Now available on Literotica: Becoming Monsters Book 1, Growing Problems!
All 40 chapters will show up here, so look forward to Honoka's adventures with monster girls chapter by chapter as I figure out how to format everything to fit my vision.
For right now, enjoy the story and join with thousands of people when I say to KEEP HARMONIZING!!
PREVIOUSLY ON BM: The wives are going to war. Step one: level up. Step two: kick some butt!
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Chapter 30: Can't Save Everyone
As they ran, Honoka's sword burst into a bright and fertile light, compliments of a blessing from Banda. Other weapons either received a similar light or were engulfed into black flame from Quinn's enchantments, the ability to enchant melee weapons and not bullets a primary reason why so many people used swords nowadays.
In no time, they entered the prison block proper and that is when things turned hairy. At least fifty human men and women were in the process of stumbling out of cells in various states of undress but most of them held a weapon of some kind.
"These are slavers and rapists!" Honoka yelled to her family, mostly to remind herself. "No holding back!" And putting words to action, Honoka allocated thirty Strength, ten of every other Attribute and a few other features while leaping twenty feet (6 m) into the air, bringing her sword down with a scream and a blinding flash. Bisecting a half-naked woman before she even brought up her own sword to defend as the black woman's body finished filling with bulging and twitching muscles, Honoka's shirt taut over her powerful torso and braless D-cup breasts, the stretchy straps of her various pieces of armor held and Honoka looked for her next target.
The girls roared their defiance and frustrations out and plunged into battle as the rest of the guards shook out of their dazed stupors and fought back. Miaka was the fastest to draw, leaping into the air and either diving or strafing with her shotgun at any of the ranged weapon holders she could find. Behind the owl woman, only taking a moment to finish her spell, Quinn used her Insect Forms Class Feature and grew massive insect wings that unfolded out of her back on either side of her rifle and two long scythe-like black appendages on her forearms, both bursting with blood and visceral fire through her skin. The otter/insect hybrid's flight was faster and more precise than Miaka's, her erratic patterns and infernal devastation leaving piles of meat that might be identified through dental records. Banda lost some of her Strength but the holstaur roared as she grew another four feet (122 cm) in height and mass, rushed forward in the hallway, her glowing shield held in front of her like a battering ram, veering and slamming each guard she met into a paste against the walls. Padmava, smaller and weaker now, held back and stood in front of the entrance, placing the shields her husband gave her before her armored core and activated a magical barrier that shimmered with potent electricity, opaque from the other side looking in.
As deadly as the wives were, Honoka proved the most potent while she surged from target to target. With her Strength, no armor or weapon stopped her blessed mithril sword. Her Dexterity meant no matter the speed and skill of her opponent, she remained faster. Her Agility allowed her to dodge past any strike aimed at her. Her Perception, Intelligence and Wisdom allowed her to predict counter strikes and find the most vulnerable victims. Her Charisma and Luck kept them off guard and gave her momentary lapses in their defenses. Her Health helped brush off blows that did get through and her Endurance kept her going. It was like a goddess of death descended on these poor fools and it was her grim cobalt eyes that caused the last dozen to try and break ranks and flee from all the carnage.
A few got away, exiting the opposite end from where the girls entered, and Honoka let them go as she fell to her knees in a puddle of someone's blood.
"Sound off!" Honoka yelled, lurching to her feet and allocating back to save on MP, hissing when she no longer possessed the fortitude to push through the pain in her hip from a deep sword gash. All over her body, she was covered in the bruises, cuts and burns she was had been brushing off with allocated stats and they all screamed at her like a rowdy mob pouring into an opened Black Friday Sale store, her limp growing more pronounced as she walked towards the center. "Honoka, with lots of minor wounds and a bad leg gash, currently limping."
"Padmava, uninjured. Barrier is less than thirty percent!" The naga coiled near the entryway and a dozen guards beat on her barrier with weapons and spells.
"Miaka here. They got a lucky shot in, left arm is broken and can't fly!" The owl woman was on one of the upper levels but leaned over the railing while she held her arm close, scanning the hallway.
"Someone hacked me in the back with an ax, healed but hurting and low on MP." Banda arched her back as she scrambled up from the floor, gingerly walked towards Honoka.
"...uninjured but...AAAHHH!!...this Class Feature hurts like a flamin' horses' patoot!" Quinn was also on the upper level. It appeared monumentally painful as her arms and hands reformed from the bones outward amid blood and smoke. "Also out uv MP!"
Looking to the side, Honoka found the cells weirdly labeled, the ABCD on each windowless steel door connoting whether it was bottom left, top left, top right and bottom right. She was in the nineties and quickly moved to 86D. Banging her pummel on the door, she yelled, "Aruna?!"
"[Yes? Help me, please! Is my mom there?]"
"Yeah, your moms are here! Stand away from the door!" Reaching at her side, Honoka found her Ruger missing and she almost cursed. Looking down at the sputtering blessing on her sword, she allocated a little extra strength and stabbed into the jam perpendicular to the lock. It took two stabs, but on the second, the door swung open. Huddled in a corner, covered in his own filth and looking like he'd been starved for days, only wearing a few rags that were once clothing, Aruna's eyes widened in shock before filling with tears when Honoka limped into the room.
"I'm...I'm so sorry!" the young man cried, weakly crawling and accepting Honoka's kneeling hug, bawling into the young woman's shoulder. "I just...I just..."
"It is ok, let's get you out of here." Honoka almost fell over with pain but Aruna was too weak to do anything at this point so she grit her jaw and held both of them up.
"Aruna?!" Padmava exclaimed from her post at the barrier, unable to move else the thing would fall. She still almost did, her tail flicking back and forth to hold her son.
"Mama!" Aruna cried. He stumbled the last few steps, falling and climbing onto her tail to embrace his mother, both crying loudly.
It would have been a touching moment, except reinforcements arrived.
"HONOKA!!"
No one could react when a band of better-equipped guards came from the far entrance, led by a hulking man in magical power armor who lowered something that looked like the mother of all bazookas and fired an energy blast of sickly-yellow light at the most obvious target, the woman standing in the center of the hallway, Honoka. These guards and their leader were under some kind of magical illusion that kept them silent and hidden, the spell breaking only a moment before the shot fired. By all laws of ambush, physics and magic, Honoka would die because no one could possibly prepare and respond quickly enough.
No one, except for Miaka.
The kikiyaon had kept watch and noticed a glimmer before the spell fell, ignored by everyone else. However, Miaka was an experienced delver and she knew what glamor looked like. Without thinking, all she pictured in her head was Honoka's death and the owl woman couldn't accept that. Tipping over the side of railing as she screamed a warning, she launched herself downward with her powerful legs, spreading her arms in any attempt to catch the shot.
*BOOOM!!*