Welcome to the first of what is going to be an eclectic collection of stories in the Becoming Monsters universe! Random ideas, story seeds, commissions, raffle winners, and the like are going to be here. Lots of ideas that deserve to see the light of day!
Becoming monsters is the creation of AiLovesToGrow, setting used with permission
This first idea comes from Amethyst Dragonfly.
--
Chapter 1: Abbey Dee
Her smile was chipper, her voice honed by many hours of customer service. "Thank you for trusting Central Bank of Seattle! We hope to see you again." The man in front of her, a stone-gray Incubus carrying way too many scars, nodded his head and walked off. The lobby was finally empty. She could relax and close out her till.
Abbey was a fairly pretty girl. Tall, at nearly six feet. Dark hair and eyes. Bright white teeth. Royal blue skin, marked in subtle patterns of darker and lighter blues. See, Abbey might have been pretty, her Racially boosted Charisma saw to that, but she couldn't exactly hide in a crowd.
"Dee! You finish up yet?" Already, Abbey was regretting telling her coworkers about that particular nickname, stemming from shortly after the Change when her family heard I'm Blue on the radio. Brittany, the pale blonde woman who usually worked the Coinage counter on her shift, was coming over with a smile she had no need to fake. The blue woman was jealous, really. Being out in front of everyone like that was hard, especially for her, but again. She stood out. People came to her, so the bosses kept putting her there.
She had applied hoping to use her shiny new Business Administration major, but at least it paid the bills. Even if, like today, some of them would be paid with the dollar coins she could easily withdraw her own savings in. "Yeah, just closed out. Gonna grab a cup of coffee so I stay awake on the way home."
"Again? Come on, Dee, if I didn't know any better I'd think you just wanted to see the cute barista again."
Abbey's blue skin blushed purple for a moment, but given that she was crouched behind the counter at least her face was hidden. "I just don't want to fall asleep on the bus again. Lock the doors and we can walk over? They got Pumpkin Spice back on the menu."
"Oh, come on, how basic can you get?"
"Just because you can't admit it's good doesn't mean it isn't. Come on, they take the dollar coins, too." It was a quirk of the post-Change world. Lots of people wanted to pretend they were trendy with valuable Dungeon currency, and loved paying with golden dollar coins. The government was perfectly fine with the excuse to slow down paper printing. The local shops? Well, once they got the proper training on how to distinguish the dollar coins from the Dungeon Gold ones that were fifty times as valuable, they didn't mind either.
Seattle being Seattle, there was a coffee shop on almost every corner. This one was a three minute walk away from the bank's front door.
The streets were relatively empty this evening. Though the Office of Public Protection and local Guilds did their best, the fact was that there had been more monster attacks than usual this past month. It made people nervous. Made for good business at the bank, especially for a lady like Abbey, but traffic was down. The door of the coffee shop opened smoothly, the bell over the door chiming, as the late-shift barista looked up with a routine-sounding "welcome to BuckStars! What can I get started for you?"
Brittany did have a point earlier, he was cute. Either still in a local college of just out of it like Abbey herself, his tanned skin and dirty-blonde hair suggested a life as a California surfer boy before coming up to Seattle. His accent was local, his eyes blue, and his form obviously fit even under his work shirt. Easy on the eyes, Abbey wondered what his Class was on occasion.
She was staring. Shook her head, getting it clear. "Sorry about that, Justin, long evening at the bank. Medium pumpkin spice?"
"You got it, Abbey! Four bucks, your usual." He hit a few buttons, his till popped open, and he started grabbing her cup and labeling things while she caught up.
Abbey reached into her pocket and pulled out five of the dollar coins. "Last one's a tip, since I'm keeping you open."
"I'm here for another hour anyway, but thank you. Always a pleasure. And how about you, Brittany?"
As the blonde girl rattled off an order for a small cup that was nonetheless most of a paragraph by itself, Abbey paused in thought. She came here often, and it was almost always the same boy at the counter. Maybe her coworker was right, he might be fun to ask out at some point. All she really knew about him was his name, that he was cute and friendly, and that he was almost supernaturally quick at assembling even the most demonic brews she had ever heard. It seemed like only a moment or two of idle chatter later when she and her coworker were out the door again, heading to the bus stop to get back to the apartments with another bright chime from the door.
Inside, Justin was putting as much as he could away. Despite his reassurances to the girls (who he really did look forward to seeing each evening, they were both pretty and treated him like a person), few came through this late. He had class in the morning, and wanted to get his cleaning done as soon as possible so that he could get some sleep. Popping open his till, he remembered that one of those golden coins was supposed to be for him directly. Cash tip, no need to bother the numbers about it, so he reached in to grab one.
That's when he noticed something. Four of the coins were identical to each other. The fifth, though, was subtly different. Thicker, more worn, the faces blank. It might either be a pre-Change coin or a misprint, either way it was cool. He pocketed that one for himself, feeling a shiver as he did so.
The girls on the bus chatted about trivialities as they sipped their (delicious) drinks on the way home, both getting off about fifteen minutes later. Brittany, still cheerful, gave the larger blue woman a hug and a kiss on the cheek as she went up the stairs. Abbey... had a different destination in mind. One that her friend didn't know about. Instead of going up the stairs into the apartment, her feet carried her to the green space behind the building. Old growth in the middle of a city was hard to find these days, but the Seattle outskirts managed it with some pride. It was here that she released her hold on this mostly-mortal form.
Blue smoke enveloped her as she grew, hidden by the trees. Tripling in size, gaining mighty muscles and an embarrassingly skimpy outfit. Staying blue. On the day of the Change, five years ago, Abbey had found herself in the middle of a wrecked house, the transformation coming involuntarily. She was now a Marid, Genie subspecies, and as far as she could find one of the more powerful ones. It was... not always a good thing. Genies granted wishes, that was something everyone knew, and the last five years of her life had been spent desperately trying to keep her bound object out of the hands of others. Not always successfully. She waved one hand, setting up the shimmering field of shelter that kept the weather off of her.
