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So it turns out that when you're a magical girl you can just... walk... from one city to another.
It's been a week and this novelty is showing no signs of getting old.
She's had a couple exciting moments so far, but has not yet actually gotten thoroughly enough lost that she couldn't find her way back to her apartment, and anyway her patron's ability to find her doesn't have any limits she's been able to detect, so she can't get into that much trouble out here... right?
The rest of the magical girls are restored to health presently.
A few of the guys have minor injuries from the everything-quake back in the lair, but at this point more of them are bothered by the fact that they're all still naked.
Brave Alloy has some towels in her Storage, but nowhere near that many.
It's a problem, because none of them have Worldshift and the Whitewall Alpha waygate is in the Deepwatch Dome. This is the Lifeland Dome. And a hundred inexplicable men streaking through Shackleton is the kind of thing that makes the news and gets governments throwing money at their spy agencies. They're already leaning pretty heavy on the Veil as it is.
(Meanwhile, in the Commercial Operating Center, a technician is quietly panicking because he just saw an alien spaceship land outside the Lifeland Dome and forgot to look at the timestamp and camera ID number and he has to file a request to search the recording and his boss is gonna fire him if he goes claiming anything half this crazy, the boss has been looking for an excuse. Shit.)
"Uh... maybe I can produce... extremely shitty clothes that are still better than wandering around naked?" says a Scintilla, quietly and hesitantly. (It is one of the two who are now cuddling Scyelen. Scyelen is just very snuggable, okay?)
She experiments, back in the cavern, with making clothes out of Miscellaneous Creature Leather. The cavern has kind of a surplus of Miscellaneous Creatures. Result: extremely shitty, plausibly still better than wandering around naked. Also she can't figure out a manufacturing process that isn't really gross.
Scyelen is so snugly. And having the dead stuff gone is definitely contributing to her boneless flop.
The shitty clothes idea is still probably a much better idea than sending someone on a mission to rob all the tourist shops. Having to rob the tourist shops would just be insult on top of injury at this point.
She hatches one of the crocodile-moose-things in her 'operating room', feeds it goo until it's up to adult size, then reshapes it horrifically using applications of her healing powers that she would honestly kind of prefer never to have discovered. Once processed and cleaned up appropriately, it turns into like thirty pairs of rough, stiff, vaguely sketchy-smelling crocodile-skin shorts. And a heap of viscera which her goo promptly reabsorbs.
Naked dudes appreciate the shorts.
They should probably have shirts and shoes too. They don't have to meet any criteria except passing for plausible at a distance, probably, but a hundred inexplicable dudes in just shorts is only going to get slightly less attention than a hundred nude dudes. They need to make people at least hesitate to think something weird is going on.
She produces shirts and - well, leather slippers, at least. They can mix and match crocodile skin, elephant hide, and imp leather, although the imp leather is too thin and soft to make a reasonable shoe material.
It doesn't occur to her until she's already made all the clothes that someone might be weirded out that she managed to make the right number of the right sizes of everything; it wasn't as obvious with the shorts but shoes are a little more individual that way. Maybe they will have more important things to worry about. She doesn't really want to admit to just how clearly and precisely she can see every living thing in her radius.
If anyone's thinking about it, they're not saying it.
"Alright," Sylvia says, mostly addressing the men. "I know the way. We're going to walk calmly, and act like we're right where we're supposed to be. We're going left through the service dock to the next junction, then through that into the Deepwatch Dome. We're looking for a white habitat module they've got in the campus plaza. I'm sure you'll recognized it. It's quite famous. Wait until we're all there, then hop the fence and make a run for the left side. Remember that, the left side or you'll just end up looking like a fool and getting us caught."
Casey opens the airlock.
"Once you're through, don't wander. The Whitewall route is barely mapped, and if you get lost there is no telling where you'll end up. Stay put, and wait for me and my team to lead you. We'll be coming out in Dubai, from there we can get into the Towerglass route and send you pretty much anywhere. Start practicing your 'I'm supposed to be here' face, because this will be a long walk."
Scyelen... isn't actually relevant to this part.
Her team... can go without her. She's just going to keep being where Scintilla wants her.
Scintilla looks around at all of her numerous selves.
Yeah, the sight of a hundred men in sketchy clothes is not going to be any less suspicious if they're accompanied by ninety identical women, is it. She sends most of herself into her 'operating room' and quietly deconstructs them, leaving her population level at a much more reasonable six, then makes herself a crocodile-skin backpack in which to carry a bunch of eggs in case she needs them for some reason.Then she deconstructs the goo vehicle (and tunnel-worms and remaining eggs) and packs most of its mass away into some four-dimensional goo which she carries with her in a different backpack.
"I don't actually... have anywhere to go," she murmurs to Scyelen. "Do you? Should we go there?"
"I... don't. Not usually? But um. I kind of actually, like. Have. A lot of money. So. Fancy hotel room?"
"Okay! We should probably go to San Fran? I don't actually wanna vanish without a trace on my team..."
The journey through the Crossroads goes without incident. The two of them arrive in downtown San Francisco (along with Brave Alloy and three local men), and it is conveniently early evening, there. Brave Alloy walks the guys home, leaving Scintilla and Scyelen to their own devices.
Scyelen cuddles into Scintilla and is willing to go with whatever hotel she picks. Her Style has by now clad her in a basic skirt and t-shirt.
Scintilla's hotel selection algorithm is pretty much based entirely on where she thinks she can get a bed big enough for all six of her to cuddle Scyelen in.
This may require some googling. Or simply erring on the side of 'penthouse'.
In any case it doesn't take long. Soon, a spacious room is secured, a small dent is put in Scyelen's bank account, and luxurious material comfort is had.
Scyelen is naked again as soon as she touches the bed, simulated clothes dissolving away.
The bed, as it happens, is indeed big enough to fit a seven-way girlpile. Scyelen is delighted to be cuddled in a half-dozen-Scintilla girlpile. It has been a long day month year however long. Scyelen is maybe crying a little. She's not even sure why. She's not relieved its over. She's kind of is. She isn't honestly mourning it, either. She probably always will be, at least a little. She clings and squirms, rubbing against all the Scintilla even though she's not desperately horny. Or maybe she is but her scale of horniness has been distorted beyond all reason. She doesn't know. She's not sure she cares.
Six Scintillae all together make for a lot of snuggle. She dismisses her raiment and curls up comfortably and holds Scyelen and pets her and—
—she was kind of lowkey expecting she'd burst into tears as soon as she was no longer being held together by the pressure of an immediate crisis, but instead she seems to... actually relax, in something approaching a normal way. One of her kisses Scyelen's forehead. Everything feels... good and warm and cozy and okay.
Scintilla is good and warm and cozy and...
...could do anything at all to her, right now. They're safe and alone and Scyelen is wildly desensitized to ordinary amounts of being turned on. But her squirming in the mass of naked Scintilla is suspiciously slippery below her waist. They're all wrapped around her and it's so nice she just wants... she just wants...
Unbidden, her lips form two simple words in a dreamy sigh. The two simple words which compose the paradox that has defined everything wrong with her life and everything good about her captivity. The two simple words that she finally understands.
And she cuddles her Scyelen, and pets her, and kisses her, and a tendril of goo slithers up onto the bed and coils itself around Scyelen's body and holds her down and swallows her up and grants her wish.
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