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.
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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.
The form did come with some perks. Not needing to eat if she didn't want to was one. Being able to just call on magics of hearth and home was another. Definitely let her save a lot of money in a place as expensive as this one.
Abbey breathed deeply, settling down. The small form was somewhat close to her old one, before she became what she was today, but it took real effort to maintain. She couldn't do it all the time, so sleeping in her natural state helped. Last checks before bed. Phone alarm set properly, in a little hanging bag next to her head. Check her mana pool to make sure the spell wouldn't end overnight. Final check, for her bound object. The gold coin her father gave her, a relic of his days diving for shipwrecks. The one which, if possessed by another, would force her into servitude.
The one which was not in the pocket she left it in.
Her settling calm immediately vanished as if it had never been, to be replaced by icy terror. In the pocket was a handful of cheap golden dollar coins. Right where she'd shoved them at the end of her shift.
Okay, okay, that means I probably accidentally paid with it! I have a spot. Justin said he was going to be there for another hour, right? I have to get back to the BuckStar right now!
No busses would be running in time. She'd have to run. What was a 15 minute bus ride would take 30 to run in her full Marid form. Thankfully, seeing a six-meter blue giant running down the street was not exactly the cause for alarm and panic that it might have been years before. Still, running had never been her sport, and there were limits even fueled by her panic.
Several miles away, Justin closed up shop. Not a single extra customer had come since the two ladies from the bank. He sighed. Technically, this was about four minutes early, but he was tired. Same old grind. No family within three hundred miles. No time to hang out with friends or blow off steam. It was just class, then homework, then work. Occasionally laundry. A never ending cycle three and a half years long. He didn't know how he'd make it the last few months until graduation. The job wasn't the best-paying one out there, though it meant he'd only be in debt a few more years after graduation. It was just a long, lonely grind. The lock smoothly slid home, the click a familiar one.
He turned to start the late-night walk back to the nearby campus, hands shoved in his pockets, when he felt a bit of cold metal. The odd coin Abbey had given him. It seemed... comforting, in a way. Lucky. He found his heart pounding in his chest, nervous, like his next words would matter. Grabbing the coin tightly, he spoke the words in his mind.
"I wish I had a good girlfriend."
The giant Marid running down the road felt it as she rounded the last corner, desperately trying to make it to the store. She felt it as reality shifted, as her head filled with knowledge of one person. Knowledge she knew she had no way to have acquired. Knowledge about a formerly lonely man named Justin Majors. She shrank as she got closer, but not to what she thought of as her work form. No, this time was different.
Though she was again dressed in her business attire, slacks and a button-down shirt, she found herself much shorter than usual. Her muscles firmed and bulked, her face shifted to have bigger and brighter eyes, her form got curvier than her usual preference. A necklace appeared around her neck, one she didn't recognize, a simple silver chain with no pendants.
She found him standing there, lost in thought in front of the shop, and didn't stop running until she got all the way to him and swept him up into an enormous hug. This was in no way what she intended to do.
It was also apparently not what he expected. Justin found himself reflexively turning towards the oncoming blue woman, arms spread to take her into an embrace strong enough to make sure her soul stayed in her body. Just like he knew she liked. Somehow.
