Making Monster Girls 10: For Science!, page 1
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Chapter One
Oranges and bright yellow colors streaked the sky as the sun slowly rose and bathed the capital in almost a halo. If this were any other type of situation, I would’ve thought it was one of the most beautiful cities I’d ever laid my eyes on, but this wasn’t. This was the place where my mother lived… the Queen, Calistia, and where many men had lost their lives. According to censuses I’d looked over before, more men died in the capital than any other city across the country. Of course, it made sense since it was larger than any other town, but I knew the grotesque and horrible things aristocrats did to their men.
“How far do you think we are?” Valerie asked in my ear, and I immediately swiveled my eyes to the gorgeous feline-woman.
The ash-blonde stood at roughly five-foot-five or a little less, and her body was taut with lean muscle. Her hair was long down to the middle of her back and darker brown at the roots but crème colored blond at the length and tips. It’d grown longer in the last few months, but I liked the wild look it gave her. It suited her more than the shorter shoulder length hair she’d had when she first appeared out of my machine. Her dazzling blue eyes were the color of seawater, and when she smiled, they crinkled at the corners. On most days, the ash-blonde was usually bubbly and enthusiastic, but today was not one of them. Her face was smooth, but her chocolate-brown ears laid flat against her head, and her sleek tail flicked out behind her anxiously.
“It may look like it’s close,” Daisy uttered from the left of me. “As Aschere told us before, it’ll take us roughly two to three days to get there. Do you see that bridge in the distance?”
My gaze swiveled to Daisy, and her honey-colored eyes were intent on a stone structure farther down the winding road. The bear-girl was my second transformation and originally was Delphine Vallantine, a true terror in Edenhart. Her dark brown hair was cropped short, and it looked as if she’d kept up on trimming it over the last few months. Unlike Valerie’s, Daisy’s rounded ears stuck straight up and swiveled in different directions as she listened to sounds in the distance. The nubbin of her tail was hidden by the short dress she wore, but I knew it was there, buried under the fabric. The brunette was one of the shortest out of my women, but she was my strongest physically, and the muscles of her legs flexed while she hustled to keep up with the rest of us.
“What does the bridge have to do with anything?” Rian asked.
The imp-woman towered over the rest of her sisters, and her spiraling horns cast shadows behind her as the sun rose even more. Her skin was tinted a muted red, and her sharp yellow eyes scanned the horizon for the bridge Daisy mentioned. Her sleek, black hair shifted over her bare shoulders, and when I glanced over at her, I spied our son strapped to her back. Kerak babbled happily while tapping his mother’s shoulders to some unknown song.
“Ah,” Edony barked. “The bridge over the gorge. We’ll have to cross it before we can enter the city from this direction. It’s one of the most dangerous parts of entering the city. Thankfully, about fifty years ago, they put the stone bridge in place. Before that, it was nothing more than some thin rope with wooden boards fastened to it. It was challenging to cross, especially in a wagon. Hundreds of merchants died while climbing across with their wares. I’ve heard many stories about the ropes snapping and those crossing it, plummeting to their deaths in the water below.”
The wolf-woman strode by my side with her back straight and her head held high. Her fluffy, white and blue ears stood straight up, and her long, luxurious tail whipped out behind her. In one hand, she held the wicked cane I remembered from long ago and stabbed it into the dirt ahead of her. The she-wolf was the most striking and intimidating woman out of all of my monster-women. I was sure it was just her resting expression, but there were times where her violet eyes wandered to you, and if looks could kill, they would. Edony was the only monster-woman that I’d known quite well before I transformed her, and who she was today was such a stark contrast to who she’d been before she went into my machine. Just like Josephine, the wolf-woman kept all of her memories of the past, and in a lot of ways, she was still the Edony that I knew so long ago.
“I remember that.” Josephine nodded. “Well, I wasn’t alive when they built it, but I remember my grandmother talking about it. She and the other aristocrats complained to the Queen many times before Calistia actually listened and built the stone bridge. It made traveling into the capital a lot easier.”
The drake-woman’s long, honey-blonde hair was pulled back into a loose bun, and stray curls brushed her round, pink cheeks. Her four spiral horns stabbed at the brightening sky, but her orange, cat-like eyes swept across the landscape. I knew that only a few of my women had been here before while the rest of us had only dreamed of it. Since Josephine was the Harlots’ leader since her mother, Eveline, stepped down, she’d taken monthly trips to the capital and held rallies for the women in her organization.
“Where’s Beatrix?” Cecelia asked. “I thought she and Celty were coming along with us?”
My eyes shifted to the stunning redhead as she turned to the right and swept her gaze over the canal that ran alongside us. Her long crimson hair was placed over a single shoulder, and she wound her fingers through it nervously. Her dark emerald-colored eyes were wide and sharp in the brimming sunlight. The tattoo-like markings across her arms and legs seemed to almost shimmer with a strange pearlescent sheen I hadn’t noticed before.
“She’s following along in the submersible,” I explained. “She said that she didn’t want to leave it at the side of the canal. It’s better for her if she and Celty kept moving with us in case a ship full of guards happened along. I’m sure that the Queen has a warrant out for the scientist, so all of the guards know what the submarine looks like. Aschere, you said it would take us two or three days to arrive in the capital, correct?”
Immediately, my trusted guard broke through the ranks and clanked up beside me in his full armor. The dark-haired man was a bit older than me with a long scar across most of half of his face, and when we stood shoulder to shoulder, he was only an inch or two shorter. His dark green eyes were wise, and when he settled them upon the towering wall of the first ring, he nodded decisively.
“Yes,” the guard grunted. “It’ll take us a day and a half to reach the gorge, and then, after that, a full day to reach the capital’s first ring.”
“I didn’t expect it to take this long,” I uttered. “But it’s better if we do it this way.”
“I wonder if she can see us from here,” a familiar twang sounded from behind me, and Matilda sidled up beside me with her hands firmly planted on her hips. “Or is she blissfully unaware that we’re comin’?”
The green-haired desperado placed her mechanical hand on my shoulder and then gave it a tight squeeze. Her long, forest-green hair shifted down onto her back, and I admired the shine in her intense scarlet eyes.
“She knows we’re coming,” I breathed. “But I don’t think she knows when. She certainly is aware that things have been happening across the northern part of the country, and multiple cities have fallen to an unknown leader, but I doubt she knows it’s me yet.”
“I wonder what she’ll do when she finally finds out.” The green-haired desperado chuckled darkly. “The boy she tried to get rid of is finally comin’ back. How terrifyin’ it must be for her. I’ve been a Harlot for most of my life, so I don’t know what her mindset is like right now, but once she finds out it’s you, Charles, the fire inside of her will turn to lava, and there will be no stoppin’ it.”
“I know that,” I whispered. “We’ve yet to see what the Queen can do when she’s furious. Hell, she’s torn the country to pieces with her ideology, what else could happen when she’s angry?”
“There are spirits in this world that we try not to speak of,” Olette stated and finally came into view from behind the rest of my soldiers. “I talk openly about the forest spirit because, in a way, she is my mother and my children’s mother. She is the air that gives us breath, and she alone allows us to live, but there are others… who if you even speak their name aloud, they become enraged. I imagine the Queen to be a lot like that. A single word spoken in her direction can send her into a fit. I see her as this deity who controls everything around her, and yet, she cannot find solace in anything, so she takes it out on those around her.”
I didn’t know what to think, and though I wanted to agree with my women, I still wasn’t sure how I felt about the Queen. I’d spent my entire life hating and cursing her name, but we’d recently learned new information. Not all of my women knew about Jonathan or what he’d told us, but I didn’t think what he had to say would change their minds… but it had swayed mine. Of course, I didn’t believe that everything that had happened over the last two-hundred years was pardonable, but there were redeemable aspects to the Queen. She was my mother, and though that didn’t make much of a difference, the letter and what Jonathan said had.
After Edmund, Calistia’s beloved husband, died, she was thrust into a position of power that she didn’t understand, and those around her who were supposed to aid and help her only took advantage of her. They stripped her of her Queenly powers and made her a figurehead while destroying the country that she and Edmund had worked so hard to create. The two of them wanted equality in the beginning, and they’d worked together to create a world where men and women could stand together as equals. It was so strange to think about… At one point in her life, Calistia wanted equality for all, and now… she’d tipped the scales so far in the female gender’s direction that men were nothing more than slaves and brutes to breed with.
Jonathan had explained what happened to her and what caused her to become what she was today, but I still had so many questions, but I knew that I wouldn’t get them answered. I intended to take the capital, crown myself King, and kill Calistia. It didn’t matter that she was my mother or what her intentions for the country were in the beginning. She’d been the one to do this… She’d been the one to sink everything into a dark age where no man was allowed to live freely.
I almost couldn’t imagine her as anything but the villain. She’d purposefully made men into scapegoats because of what a handful of men had done to her. It was almost as if she didn’t understand that no matter where you go or who you meet, there will always be someone who had ill intentions toward you. Hell, she should’ve known that the King’s helpers didn’t have good intentions when she took the throne. She and Edmund had undone a lot of laws that disallowed women from owning their own lives, and she should’ve known that would step on a lot of men’s toes.
I stopped that thought in its tracks and moved my gaze toward the distance palace at the highest ring. I was defending the men who’d done this to her, and in some way, the Queen and I were reversed mirrors of each other. If I defended the men who took her power from her, wasn’t it the same as defending the aristocrats who took away my freedoms? I’d been in her position many times before and where I was now, wasn’t I standing in her shoes? At some point in her life, she’d looked at everything going on around her and decided that it was enough. She wouldn’t live her life in oppression and did something about it. She took back her power and slaughtered the men who took advantage of her.
Wasn’t I doing the very same thing now? I’d spent my entire life oppressed by the aristocrats, and I’d finally decided that it was enough. Here I was, with a whole army of soldiers and monster-women behind me. Wasn’t I the very same as Calistia? I couldn’t throw all of my hatred and anger onto the Queen’s back when I was doing the same thing she did so many years ago.
“Like mother,” I whispered under my breath. “Like son.”
I was experiencing almost the exact same thing that Calistia had gone through, so I couldn’t judge her as harshly. She’d risen against her oppressors and slaughtered them without a second thought… just as I had. Of course, the Queen hadn’t created a machine that would change the world for the better, but hadn’t she, in some way, thought that what she was doing would make the world a better place? Not for everything, but for the oppressed women across the country.
One thing historians have told us for generations, and that is history repeats itself. It will continue doing so until someone steps in and makes a conscious change for the betterment of society. This would be the last time that our country would have to go through a change such as this. Once I was King, there would be no social classes, no aristocrats, and certainly no slaves. We would be a united people and live in peace until the end of time.
“What is that?” Valerie asked, lifted her right hand, and pointed into the distance.
My eyes scanned the sky immediately, and I spied a pinprick of black against the golden hues of sunlight. It moved closer, and at first, I thought it was Beatrix’s griffin we’d met on multiple occasions, but it was far too small to be the mythical bird. Blue light flashed in between the creature’s wings, and as it flew closer, I noticed its little beak, black-and-white markings, and scaly, taloned legs.
“Is that an impundulu?” Daisy asked and turned toward Josephine.
“Dahla,” the honey-blonde whispered, pressed her plump lips together, and let out a shrill whistle before she held out her right arm.
The bird shifted through the air, gazed down at us through its beady black eyes, and then dived toward the drake-woman. Right as it was about to reach her, the bird’s wings flapped rapidly and slowed its landing until it rested firmly on the heiress’ forearm.
“What’s an impundulu?” Valerie asked and stepped a little closer but drew back as the bird cawed angrily.
“It’s a lightning bird,” the bear-girl explained. “They’re believed to have thunder and lightning trapped in their wings. They’re usually much larger than this, about the size of a person, but it could be a different species than the one I’m thinking of.”
“This is Dahla,” Josephine whispered. “She’s a familiar. One of the Harlots who lived in the capital practices black magik, and this is her familiar spirit.”
“So, like a pet?” The feline-woman chuckled.
“No.” Josephine smiled and reached up to stroke the bird’s smooth feathers. “More like… a friend who assists her.”
“Why is it here, then?” Edony asked, and as she did, I noticed the small piece of parchment tied to the bird’s scaly leg.
I immediately reached for it, and the bird calmly blinked at me. As my fingertip brushed against the scroll, a wave of electricity washed over my entire arm. I quickly untied the ribbon that held it in place and began to unfurl the paper. The written words were shaky, and there were blots of ink all over the page as if it’d been written in a panic. As soon as my eyes swept over the few words penned across it, my hands began to shake, and the hairs at the base of my neck stood up.
“What is it, Charles?” Valerie asked and peeked over my shoulder.
“What does it say?” Josephine nearly screamed and rushed forward.
“Position compromised, super-soldiers attacking,” I read off the piece of parchment. “Send help NOW.”
The last three letters were written in frenzied capitals, and I stared down at them for a few seconds as my soldiers fell in around us.
“We have to go now,” I growled. “If the Queen’s sent out the super-soldiers, they won’t last for very much longer. We don’t know how strong they are but… from what we’ve learned about the Queen, they’re probably indestructible.”
“Celty and Beatrix would probably know,” Kleeia broke in. “They were forced to work on them, so they must know how they work and what they could do.”
“What are we going to do, Charles?” Edony asked, rested a hand on my shoulder, and stared into my eyes.
“Daisy, Valerie,” I grunted. “The two of you are coming with me. We need to get to Beatrix. If the eleven of us can somehow get into the capital, we can reach the Harlots and defeat the super-soldiers before the Queen totally wipes them out.”
“What about us, my lord?” Aschere asked. “Shall we come with you?”
“There’s no way.” I shook my head. “We can only take a few people because of the size of the submersible. The rest of the army and monster-women will have to continue toward the capital on the road.”
“I’m coming with you,” Josephine cried, glanced over her shoulder, and found the Drake Legion standing over her shoulder. “All of us are coming with you. These are my people, and I need to be there to help them.”
“Very well.” I nodded, grabbed her hand, and then stepped forward.
Without missing a beat, Aschere took charge, turned toward the rest of the soldiers, and began shouting out orders. Instantly, I reached out and grabbed both Valerie and Daisy’s wrists before pulling them toward the thick side of the canal. Josephine and the Drake Legion thumped along behind us with the heiress at the lead. In the bright morning sunlight, I made out the shape of the submersible in the distance and immediately raced toward it on the edge of the canal. Thankfully, Celty and Beatrix hadn’t dived down underneath the water, and the three of us pounded toward the submarine in the distance. Right as we reached it, I glanced at the space between the deck and us, then jumped with my hands still tightly clamped on my women’s hands.
