reaching down to point at the file near the top. “See? It’s got your name. Well, your first name, anyway. And… Huh, nothing else, I guess.”
“Um!”
Blue’s face was going adorably red, but Ashley couldn’t focus on that this second. The file being blacked out like that meant that the information it was supposed to hold was classified at a seriously high level. What kind of rookie Serenity had a file like that?
Off the top of her head, she could only think of three possibilities. One, that the girl had somehow gotten involved in some top-secret operation that had been conducted by HQ maybe before she’d ever become a Serenity, which seemed… unlikely. They would have warned her about that in the briefing. Two was that there was something distinctly dangerous about this girl and her powers that required suppressing all information about her.
… Yeah, no, even just looking at the poor thing was enough to dismiss that notion. It was obvious she hadn’t expected this, and was more than a touch embarrassed at all of the attention – not the behaviour of a secret monster. Besides, that, too, would have come with a warning when she got the assignment.
So that just left option three, which was…
“Ah.” Of course. “Don’t worry, kid. Your secret’s safe with me.”
Blue’s eyes widened with sudden understanding, and the colour in her cheeks dimmed a little as she took a breath, relaxing. “Okay.”
Ashely nodded, her suspicions confirmed. It was pretty obvious, when she thought about it. The information wasn’t being hidden from her. It was being hidden from someone else who could theoretically view that file that HQ had decided didn’t need to know what was in it. It wasn’t a common move, but it happened from time to time when, say, family members worked for HQ and hadn’t been informed of the Serenity’s status. Okay. Annoying, and it made her job a little difficult, but oh well. She’d had plenty of time to get used to HQ’s games.
The other two Serenities glanced at one another behind Blue’s back, both shrugging in confusion. It seemed that neither of them knew what was going on – but since Blue was okay with it, they’d leave it alone for now.
“I’m happy to share my file,” the Blonde one finally spoke up, pushing hers back onto the table, the green leaf on its cover plain to see. “I… It’s not all stuff I want to talk about, but I’ve got nothing to hide. Not from the Foundation, or from my team.”
She shot the others a smile – one that Blue returned. Brunette, though… She was still staring at Ashley.
“Do we even need to talk about what’s in this thing?” She asked, holding up the file with the red flame on it. “Not sure I see the point.”
Ashley frowned – dimly aware that Blue was doing the same in her peripheral, while Blonde just looked concerned. But it was Rosa who held the assessor’s attention right now. The attitude she’d been sensing from the former sports star since they met was bubbling up, and she wasn’t sure why. She had to get to the bottom of this. “We don’t have to, no,” she answered carefully. “It’s just helpful so that I can understand where you’re coming from.”
“Well you already know where I’m coming from, don’t you?” Rosa’s eyes narrowed. “So why bother?”
Ah. Shit. She’d been caught. The Serenity had noticed her notice, and taken it badly. Okay. No big deal. She could smooth this over. “I don’t-”
“Don’t.” The taller woman’s voice cut through whatever Ashley had been about to say. “Knock it off. Quit pretending. I can tell when someone recognises me. And I know all the stupid rumours. Just say what you’re actually thinking, don’t lie to me.”
Oh hell. This was actually a problem. Rosa was genuinely sensitive about this. Of course she was – no one wanted to be famous for something like that. And judging by the looks between Blue and Blonde, neither of them had any idea what this was about. Had they really not known? Had she not told them?
This was not a good sign. How the hell were these girls a team if they had this kind of secret between them?
Taking a breath, Ashley raised her hands, trying to soothe the angered Serenity. “I’m not trying to lie to you, Rosa. I was just trying to respect your anonymity. We really don’t have to talk about any of this if you don’t want to.”
“Sure.” The brunette’s bitten out reply was as terse as they came. “Let’s see how long that lasts.”
Across the table, the Blonde leaned over to Blue. “What are they…?” She tried to whisper, before her friend’s shake of the head silenced her.
It didn’t matter. They’d both heard her. And judging by the pained look on Rosa’s face as she looked away from the group, she knew that she was going to have to tell them something once this was over, one way or another. There wasn’t any avoiding it now.
Ashley held back a sigh. The girl’s reticence was understandable… But it was also a problem. It was one thing to not tell your teammates that you used to be a minor celebrity. It was entirely another to not tell them about why you weren’t one any more – at least, it was when the event itself had been so devastating. Rosa’s exit from the sport had been dramatic, and there was no way it hadn’t left a mark. It was impossible to believe it hadn’t affected her abilities as a Serenity, too.
So. One unexploded bomb, and one file so classified that she wasn’t sure she could even speak about this meeting later. This assessment was going great so far. Who the hell had she pissed off back at HQ? Someone clearly hated her to hand her this team.
Oh well. The pinkette peered at the only one of the group who had been relatively normal so far. The blonde smiled hopefully back at her, pushing her file across the table. “You can start with me if you like, Miss Morgan.”
Okay. It was decided. This one was her favourite.
“Thank you.” She nodded gratefully, taking the now unsealed folder and spinning it around so she could read from it. With any luck, going through the proper process with the blonde would assure the brunette (and maybe the blunette, too) about how this was all supposed to work, and that it was nothing to be afraid of. “Let’s see here…”
So. Alexandria Locks. Why did that name sound kind of familiar?
Ashley’s eyes drifted down to the family section.
Her reaction was completely unavoidable and entirely understandable.
“Oh for fuck’s sake.”
No one in the world had a worse job than her right now.
-
“Don’t need them… Don’t need them… Ha! God, why would we hire one of those? They never check those laws. Get rid of that entire division…”
The only reason Teddy wasn’t throwing the files he was rooting through straight into the shredder was because one had not yet been installed in his office. Maisy watched with steadily growing horror as he ripped through department after vital department, applying the ‘Teddy Touch’ to each.
She wasn’t the most social woman on the planet, but even she was shocked at the man’s casual disregard for his workers. And what was worse was how inefficient he was being about the whole thing! Whatever business sense or logic he was following was entirely alien to her. This ludicrous display was going to cost the company thousands, and, more importantly, weeks to months worth of time fixing it all!
“Sir, I really must recommend you take at least a few days to observe these systems in operation before you-!”
“Not necessary, trust me.” He smirked up at her with what he probably thought was boyish charm. “I’m very good at this kind of thing. It’s all very complicated, but to someone like me it’s as simple as falling off an e-bike. Don’t worry your pretty little head about it – instead, how about you get me some coffee instead?”
Maisy tilted her head. “Perhaps I should just get back to my work – the Penderson file needs to be completed soon, if it’s not done then-”
“Hey, like I said, don’t worry about that crap. You just worry about my coffee.”
“But sir, our contract with them will-”
“Seriously, do people here just not know what ‘coffee’ means? Where I’m from – Cyan Academy, ever heard of it? – they know that when the boss asks for coffee, you rush off on those pretty little legs and get him what he wants!”
… This was becoming more and more intolerable by the second.
-
“Alexandria Locks.”
Now it was the Blonde’s turn to go red. “I prefer Lexi…”
Right. Right, okay. “Lexi Locks, then.” Her eyes still hadn’t gotten past the family section.
And Lexi, for her part, seemed to understand the issue, bowing her head apologetically. “Yep.”
She was the only one, though. “Is, um. Is there a problem?” Blue was looking between the two of them with clear confusion on her face, and even Rosa was paying attention now, brow furrowed.
They didn’t know. Somehow, neither of them knew. Did this team talk to each other at all?!
Ashley sighed. “Locks as in the Locks family, owners of Inkswell Productions?”
Inkswell wasn’t a name that needed an introduction. Everyone at the table knew them. Everyone in the city knew them. An old animation company that had hit the bigtime a few generations ago, that had almost single handedly revolutionised an entire era of entertainment. People had been dazzled by their special effects. Awed by their whimsey. Enchanted by their tales.
They were one of the biggest corporations in the world. There had been theme parks. Merchandise. Countless children had grown up on their movies. Everyone knew their name.
So it was with understandable nervousness that the blonde opened her mouth to reply - but this time she was beaten to the punch.
“Oh, yeah, that’s right!” Blue’s eyes lit up as her face took on a relieved smile. “I remember that. We joked about it, right Lexi?” She turned to grin at her friend. “Back when we first met, you told me your name was Locks, and I said you must get a ton of people confusing you with the Inkswell family all the time! Man, I completely forgot about that. I guess… a lot of people… make that… Um…”
Her friend was not grinning back. Instead, she was rather firmly avoiding eye contact. You could sense Blue’s soul starting to shrink as the gears in her head started to turn. Rosa’s jaw had dropped.
“It was… It was a joke… right…?”
“My, um. My grandpa founded the company,” Lexi admitted, staring down at her knees. “My aunt runs it now, mostly – along with my mother.”
Her aunt, Athena Locks, and her mother, Artemis Locks – two of the most powerful women in the entertainment world. Lexi was a genuine heiress, one who probably had a dozen trust funds with more money than the rest of this table would ever earn combined in each.
“Oh.” Blue paused. “Oh, you’re... actually… Huh!” And then she slumped in her seat. “Oh god I’m the worst team leader ever.”
Okay, there had been pretty much no doubt left already, but this girl was definitely Winter. There was just no questioning it now. Ashley couldn’t help but feel for her. It wasn’t really her fault that she had two secret celebrities on her team, but you would kind of hope she would have picked up on something about them by now.
“Hey.” Rosa rubbed the blue haired girl’s back, fondness overcoming her distrust for Ashley. “It’s okay. I mean, maybe we didn’t mention a few things…”
“A few teeny, tiny things…” Lexi joined in nervously.
“But look!” The brunette tapped the folder on the table. “These guys know even less about you!”
The groan that came from the table did not sound reassured. Still, it was nice that they were trying. It did seem like the Seasons were genuine friends, even if they apparently knew nothing about one another. That was more than quite a few teams had, actually.
Maybe there was something they could work with there.
-
“There. Take a look, see?” Teddy handed her a stack of fresh print outs. “Best work you’ve seen in years, right?”
Maisy frowned as she took the papers, squinting at the text on it as she tried to make sense of what she was reading. “This is… Mr. Heartman, what is this?”
“The first result from our new form filling software – powered by the latest in AI technologies.” The new CEO smirked. “I had a friend from the Academy hook us up.”
She flipped through the files, her eyes widening as she read more and more. “Sir, this is… This is gibberish. It’s filled in the tax data with song lyrics, the property query with ‘The Moon’, and this- this is not a legal signature. Actually I think this is a cartoon character. If we try to file this we’ll get sued into the ground!”
Teddy just shrugged, unconcerned. “Eh, some teething problems are to be expected with new tech, but I’m sure you’ll work ‘em out. Look, if anyone complains, I’ll just have them sent to your desk to look them over.”
… All of the paperwork in the company, rerouted through her desk. Just the thought of it… Well, she was far more efficient than any- No! No, that would be a disaster. This fool didn’t have a clue what he was doing!
“Sir, this is…” She paused as her eyes fell on the clock on the back wall, and widened. It was that late already?! How long had she spent trying to ‘help’ this idiot? Damnit, she normally had such a good sense for time. “I- Sir, I wish I could help you, but I really must get back to my work. If I don’t complete the Penderson report before noon then the company could stand to lose tens of thousands…”
“Enough!” The CEO slammed his hands against his desk. “Enough about this stupid Pendleton nonsense! I already told you, I don’t care about any of that.” He growled, glaring at her before turning back to his phone. “No, your job now is helping me make my mark on this company.”
Oh, this day was going way past ‘interesting’ now. “Sir…”
“Just help me get this AI thing working already,” he muttered. “I’ll show
By the time I’m done, no one’s going to think I’m just dad’s idiot son.” A dark look crossed his face, a distant gleam in his eye. “This time tomorrow, everyone’s going to know exactly what I am.”
-
“Alright,” Ashley sighed, looking down at the blue blob of despair in front of her. “We’ve heard Lexi’s background.” The rest of the blonde’s file hadn’t revealed anything too worrying, just listed Serenity Spring as having power over nature, particularly plants. “And I know Rosa doesn’t want to discuss hers right now.”
“Or ever.”
“Or… ever, okay.” They’d have to work on that later. “How about you? How do you want to do this?” She slid a fingernail under the cover of the woman’s file and lifted a little, motioned towards closing it. “We can set all this aside and forget about it…” Not that there was much in there to forget, of course. “Or we can discuss it like we discussed-”
“My name is Sophia,” Blue interrupted, finally lifting her head. Ashley blinked as their eyes met. Instead of the despairing mess she expected to see, there was only the slightest traces of stress, mostly pushed aside by determination. Okay. So she was a Serenity after all. “I’d rather… not give you my last name at the moment. My mother is a Serenity and I…” The woman took a breath, closing her eyes for a moment. “I’d rather be judged on my own merits, if that makes sense.”
Alright. The pinkette nodded. She could respect that. “Fair enough. I can’t promise that judgement will be good…” She couldn’t help but grin at the girl’s wince. “But it’s nice to meet you, Sophia.”
That got a grateful smile. Good. Great! Okay.
Okay. This had been a rough start, but it was salvageable. Hopefully. She’d seen worse teams out there, she was pretty sure. Though this one was definitely a bit on the small side – well, that was something she was going to investigate later. She’d pushed these three far enough today already.
“Now,” she said, straightening up once more. “I want to assure you all again that our meetings are going to be totally confidential. This assessment is going to take some time, and at various points I’ll want to talk with each of you, both alone and together. So let me make this clear. If, after we’re done, you have a problem with me, or anything I’ve learned about you over the course of our time together, we can pay a visit to MemSec and have them scrub it from my memories under your personal supervision.”
All three Serenities got wide eyed at that. Ashley tried not to laugh at them for it. This was just another part of the job to her. “I told you. You get to decide what happens with your information. If you don’t want me to have it any more, then it’s gone.”
“What, even if you decide we can’t be Serenities anymore?” Rosa was, of course, the most suspicious of the trio. Her eyes were narrowed again, trying to pick out some thread of dishonesty.
But the pinkette just raised her empty hands again, hiding nothing. “Even then. Though I hope it won’t come to that – for any of us. Ideally, this will be a routine assignment, and at the end we shake hands then go our separate ways. Is that going to be okay with everyone?”
The three looked around at each other. Or, really, Sophia and Leix looked at Rosa, who grumbled for a moment, before nodding and rolling her eyes. Good enough.
“Great.” She let out a sigh of relief. “Okay then. First, I’d like to start with-”
But that was as far as she got, because before she could go any further, a loud chime echoed through the room. Paling, all three Serenities fumbled, digging into their pockets and getting out their phones – just as Ashley pulled hers free of her jacket.
All four were lit up with an alert from the same app.
“Alright then,” she said, sliding her phone away again and glancing towards the suddenly very nervous magical girls. “Change of plans. I guess we’ll be seeing how you handle a Desire a little early. That okay with you girls?”
Surprisingly, it was Rosa who spoke up. “Yeah,” she said, grinning as her hand moved towards the bracelet around her arm. “Don’t worry. This part we’re good at.”
Lexi nodded, reaching for her earring. Though Sophia looked just a touch less confident – that might have just been her natural state, though.
“Great. Show me how you fight, kids.”
-
The clock was still turning. A steady tick, tick, tick in Maisy’s ear that she was sure wasn’t really there, but she couldn’t seem to shake. She could feel the pressure growing as more and more of her schedule was devastated by hurricane Teddy. For the past hour, the new CEO had been demanding to see the financial records of every department – documents that she had very little to do with, personally, not her job in the least, but that he still expected her to handle. And now he had found a new ‘budget efficiency algorithm’ that he was trying to demonstrate to her on his phone.
Trying was the correct word. Somehow he’d opened up some cat videos instead, and he couldn’t get them to close. Oh, now they’d shifted to catgirl videos instead, ones that definitely weren’t safe for a workplace environment…
When his phone actually rang, minimizing all of his tabs, it was a relief to both of them. Alas, said relief would be short lived.
“Yes? Mhm? Ah, Mr Pendle- Oh really? Is that so?” Teddy raised an eyebrow as he pressed the phone to his ear. “Yes, no, of course, I completely understand. Don’t worry for a moment sir, that’s exactly the kind of thing I’ve joined this company to fix. If you’ll- No? Well that’s a shame, but entirely understandable. Good day sir.”
He closed his phone and sighed, shaking his head.
“You’re fired.”
What.
“What?” Maisy blinked.
“Hey, you can’t keep up with the workload, you can’t make a good cup of coffee for the life of you, and it turns out you just bungled a really important contract!” The CEO shrugged, sliding his feet back up on the desk. “I just don’t see a future for you here at Heartman and Manhart. Sorry lady, I know it sucks, but I’m not a softy like my dad. Go get your things, Security’ll escort you out.”
And then he went right back to his phone, apparently forgetting she was even standing there.
But that…
But he…!
He couldn’t…!
That wasn’t…!
Argh! She was too furious to even speak! This fool had come in, disrupted her day, obliterated her work, screwed up every aspect of the company he could touch, fired her, and worst of all, ruined her timetable! This couldn’t stand. She had to… She had to…!
Put him in his place?
Hm? No, that wasn’t quite it.
Take your revenge, perhaps?
Revenge? Don’t be silly. How inefficient.
Ah! Of course. You should restore order, yes?
Yes! That was it. That was what she had to do.
Someone needs to put everything back on schedule, don’t they?
Exactly! This had gotten completely out of hand.
If that’s your Desire, then by all means, embrace it~
… Oh, very well, but this had better not take too much time. She still had work to do, after all.
Heat blossomed in Maisy’s chest as she sighed, the tension in her stomach evaporating. She didn’t need to worry about any of this. In a moment, she’d sort it all out, and fix the mess this fool had made. Just as soon as she finished changing. Just as she let out the Desire inside.
Her arms spread as a wave of silver began to rise up her body, starting from her toes. Her shoes were absorbed into the shimmering substance, merging with her feet to become integrated sleek metal heels. Her pants just disappeared, leaving a pair of thick metal thighs on full display – growing thicker by the second, in fact…
‘Hm. Inconvenient, but overall irrelevant…’
Desire was Desire, after all, a fact that became all too clear as the silver spread up over her hips, her ass swelling into delightfully fat curves a moment later. Her waist sinched in a moment later, becoming almost parodically thin over the top of her preposterous metal peach, and looking even more ridiculous a moment later when the wave reached her chest, and her breasts suddenly-
‘Ah. Now those are going to get in the way of my work…’
She’d be surprised. Despite having silver tits twice the size of her head, this Desire wasn’t going to be slowed down at all. She could feel new functionality, including wireless compatibility, installing itself in her mind as her head was swept up in the silver craze, her face and hair vanishing, replaced by a flat mirrored surface, like the head of a mannequin – but in metal.
She was a smooth, shimmering hourglass. A far cry from the forgettable woman of a few seconds ago. But the real change had yet to begin.
‘Is there any way to speed this up? This is all already behind schedule as it is.’
Silver was spreading down from her shoulders, but it was doing so… oddly. It wasn’t just going down her arms – it was also spinning itself out into thin air, stretching out into a copy of what the other silver wave was doing, spreading as though it was covering a second set of arms, just behind the first. Biceps, elbows, wrists, and even hands began to develop, and it was only the last one where things began to deviate. Because instead of hands, her second left arm developed into a rounded device with a small strip of sticky white paper sticking out of it – a label maker. And her second right, likewise, formed itself into a mechanical seal, dripping with red ink – an approval stamp.
‘Finally.’
She was done. A human no more, the Desire had blossomed into her true form, a silver hourglass with four arms, ready for business. Maisy – No, PaperPleaser felt like a much better name now – was ready. And it was time for her to go to work.
Looks like this might be trouble. I wonder how the Serenity Seasons will handle this test! Well, if you can't wait to find out, check out Chapters 2 and 3 of this story, as well as art of the entire situation, on my patreon - www.patreon.com/DirectorDZ - I post new mind control, corruption, and transformation stories there every week (And the next Serenity story is up there in full too, along with art for that tales as well! The art is available for free - check it out!)