Capture Target

Hiya!  Ready for some sex?

…Eh?

But, but, the past few days --

I’ve been getting used to it, dammit!

Come oooon, not even a little blowjob?

Please?

Pleaaaaaase?

Ugh, fine.

I guess -- eek!

Yes!

---

Haaaa… haaaa… I should have known you were teasing me~

That was faaaantastic~

I’m just going to snuggle with you while talking, okay?  

Great~

So, where were we with storytime...

---

Right, right.  The mirror.  That fucking handmirror.

Okay.

There’s a lot to talk about regarding that mirror, but let’s start with what we used it for, first!

After I dragged that thing out of the pool, I tried to take it out of the hex.  Tried, because it didn’t want to leave, just like the clones.  Push it against the barrier, won't budge.

We kept trying until the random fade in-and-out went so 'out' that everybody -- well, everybody except for Mini -- forgot that it existed at all until it came back.  At which point, we gave up and started talking about ideas until Mini declared that she had something to try.  

So she flew over to it and -- uh -- kind of picked it up.

She’s tiny.  She had to wrap both hands around the handle to even try to move it, and even then, the leverage was so against her that it was hilarious.

She did manage to drag it a bit, at least!

Adorable.

She then directed us all -- well, actually, she directed Jessica to direct us all, Mini’s too tiny and adorable to have any impact with her commands -- to stay away from the mirror while she did, and I quote, ‘a thing’.

What kind of thing?

Fuck if I know, she never bothered to explain it!

What I do know is that, whatever that ‘thing’ was, it somehow stabilized the mirror in reality.  

My best guess is that Dignity, when making the mascots for magical girls, gives them pseudo-shardcraft capabilities to let them do stuff like that.

As soon as she did, all the remaining goop in the problem hex just -- kind of -- it’s hard to explain, but it ‘fell out of reality’?  The same way the mirror faded, except the goo went away, went away all the way, and never came back.  

According to Mini, it was anchored to the mirror -- and now that the mirror was firmly real, instead of only kinda real, the goo had 'nothing to hold onto'.  So it just 'slid away'.

…I didn't really get it, but problem solved!  The Reflection Pool was gone and we could carry the mirror out of the hex!

And thankfully, any altered goo was left behind, so I got to keep my new skin~

What was left behind was an empty hex, and one hand mirror that looked like it was brand new.

It was relatively simple -- a lovely handle shaped to be artistic and comfortable to hold, and an oval mirror that was rimmed with gold.  Written on the top of the cover in an artistic, old variant of MISSY’s language were the words, ‘Mirror of Chastity’.

The mirror could be used to create a duplicate version of yourself that you can swap in and out with -- and while you and your clone share memories, you don’t share corruption or self control.

It enables somebody to indulge in their passions while still having a way to return to ‘normal’ when they’re done.

And it was crafted by Chastity, goddess of Humiliation, not long after the world itself was created by the chief god and his first five goddesses were minted.

Naturally, I didn't waste time going and talking to Modesty about it.  

Every week or so I met up with her, to catch her up on things that were, or might have been, sensitive information.  And when I showed her the mirror, well.

She derailed the entire conversation to focus entirely around it, and the implications it had for divine politics.

---

I could tell you in detail about what we talked about, the back and forth, but instead I’m just going to tell you what’s relevant.

Trust me, it’s easier that way.  Unless you’d rather spend an hour hearing about each of us asking for details as we both tried to comprehend the nuances of what each other was saying?

Yeah, I thought not.

So.

I believe I’ve told you this before, but this is the first time we've dug into it as the main focus, so here's a refresher.  

Of the first five goddesses, Chasity of humiliation, Desiree of submission, Argenta of alchemy, Raleine of monsters, and Futaba of futanari?

One of them is a traitor.  

That’s been a known fact for almost as long as MISSY has existed.  They had a plan to overthrow the chief god and remove him as the supreme ruler of all reality.  But somebody betrayed the other four to the chief god, and in response, he punished the traitors.

He did so in a clever way, however.  In addition to punishing them, several of them also got -- if not promotions, than a broadening of permissions.  For example, Argenta got control over all of alchemy.  Raleine was given more freedom with her monster creation, and Futaba was allowed to do whatever she wanted to keep the percentage of futanari in the population up to a certain amount.

Now whether those are actual boons or merely the chief god dumping even more responsibility onto all of them is a matter of debate.  Argenta’s control over alchemy, for example, was widely considered to be the most likely to be a true boon, which is part of what made others distrust her.

However, the important part is that the chief god punished the four rebels.  That’s known, and it’s obvious.  He tortured, remade, and stole from them until he was satisfied.  

And the fact there are precisely four problem hexes is the proof that there were only four true rebels, and one unpunished traitor. 

Because one of the problem hexes was blatantly something that the chief god stole.  

The First Tentacle Monster.

Raleine’s first attempt at a true masterpiece, a being that she continually tweaked and improved on the side for fun.  It was a hobby, and an expression of her personal mastery of MISSY’s biological systems.

She was very, very proud of it.  It was her magnum opus, in a way.  A divine treasure.

So there was no reason for it to be in the chief gods trash bin, unless the chief god put it there himself.

All of the weird hexes on the fifth landmass have something at their core.  Some reality bug or discarded shardcraft.  But the big four problem hexes?  Those were uniquely weird and potent.  

The kind of uniquely weird and potent that, according to what Modesty said Dignity told her, could only come from having a coherent, well-made, masterwork of a divine treasure at their heart.  The kind of thing that somebody would never willingly throw into the trash.  

For the remaining three problem hexes -- the goo lake, the cauldron, and the school -- it's not clear whose stolen divine treasures glitched out to become them.  I mean, one could reasonably extrapolate for some of them!  The school of submission was probably Desiree’s, the Cauldron of Chance was probably Futaba’s…

…Eh?  Oh.  No.

Back then, Futaba had more of a hand in alchemy than Argenta did.  Yes, Argenta was more interested in it and more skilled in it, but Futaba was more known for using it in an active sense.  

…Primarily to empower her futanari warbands, but that’s neither here nor there.

Now, it’s -- hrmph.  Am I getting a bit lost in the weeds?  I feel like I’m getting a bit lost in the weeds.

Okay, for what Modesty knew at the start of the Land Grab, the most important facts:  

• Of the five first goddesses, four of them were punished as rebels, and the last was a traitor who ratted them out to the chief god.
• The four problem hexes are all caused by divine treasures, stolen by the chief god and placed there as part of the punishment.
• The First Tentacle Monster is absolutely confirmed as being a divine treasure from Raleine. 
• Therefore, Raleine was punished and isn't the traitor.

Got it?

That’s why Modesty trusted Raleine despite her being one of the first five, by the way.  Because she knew that she wasn’t the traitor.  She's known ever since Dignity somehow managed to get a look inside the trash bin, and got the data that was used to make Alchemical Corruption Twelve.

That's how things were before I went to MISSY, how things were until the very moment I showed Modesty the Mirror of Chastity that I got out of the Reflection Pool.

Suddenly, Modesty had one other goddess that she could absolutely trust to not betray her to the chief god.  Because if there were any goddesses that would never, ever side with him, it would be those four that he punished for trying to take him out.

Combined with Argenta's unguarded rants to me that I remembered through her amnesia spells, it meant who the traitor was narrowed down to two goddesses.

Desiree, or Futaba.

They both had reasons to suspect them, and they both had reasons to think they were innocent.  Futaba, for example, was consistently rude towards the chief god -- and yet he let her get away with it.  Why would he do that, if she wasn’t the traitor?  She also clearly thought that she was above all of the other goddesses, in a manner… not actually dissimilar to the chief god, come to think of it.

That said, she hated the chief god most of all.  Why would she give him anything?  Why side with him instead of the others, if he’s the one she hates the most?

As for Desiree, it’s less about what she does do, and more about what she doesn’t do.  Desiree has been an obedient goddess since the failed rebellion.  She’s done her work, she’s gladly fucked the chief god whenever he wanted, she never disagreed with him and she basically goes out of her way to avoid doing anything that would rock the boat.

…What’s frustrating about that is that it fits very well whether she is, or isn’t the traitor.

If she is, then it makes sense that she'd side with the chief god, and try to stay out of the eye of the other goddesses.  If she isn’t, then her actions are just a matter of… preemptive self defense.  Avoiding anything that could get the chief god to harm her again.

It would be easier to tell if she wasn’t so emotionally stable!

Sadness or haughtiness would make it clear, but not just a stable, upbeat, passive acceptance!

Ugh!  That entire meeting with Modesty spun out into us arguing it in circles for hours.  We ultimately just decided that we needed more information.

We did float the idea of simply shutting both Futaba and Desiree out, but… well, every shard is important.  And figuring out who the traitor was would give Modesty options.

And as for how we were going to try getting that information?

Well, for one half of the problem… there was an easy option.

We happened to have our very own futa on our side, after all, and Futaba is known to be very biased towards those like her.

---

So.

Shimizu and Futaba.

…Believe it or not, they could get along rather well?

I mean, don’t get me wrong.  Futaba is an asshole.  She’s a gender-ist jerk who has no qualms about using force and reputation to get what she wants regardless of the rules in her way.  Even when she’s playing nice, she’s very ‘in your face’ about her opinions.  Honestly, it sometimes feels like she needs confrontation and disagreements to relate to people at all.  

Shimizu -- when I first met her -- would never have been able to stand more than two minutes in her presence.  She was raised to avoid that kind of conflict, and to be much more demure in her opinions than Futaba ever is.  But Shimizu now?  Well, so long as she knew that she was tricking her, that she was intentionally keeping her distaste for Futaba under wraps, she could go with the flow with the parts she enjoyed.  

They both had a similar force of will, and neither was particularly willing to let the other get away with ‘one-upping’ them.  They had similar taste in women, they had similar kinks, they had similar preferences for food and clothing.  They liked exercising and showing off their muscles and dominance, and they adored having women fawn over them.

So Shimizu kept the conversation on things like that, and carefully didn't react to the more… acerbic comments.  Which meant things stayed friendly.  

Of course, ah.  Spending time with Futaba, as a futanari, is liable to result in some -- second hand influences?  Nothing particularly major, but Futaba is a goddess, and if she likes you, she’s shameless enough to give you a small boost here and there.  Make your cock a bit thicker and longer.  Make your balls more productive.  Make you stronger, more attractive.  Your cum more addictive.

Just tiny things.  I once overheard Futaba say to Shimizu, while they were being bothered by some of the less intelligent members of the school staff, “Hey, if you get rid of these losers so I don’t get in trouble for zapping them, I’ll ramp up your pheromone strength.”

Other goddesses don’t do that, because blessings are supposed to be more regulated than that.  Futaba’s the only one that cares little enough about what the chief god thinks to use them like pocket change.

Now to be clear, all of this was great for Shimizu!

She got stronger, tougher, better!

…But remember that I was, am, her favorite slut.

To say that she was the only one affected would be a lie.

---

I only realized what was going on maybe a week after Shimizu started ingratiating herself with Futaba.  I was working on some alchemy formula, noting down ideas and thoughts, when I realized that Shimizu was near and she was horny.

I, naturally, started to get wet in anticipation.

Which is when my thoughts caught up to me.

Because I didn’t know how I knew that Shimizu was nearby, let alone how I knew she was hard as a rock.

I had to go through every one of my senses, one by one, trying to tell if they were what gave me that information.

It wasn’t sight, nor was it sound.  It wasn’t touch, that would be obvious.

No, it was smell.

I could smell her.

It was subtle, barely there, but once I noticed it it was like a drug.  I could feel my body tense up as my pupils dilated.

It smelled so good!

It was a good thing I was sitting down, because I’m not sure my legs would have been able to support me once I got a whiff of that scent.  The sudden shock when identifying it was potent.  It took me a few moments before I could get myself up off my chair, and moved towards the scent.

…What?

I didn’t have a choice!

That -- okay yes technically I could have ‘not’ done that.

Practically, however, my pussy was a leaky faucet and the scent was taking over my mind like nothing else!  I had a hard time focusing on anything else, even what the source of the scent was, what it meant.

All I could think of was that I was in heat, and that I needed that scent to satisfy myself.

I ended up half-stumbling into a hallway, my eyes desperate and my clothes a touch ruffled, to find Shimizu fucking somebody else -- I’m not sure who, I never bothered to get a good look at them -- into the hallway wall.

I immediately started crowded her, trying to let her know I was there, I was ready and I was wanting!

…Only to realize that there were seven other girls, besides the one currently thrashing around her cock, trying to get closer to her.

I didn't -- I didn't know who any of them were.

Knowing wasn't important to me.  

What was important was Shimizu and her cock and how to get it inside me.  

The scent had activated primal parts of my mind, which had gleefully taken over everything else.

I would only realize after Shimizu was done, after she had fucked all of us into an exhausted pile of sluts, that something had changed.

And that it was going to get worse before it got better~