Monster Breeder

139. Power Bond II

I’ll sit on my options for a while; I’ve spent enough time navel-gazing.

Field Town has come alive around me. Everyone is emerging from where they spent the night and reckoning with the morning after. Harpies are singing to greet the sun. Fruit Nymphs are ‘making breakfast.’ Fuzzy folk are bustling about serving predators, cleaning up, and doing chores to start the day. The Needle Mouse from last night seems to be getting roped into joining the other Fuzzy folk’s activities.

“Any fruit this morning, Lady Alex?” a lop-eared bunny asks, approaching me with a woven platter bearing fresh produce and a black-and-white-haired mouse girl at her side carrying a smaller version of the same. Huh, they’re the two from late last night.

“Just half a grapefruit,” I say as I pluck one from the selection. A nip of my index finger yields a drop of red that I shape into a scalpel with Blood Magic before slicing the citrus in twain. My audience’s eyes widen as I replace the surplus half and turn my crimson knife into a spoon to begin eating while walking away. I don’t need to eat a big breakfast since I’ve got Photosynthesis scales to help fuel my body.

Scanning about the pavilion for my companions reveals my girls convening in a circle: Suka, Dura, Cottontail, Megan, Gale, Isabella, Flou, Olindia, Gabby, and Sue. They’re hunched over in close with their heads obscuring the object of their attention. Approaching as quietly as I can, I’m able to catch some of their conversation.

“Darn! Dura thou’t fo’ sure she got big straw dis time!”

“You’re not taking one, Miss Gabby?” Cottontail asks.

The bespectacled Gobliness shakes her head to the negative, “I plan to spend the day in seclusion working on my third tier advancement. It’s illogical to participate; the boon would be wasted on me.”

“Well, good on you to show restraint, Shortstack,” Suka says.

“Hmph. Better.” Naturally, Gabby is proud of her voluptuous assets and bosom near-overflowing her robes. Holy God Beast, did she get even bigger in the chest!?!

The wolf girl gives a small fist pump at coming up with a successful nickname.

“I’ll gladly give my straw to my darling Suki!” Isabella offers.

“Shit, girl, that’s not how the fucking game works,” Olindia states with no real heat in her voice.

“Everyone shut up and let Cottontail take her turn!” Megan demands.

The Showbunny in full costume (fishnet pantyhose, black teddy, red underbust corset, white button up, red bowtie, black tailcoat open at the front, and black top hat), the others sporting no more than purple Dark Magic lingerie courtesy of Spindle, steps forward to pluck a straw from Gabby’s fist.

“I won?” Cottontail stares at her pinched fingers in disbelief before leaping with excitement, “I won!”

“The long straw! Hurray! Cottontail got the long straw! …What does she win again?” Gale wonders aloud.

 “Yeah, guys, what’s going on?” I decide to break into the conversation, turning to remark at Gabby’s overnight changes, “Goblin Matron looks good on you, Honey.” It certainly does. The tier upgrade somehow brought her beautiful features a notch closer to physical perfection, her face slightly more symmetrical, blemishes I barely recall now smoothed out.

She dips her head for the compliment, making breasts larger than her head jiggle enticingly, and winks at me beneath her spectacles. “We decided the only fair way to determine who receives your Power Bond was through drawing lots.”

My cheeks heat in embarrassment as I admit, “I sort of already let Suka keep hers for the day…”

“Yes!!!” Suka pumps her fist again in celebration.

I recover quickly before any disappointment fully registers on my audience, “But I purchased a second with my Breeder marks! Cottontail can have that one. A third is… too expensive at the moment.”

*Select Brand…*

*Selected Cottontail!*

The Showbunny sighs in relief before considering, “But, what to choose…?”

“Welp,” Suka says as she flexes, not demonstrating any prodigious musculature as perhaps imagined, but definitely putting her lithe, athletic, appealing physique on display, “It’s another day of Ogre Strength for me.”

The wolf girl’s hand descends to her tummy Brand to confirm the choice when Gabby reaches out to grab her wrist, interrupting, “You can select any ability from Alex’s extensive arsenal, and you’re picking that?”

“Uhh, yeah.” Suka doesn’t need to consider the question for more than a second. “Being strong is fucking amazing!”

Gabby’s eye twitches as she removes her spectacles to massage her temples. “Shall I remind you Alex has third tier abilities? Aello’s Air Blades? Luck Magic? Multitasking? Extra Arms? A defensive suite including armor, scales, battlefield awareness, and stone-like skin? Not to mention Restoration magic that could save someone’s life?!?”

“…Oh, um, sure, some of those do sound pretty good,” Suka allows, though clearly still in love with yesterday's strength boost.

“I’m going with Fast Learner!” Cottontail announces while already making the selection on her own tummy Brand menu.

The new Goblin Matron throws her hands up in the air in frustration, “Why, in the name of the God Beasts, would you pick my second tier ability despite all the superior options???”

Despite twiddling her thumbs at the recrimination, the Stage Magician bunny girl stalwartly defends her choice in a small voice, “The big fight is tomorrow, though, and I have a lot to learn. My magic is strange and new to me. There’s so much I don’t understand about it. Miss Gabby, you’re so confident, and even Miss Spindle thinks your talent is incredible. I just thought that, if I picked one of your abilities, perhaps some of that would… rub off on me? And-and, maybe you could even teach me some magic!”

Sighing heavily, Gabby takes her Twisted rod in hand (her staff, not the one beneath her robes), and says, “Cottontail, sadly, our magic is too different; there’s no cross-compatibility. Your hat draws forth instruments to enact your will, whereas my rod manipulates the leylines of the world to achieve desired effects.” In demonstration, the Goblin Matron waves her staff to produce an arc of smoky darkness and fizzing purple lights.

Instead of crumpling in defeat, however, Cottontail studies the motion, and something seems to click in her mind. She takes her hat in hand and begins rooting through its mysterious extradimensional space, pulling forth… a rubber chicken? No, the elegantly dressed Showbunny tosses that aside and tries again, drawing a bouquet of flowers, and then a candelabra, which she also discards. A juggling baton comes next, making her hesitate, before she tries one more time—producing a black wand with a white tip.

Cottontail waves the smooth, shiny ebony shaft in an arc that produces a small shower of glittery iridescent sparks. Elated, bouncing happily on her paws, she exclaims, “I did it! Yesterday, I couldn’t make anything I actually wanted come out of the hat, but, this time, I had a feeling. It’s like there’s a trick to it that I can get the knack for if I keep trying!”

The others are starting to seem a little impressed, a sentiment that Gabby squashes with a scoff and a shake of the head, “Cottontail, Cottontail, even if you’ve got the capability, it won’t be possible to imitate another caster without the ability to see the leylines.”

Ah, yes, that’s right. I’ve got Profane Sight, but the way Gabby is able to copy magic works on a combination of several abilities: her spectacles let her see magic, Fast Learner increases her learning speed, Quicky Study improves memorization, and her instrument (a staff crafted from a Treefolk’s phallus) allows her to manipulate the leylines. Emulating Gabby’s fighting style isn’t possible simply by copying a single one of her abilities.

“Hmm…” Cottontail considers before sticking the wand in her cleavage (a convenient pocket I’m sure she’s ecstatic to now possess after yesterday’s evolution) and returning to the hat. She goes fishing inside the yawning dark abyss of the magical top hat to find what looks like an inflated bladder bearing a strange insignia in a language I can’t read, a set of dentures with grotesque oversized teeth, a banana peel, and then a pair of sunglasses.

Cottontail’s ‘spectacles’ are garishly pink, studded with rhinestones, and shaped like two great stars.

“Pentagrams?” Gabby wonders aloud, skeptical, but no longer so quick to dismiss.

After donning the showy glasses, Cottontail stumbles back as if having suddenly lost her balance because of a vast influx of new visual information. She throws her arms out to steady herself and gradually straightens to a confident posture, smiling broadly. “It worked again! I see all these vibrant colors everywhere I look—this is amazing!” Then the Showbunny draws her wand from between her breasts and brings her hands together in pleading, “Please, Miss Gabby, give me a chance!”

Shrugging helplessly as the others look on with great expectations, Gabby raises her rod and twirls the tip, bringing forth a drizzle of water—the same as the Mermaid Water Magic I showed the diminutive Gobliness when we met.

Cottontail studies the magic with intense concentration until Gabby finally lowers her arm and turns to watch the Showbunny’s response with bated breath. We all stare in silence while waiting to see what this so-called Stage Magician is truly capable of.

Instinctively, brows furrowed with focus, Cottontail makes an arcane gesture before tapping the rim of her top hat with her wand. *Gulp!* After a nervous swallow, the Showbunny reaches inside to pull forth… a flower.

A daisy, to be precise.

“Oh. I-I thought I saw something, and it felt right, but I guess I still have a long way to go, huh? Sorry to get your hopes up, everyone,” Cottontail apologizes.

“What’s everyone looking so depressed for?” Chris asks, the white-haired angora bunny girl frolicking over while wearing her brand new stunningly black Playmate outfit. Indeed, everyone seems deflated by the anticlimactic development. “Hey, Cottontail! That’s a pretty flower; is it for me~?”

Chris leans forward to smell the blossom, which suddenly spews forth a torrent of water!

The deluge knocks Chris off her feet, sending her tumbling backward head-over-heels until she catches herself on the edge of the pavilion a dozen feet away. The sopping wet bunny girl sloshes to her feet, starts wringing out her fur, and says, “What the heck was that!?!”

The rest of us gasp as we realize what this means.

Gabby stares in open awe, gobsmacked and slack-jawed. “Did she just learn to use magic after borrowing one of my abilities?”

I pluck Cottontail from the ground, give her a hug and a congratulatory kiss, and say, “Looks that way, but why does this flower squirt water?”

“I have no idea,” the Gobliness replies, adjusting her spectacles before motioning at the pile of detritus pulled from Cottontail’s top hat, “But, then again, I’ve got no clue what a ‘whoopee cushion’ is, either.”

“Alright, fine,” Suka announces, “You’ve convinced me. I’m getting Fast Learner today, too.”