Becoming Monsters 2:

Quick note: it seems the way I was indenting paragraphs no longer works with Patreon. Hope that doesn't bug too many people. -Ai

Becoming Monsters Chapter 54: Enter The Harmony 城

The time had come.

Honoka didn't take long recovering, her little adventure followed with a shower, a full sized meal and a hundred gallons of water to keep her fluids up. Abra and pets absorbed the milk at a rapid pace. After a few hours Abra stated she was over 60%, still sloshing plenty of milk inside herself and her bugs to pump those numbers up even higher.

During a quick second dinner of sandwiches, Honoka received the third degree from the wives (plus one unfortunately nearby aunt) for the boob stunt. Apparently, thick cream splattered into every crevice, this singular mistake ruining more clothing than any other allocation to date. Honoka took it well, though the chastisement burned out quickly as the wives accepted it was for Abra's sake. Besides, everyone was excited for the main event tonight, which had finally arrived.

"Are you gals sure about these?" Honoka asked, using Diane's datapad to skim through the list every wife submitted. "Some of these look...extreme. Even for me."

"This isn't just about us," Padmava said, handing out glasses of cool and tart

aam panna.

The minty menthol was especially strong today because these unripe mango drinks sweetened by Ice Wasp honey, little ice chips forming inside each glass. "We came up with our separate initial harmonization ideas, then we discussed it as a family. These harmonizations are as much about preparing for the future as about self-improvement or cosmetics. Not that there's anything wrong with cosmetics."

Honoka nodded absently, adjusting one of the towels she wore while snuggling deeper into the plush cushion. All the wives wore towels milling around Padmava's living room, completely prepared for whatever unexpected situation was about to happen. The reason for towels instead of naked was because Uncle Aki and Aunt Shilo were present and fully clothed, sipping their own glasses. Originally, the plan was doing this in the clinic - access to Akisame's equipment in case of a prenatal emergency giving the suggestion a lot of weight - until Shilo explained some of the changes might damage the delicate magical machines.

The compromise was Padmava's living room. The clinic was only three rooms down the hall in case they needed it, the space was also open enough for all the wives to sprawl and relax. And if any form of cleanup was needed afterward, Pad's master bathroom was larger than the Big Bath in both size and surrounding floor space. Ten wives either sat on cushions (Abra buzzing in at the last second, finishing her absorption and healing minutes ago) knelt on the floor or slithered around the room passing out drinks. Towels were the state of dress, making it appear to be a spa day, joined by an older couple who were a bit too excited to observe.

"From a purely scientific perspective, I think this will be fascinating," Akisame observed dryly, quirking a small smile on the side of his mouth.

"Ignore him, his mind is just as perverted as his niece's," Shilo said with a wave of white paw. "Don't worry, I'll keep him in line and take care of him later. We're both here in a purely medical capacity."

The entire room took a collective breath to let

that

sink in, perceiving the older gentleman in a new light.

"Ew," Honoka said, pointedly glaring at her uncle and aunt with disgust, eliciting laughs from the peanut gallery. "And again, ew."

"Hurry it up, only got two more hours before the kids return from their movies," Eve pointed out, munching away on a giant bowl of buttery popcorn she shared with Quinn.

Scanning the list again, Honoka growled and handed the datapad back to Diane. "There's too much here, I'm not going to remember it all. I'll just call out names and you can tell me where to stick the points. Who's first?"

"We thought you could start with Pad, she's getting Racial Features and Attributes." Diane scrolled through her list to the motherly naga. "That way we can stretch the new girls out before plunging into the more extreme Racial swaps later on."

"Alright! Lets do this, Pythona!" Honoka said excitedly, rubbing her hands together with glee. That glee faded when hit with a sea of confused looks. "Hrrgh, she's the Cobra-la emissary to Serpentor in...ya know what? You all have phones, you can look her up." Scrolling down her Status, Honoka selected Padmava in the Collection menu and blinked.

****************************************

When her eyes opened, Honoka found herself in a different place.

"What?! Girls?!" Honoka shouted, standing and spinning in place. Honoka was no longer in the dungeon, she was in the front yard of a Japanese castle. The sun shown through orange clouds, the air smelled of

sakura

blossoms, colder than Honoka was accustomed to. Like she stood on a high mountain. There were mountains off in the horizon, but the ground around the castle was oddly bare and empty around her feet.

Her brain attempted to stem the panic, searching for sense from the nonsensical. How could there be the smell of

sakura

without trees? Were the mountains real or backdrops to the Matrix? Thinking of those trees in the mountains reminded her of the time in Sapporo where she visited the Autumn Festival with her family. Which still didn't make any sense because

sakura

bloomed in the spring, not in September.

Why am I thinking about a festival I watched when I was eight?

Honoka thought, suddenly looking down in alarm to see if she still had the towel on. And she remained alarmed over what she found. No towel: Honoka wore a fancy blue kimono styled for a man, wide dark

hakama

underneath. Actually, it wasn't only a kimono, it was a

kamishimo,

the fancy over-vest that went on top of a kimono with very wide shoulders

daimyō

wore in the Edo Period. As the granddaughter of an actual

daimyō,

Honoka remembered her grandfather and some cousins dressed in identical outfits a couple of times, always at formal occasions. However, strange clothing was not the priority right now.

"Can anyone hear me?!" Honoka shouted, spinning around, trying to reference where she was or what she needed to return home. All she earned for her troubles were empty echoes and the rustle of hidden trees.

The castle gate stood open like a glowing quest marker in a game. Other then a mountain trail that went literally nowhere, there weren't any other options for the frantic woman. Marching as quickly as possible, Honoka picked out details of the place for clues in an attempt to solve this puzzle. Which, to the former architect, was easier to ferret out than she guessed. Slowing, Honoka stopped inside the courtyard of the castle when it hit her.

"I know this place," Honoka muttered, idly scratching her head (growing irritated when she realized her hair was folded in a

chonmage

topknot, thankfully without the authentic shaved top of her head) as she absorbed each detail. The

tenshu

- or main structure of the castle - was traditional, a tall wooden castle with multiple levels of sweeping roofs. Inside the courtyard, other smaller structures were more modern and borrowed from Western designs. Even the garden, which should have been sculpted with the precision of Japanese aesthetic, had more of the circular, wild feel found in a Chinese garden. In her mind, Honoka

knew

that if she stepped into any building, she would find her way through room after room blindfolded, from knowing the type of wood used to the quality of the

tatami

under her feet.

Honoka knew this castle because she designed it. A labor of love, she created the plans for this dream during the three and a half years attending college. This was both her thesis project and the home she wanted for herself when she became a world famous architect. Seeing it, standing in it, Honoka felt emotions she hadn't felt in years. The pride of creating something with both purpose and art overwhelmed her. Taking it all in, Honoka felt tears in her eyes as she laughed inside her dream.

"...oka?"

Honoka spun towards the voice. It appeared not everything was the same in her magnificent thesis project. Standing next to the gate, dressed as a samurai warrior, stood a perfect stone statue replica of Miaka. The martial artist was posed as if surprised, her face frozen in shock.

"Miaka?" Honoka asked, finally realizing she was in some sort of crazy Status dream and not mystically transported to a trap built by villains or Heralds or both. With no response, Honoka reached out and touched the statue. "Mia—"

"Honoka?!" Not only did the statue instantly come to life, Miaka changed from stone to living color. On top of that, the familiar Harmony menus appeared in Honoka's vision. "What happened, are you alright, where are we?"

"Hold on," Honoka said, keeping one hand on Miaka while waving the other to calm the frantic woman. "I think this is a Status thing. What's it been like from your perspective?"

"You suddenly collapsed, no reason to it." For a brief moment Miaka took stock of her surroundings and the armor wore, then kept tumbling the conversation forward as she got her priorities straight. "I didn't know your uncle could move that fast. He was the first one by your side, checking your heart and breathing before most of us noticed something was wrong. We were discussing getting you moved to the clinic when I popped in here then popped out. Now I'm back and I'm confused why you look like a

sumi-e

from history class."

"I think I know what's going on. You are currently here because I'm touching you but I'm going to let go in a second so you can calm everyone down. Tell everyone to relax and sit back, it looks like we're harmonizing from inside tel'aran'rhiod. Because I don't know where everyone is in this place, you'll be first: get ready to come back in three minutes." Honoka was about to let go when she had an important thought. "Oh, and because I can only talk to one person at a time, make sure everyone knows exactly what they want or else all the unspent points are going into boobs."

Miaka nodded and gave a thumbs up, going gray and still when Honoka let go.

Alone again, Honoka took a moment to reign in boiling emotions. Up down, left right, bounce bounce bounce, the panicking woman focused on breathing steady as she felt herself try to hyperventilate. Too many shocks to her system caused her to spiral and she

had

to get a grip on herself. When she first arrived, for the first instant before she had time to think, Honoka thought she had been transported to this world by another Herald. Before, uncertainty had kept a lid on fear. Now, the terror bloomed and attempted to drown her. And if Honoka was being honest, she had been treading this water for weeks. Balling up her fist, Honoka slammed it onto her leg, using pain to force a facade of calm.

"Enoch is dead, the family is safe, Enoch is dead, the family is safe." On and on, Honoka repeated her mantra, her reminder, her prayer as she slowly relaxed and was able to step back from the brink. With a slight tremor in her hand, Honoka reached out and touched Miaka again.

"That is so trippy," Miaka said as she cracked her neck, wincing when the

shikoro

swooping down over her neck from the helmet pinched her shoulder. Glancing down, the Japanese girl remarked with amusement, "Am I in samurai armor? Why am I in armor and you're dressed as a fancy lord?"

"I think this place is metaphysical," Honoka said, swiping to Miaka's Rectify tab in her Harmony options. "I designed this castle in college, it is my dream home. And if the Status

is

actually sentient, in a weird way it would see me as the lord of the family. You? I guess you make sense as a guardian or warrior. Or maybe this is all a construct of my Id and you're sharing my delusions." Making a few selections from memory, Honoka nodded and looked up to Miaka. "Ok, twenty-five points spent to fix your nerve and brain damage from your time in the ring. What's next?"

"I can feel it," Miaka said, flexing her talons back and forth then reaching to her left knee and bending her leg back and forth. "I hurt this knee when I was a teen and just starting out, it always hurts. I don't feel pain anymore."

"Play with yourself later, I estimate the other wives are still worried back home."

"Wonder what Honoka dream pussy tastes like," Miaka mused rhetorically with a leer, straightening and adjusting her armor into place. "Um, three Intelligence, four Endurance, seven Dexterity, seven Strength, six Charisma, seven inches (18 cm) of size and the Phoenix Race change option."

As Honoka input each set of points, it became obvious the changes were made instantly to Miaka. Eyes sharpening, slower breathing, her fingers cracking, arms and shoulders swelling to the point where of the latches popped and pieces of armor fell off, her arms bulking up another six inches (15 cm) and gaining thick ridged veins outlined even under feathers, then those feathers gaining added luster as her chest and breasts thrust forward enough that her chestplate creaked from the strain. Finally, most of her armor broke apart when she grew another seven inches and burst half the clips and buckles, once again taller than Honoka (to the jealous growth-hungry woman's irritation). When Honoka picked the last option for Phoenix, Honoka faced an insistent blue box.

***

The following Racial Features have been accessed:

Rebirth

Born of Apollo

Noble Zhuque

Fenghuang's Mercy

Ashes

Racial Calibration required for level

[15]

Dualist

[Miaka Watase]

Racial Calibration cannot compile inside

Harmony Demesne

***

"Did you learn anything on the Phoenix Race from the internet?" Honoka asked as she dismissed the box and double checked her choices before making the final confirmation.

"Only that there are less than a dozen confirmed cases still alive, one of them famously a puppet emperor of the Glorious Chinese Empire fighting the communist government at the moment." Miaka flexed a bicep to swell her arm like inflating a soccer ball, grinning at the granite hardness in those guns now. "No solid information on what options the Race has, but it is clear from the few videos out there they have fire and healing magics. What is interesting is that unless there's a hidden flock somewhere, I will be the first female example."

Wanting to grumble, Honoka shrugged and decided it could wait, hitting the confirmation and letting go of Miaka. Miaka, for whatever reason, didn't turn back into a statue like they both expected. Much to the exhaustion of Honoka's frayed nerves.

"I'm not leaving," Miaka replied obviously, wary of other Status problems baring their tits.

"Of course

you are stuck with me, why wouldn't you be?" Honoka was having it up to

here

with Status malarkey, wanting to grab a blue box and shake it until the stuffing came loose. "We could be stuck in here for days unless we find all the wives. Fly up and see if you spot any more of them outside, I'll start going through the annex buildings."

Honoka's castle was not small, scaled to other similar castles like Himeji and Kumamoto. It didn't include the complete complex other castles possessed, traditional Japanese castles typically part of a city-sized defense. Honoka's castle still had over a dozen large buildings in a courtyard covering three hundred acres (1.2 sq km). Honoka's cost analysis for it in college put it somewhere at twenty million dollars to build, never mind land prices and eventual upkeep. Her teachers used it as an example to other students of wasteful building costs and the need to design something practical instead of opulent. Though it was eventually accepted by the panel, her grades were docked for designing something wasteful.

At the time Honoka had silently been proud of her magnificent castle. Right now, it was like looking for gold needles in Rumpelstiltskin's haystack.

"Found Banda!" Miaka shouted after a half hour of searching, swooping low over the building Honoka was fruitlessly searching.

The jog didn't take them long, coming to the edge of the open garden. The reason Miaka missed the large holstaur statue at first was she was sitting on a bench under the cover of blooming trees. When Honoka arrived and assessed the stone cow, the intelligent woman began piecing together how to make it easier finding everyone else.

"This area is the garden," Honoka said, slowing down to a walk along the path towards the stone woman. Banda resembled Rodin's work, bovine eyes pointed over the field. Her clothing resembled a common laborer in Edo Japan, loose cotton gray kimono over a

fundoshi

and wearing a simple straw conical

amigasa

hat, floppy bovine ears poking through holes. Of interesting note, Banda was not pregnant in this realm and appeared just as she had a week ago. "I think we'll find each wife near a place that relates to their role in the family."

"Should save us some time," Miaka said, thinking about it as she cracked her knuckles and took another look around the area. "I'm guarding the gate, Banda's growing food: tell me where your sex dungeon is so I can grab Eve."

Honoka lightly punched Miaka in the arm then stepped through the tall grass, reaching her hand out to Banda and summoning her here.

"Before you say anything, I'm going to let go in a second so you can give everyone an update that we are fine, but this might take a while because we have to find each wife to unlock Harmony. Also, when I confirm the point selection in my menus, that wife is stuck here until we're done. Any questions?"

"I'll ask, give me two minutes," Banda said, midway shaking her head when Honoka released her and the girl returned to stone.

"Hmm, next wife we find I'm going to see if there's anything around I can insert into their stony twat, give them something to wake up to." Miaka was already looking around the garden, probably searching for ripe cucumbers.

Honoka snorted, counting the seconds down until the time and bringing Banda back with a touch to her thigh.

"Ok, don't do that quickly, I think it could cause seizures." Banda rubbed her eyes, confused to not be pregnant but otherwise adapting quickly. "Everyone is on board, though if Quinn is next, hold off on her because she's cooking snacks in case this takes longer than expected. I also cannot confirm or deny a certain goblin finding a marker and drawing lewdness on your faces."

Grumbling, Honoka got to work putting the holstaur's points together. With sixteen levels of Harmony, Banda had 110 points to play with. As was explained to Honoka, the pregnant wives agreed to put off spending fifteen points until after the children were born in case any emergencies came up. With 95 points, eight went into Strength, seven into Agility, five into Wisdom. Then Banda bought the Racial Feature to change the taste of her milk once a day as well as increase nutritional values for her milk by 25% three times. Finally, for a hefty price tag of forty-five points, Banda agreed with the other girls and picked the as yet undiscovered Race of Celestial Taurine.

***

The following Racial Features have been accessed:

Light Of The Herd

Divine Matriarch

Immortal

Celestial Orbs

Absolute Direction

Racial Calibration required for level

[21]

Cleric (Teteoh)

[Banda Tamanendi Longhat]