I'm going to become the joker. If your dumb reptilian ass is going to get between me and dyke board game night you could at least have the decency to kill me. Where the fuck is the SCP Foundation when you need them?

She sends a DM.

hi. I know you don't know me, but my name is Raven. I have a job offer, and some stuff to tell you that might be hard to believe. Is there a place and time you can meet? I'm convenient to anywhere in the USA.

huh

is there actually an SCP foundation type deal?

you guys sure suck at your jobs then

in any case like

despite what I said my conscience forbids me from becoming any kind of cop so if that's what you're after I'm gonna have to turn you down

We're quite like the Foundation, actually. We don't suck at our jobs, we're just horrifically understaffed due to a chronic absence of qualified applicants. What if...don't think "cop", think "soldier". Warrior. Knight, even. Does that sound any better?

Nice try. My dad was in the navy, I know that it's not as exciting as they make it out to be, and even if there is magic involved that's probably still true. Plus I'm too clumsy to drive a car or ride a bike, so idk how the fuck you expect me to be worth the cost of training and equipping.

You're worth it by your very nature! I realize how bullshit young adult novel it sounds, but you most likely have a special ability found very rarely in the population that is worthy of further investigation. If you indeed possess it as predicted, you would prove an invaluable resource to any army regardless of how incurably clumsy you are. Could you give me a time and place to meet up so I can demonstrate the veracity of my claims? Even if you're not interested in enlisting, surely you're curious to learn more about this other side of the world that's been hidden from you all your life.

Yeah, young adult novel is right. From what I'm aware, I'm basically living in Larry Mason, except I'm a Mundy who's somehow immune to whatever bullshit hexes wizards are using to cover all the magic up, so I've just gotta go through my life with the knowledge that there's probably a cure for cancer and shit that you assholes are holding out on because you're too busy playing sports that make even less sense than regular ones.

"immune to whatever bullshit hexes cover all the magic up" is about right, except it's not hexes cast by someone, it's a natural phenomenon. We don't have a singular "cure for cancer"; we do have medical technology that we're keeping to ourselves on account of the whole "horde of monsters threatening to overrun the globe without our overstretched intervention" thing, and that most mortals can't even perceive half of it.

So there aren't enough people who can see through the Masquerade. Still doesn't mean I'm gonna survive more than 10 seconds going toe to toe with a troll or whatever the fuck. Granted, I did escape a jianghshi dentist once, but seemingly they get really sloppy on account of most people can't perceive magic bullshit.

Most mortal women wouldn't survive a fight with a monster before our training methods! We're the Amazons, we can make warriors out of almost anyone. And in any case, with your abilities you'd be the most protected person in the party.

A jianghshi? I don't think I've fought one before, but maybe we know them by a different name, like Ares and Mars. What was it like?

there wasn't really a fight. I just noticed she moved weird and smelled bad and seemed oddly eager to anaesthetize me so I just got up and bailed and then I later looked up 'chinese monsters' on the internet and the symptoms matched. It was kind of traumatic and I don't like to talk about it, I shouldn't have brought it up, can we please talk about something else.

awwwwwwww, I'm sorry, sweetie :(

We could talk more about your abilities, and how you'd be a particularly valuable asset to the Amazon nation? Or perhaps you'd like to hear about what the Amazons could do for you. Joining up comes with a lot of perks, including magic and technology you can't find anywhere else.

Amazon? Like, Wonder Woman Amazon?

Hmmm, I'm not very familiar with comics. They're...superpowered female warriors, live on an island, no men?

We're indeed superpowered female warriors, but we have front organizations throughout

Raven starts to type the word "barbarian", backspaces, and types

mortal society, and men are present in our bases, though not allowed to wield weapons or burdened with the responsibility of political decision-making. Some wanna find an alternate solution to the childcare problem and do without them, but I think that'd be a damn shame, they're a lot of fun.

As for our abilities...I don't really know what powers Wonder Woman has, except I think there's a lasso of truth in there? We do get magic items like that. My teammate Lauren has a hoodie that turns her invisible when she pulls the strings—it's a gift from her father, Hermes—and a cigarette lighter that turns into a flamethrower with a magic word; my buddy Gwen's got a Swiss Army knife with blades made of Imperial gold—that's a magic metal made by one of our allies, harms monsters while passing right through regular mortals like you—that turn into full size weapons when she pulls out the toothpick. Like, the big knife into a broadsword, the can opener into a scythe, the screwdriver into a spear—that one's her favorite, it's badass.

We also have some innate abilities, but that varies with our species. The most common are those of us with divine ancestry, like me—I'm a demigod, a daughter of Hecate. The best source you mortals have on what that's like, if you read Greek or Latin or can find translations you like, is probably the ancient epic poets—Homer, Virgil, and so on. Superhuman strength, constitution, and perception. We can hit harder and lift more than mortals, take harder hits ourselves and survive longer falls, our pregnancies are practically painless compared to what mortal women have to go through, and of course we can see through the Mist, the veil that obscures the supernatural. A few lucky ones get special blessings from their divine ancestors; my team's medic, Hope, is a descendant of Apollo and she can cure or inflict illness with a touch.

Some of us are monsters who choose to hunt their own kind and protect mortals. Gwen's husband is a Cyclops. He's skilled at working with magic metal, makes and maintains her weapons and armor. Some warrior women wouldn't be cool with that as an occupation for their husbands or boyfriends, but Gwen loves it. I think there's nothing wrong with it—it's just seeing the blood and guts up close that the male mind isn't evolved to deal with. Men are better than we give them credit for at technical work, their scores on mortal intelligence tests aren't a huge overestimate. Lauren is host to an eidolon, a possessing spirit—they're formed from the ghosts of mortals, often ones who have forgotten their original names and past lives. I myself have received a promise from my mother that, if I fall in battle, she'll make me an empousa—basically a vampire—to continue the fight.

There's the nature spirits, mostly dryads and naiads. I don't hang out with them much, because my team goes on missions all over the country while they're more suited to guarding particular areas, by their trees and rivers.

Rarest are the clear-sighted mortals like you. In addition to seeing through the Mist, you can serve as a guide to safely navigate the Labyrinth. It's how my team travels, gets us across the country faster than a car and safer than a plane. My team's current guide is a male, and even though he wears a bulletproof vest and hides behind us if any fighting breaks out, HR is raising a huge stink about the ethics of exposing him to combat at all, so we need a replacement.

...whoof, my bad, that infodump kinda got away from me a little. There's just so much to catch you new people up on!

The Labyrinth? Is my superpower being too gay to be mesmerized by David Bowie's pelvic thrusting?

haha, not that kind of labyrinth! Gods, Lauren loves that movie. I think maybe you have to be raised among mortals to get it :Þ

But no, think more like a procedurally generated video game dungeon. Network of ever-shifting tunnels in a mishmash of architectural styles, running under the whole country.

And... you're a lesbian? 👀

Not to be crass about it, but lots of mortal women find it a major perk that, on squads that spend lots of time away from base, hookups and even battlefield romances between team members are normal.

Don't play dumb with me. Somehow, I don't think it's a coincidence that the specific woman from this femdom Sparta warrior culture who contacted me happens to be my type.

Your type? 👀

I'm always the recruiter for my team, cause I'm the one who most enjoys talking to people on the Internet.

Oh, I don't doubt that, why would they bother specifically hiring bespoke hotties to honeytrap people when they could just AI generate thirst traps to put on the profile? You've probably had that technology for decades.

I'm offended! No bland computer generated mask could take the place of my face. Or should I be flattered that you think I'm so beautiful just talking to you counts as a honeytrap? =^-^=

...we're ahead of mortal society in raw computing power, but not that far, and traditionally we've been cautious about AI, though that's changing now that mortals are letting it rip anyway and we gotta catch up.

Wait a minute, I'm stupid. You have magic. You don't even need AI, you can probably just shapeshift! If I were straight you'd probably be pulling some shit like they did on that senator guy in season 1 of The Boys

Gods, I wish shapeshifting yourself into another human was that easy. I might be able to pull it off, if I picked a form not too different from my existing body type, but few other demigods could. If real life were like D&D where Alter Self is a lower level spell than Baleful Polymorph, we'd have a way easier time with 

She types

taking over the world

then backspaces, types

unifying and coordinating mortal society

and finally types

diplomatic relations.

And dare I ask what happened on s1 of The Boys?

they got a guy who had shapeshifting powers to shapeshift into a hot girl, seduce some senator, and make him put on a blindfold during sex so he could then shapeshift back into a guy and film the sex as blackmail

Mortals are always so weird about homosexuality, honestly. No offense.

And we don't want to blackmail our recruits! We want to offer them a good enough deal that they see it's in their interest to join us.

Because, of course, blackmailed soldiers aren't very effective. If Raven does have to recruit by force, she has a way better way of aligning the incentives.

that's what they all say. Anyways like, so my job wouldn't be to fight, just like, stand in the back and point the way and hide behind you when we get attacked?

Yeah, pretty much!

Ok, I see how I could realistically pull that off. What are we actually going into the Labyrinth to do, and what's the pay like?

Mostly we use the Labyrinth to travel, and then when we get to our destination we fight monsters. When we do have missions entirely within the Labyrinth, they're mostly artifact retrieval.

Base salary is $250k/yr, plus another $100k worth of stock in our front organizations; the biggest name there is, well, Amazon.com 😅. Free room and board at one of our bases; we have locations on both coasts, the rooms come with an automaton to do your chores, and the cafeterias accommodate all major moral and religious dietary restrictions. Health, dental, and vision insurance—in addition to all the normal mortal stuff including laser eye surgery and anything politically controversial on either side of the aisle, those cover our range of proprietary intelligence- and strength-enhancement drugs, and if so desired the use of our uterine replicators for one kid. Those are a rare resource; the only daughter of Vulcan who could make them has passed on to Elysium. Finally, you get one free magic item from our armory, and an employee discount on any additional items.

Holy shit. She knows this is probably a trap, but that's tempting. 

Religious dietary restrictions? There are people who know about all this stuff still practicing Islam? I guess Judaism wouldn't be as much of a contradiction, from what I'm aware the Hebrew Bible actually indicates that other gods are real, they're just the enemy, but like, it sounds like you guys are kind of working with them, which is a big no-no.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I don't know what goes on in the heads of monotheists, if I were gonna worship anyone other than our gods it'd be the West African ones and those are also, as far as I can tell, just guys you can talk to.

Also, you guys own Amazon the corporation? If you were gonna have a man be the figurehead stooge, couldn't you have at least picked one who doesn't look like a goddamn Roswell alien?

😂 gods that's definitely a description 

But really, "sees through the Mist", "unquestionable loyalty to the Amazon cause", and "passes a psych eval for intelligence and emotional stability with sufficiently stellar scores to silence any traditionalist grumbling about the ethics of letting a man play CEO" isn't a set of constraints that leaves a lot of additional room to steer for personal charisma. :Þ

Hm, yeah, one notices people kind of stopped caring about him after Elon Musk became infamous, rather than him doing even crazier shit to keep the spotlight. Is Musk a demigod or whatever, by the way?

Yes! Demi-Titan, specifically. Grandson of Prometheus, sided with his grandfather and joined the army of Kronos when they challenged us and our allies a few years back, the SpaceX-Blue Origin race is a bit of a proxy continuation of that conflict.

huh, from what i know of greek myths i'd expect the Titans to be too eldritch abominationy to be banging mortals

Nah, the Titans are pretty much just guys, like the gods. Same with the giants. It's the generation before them, the primordial gods—Nyx, Gaea, Ouranos, Tartarus—where things start getting eldritch, entities existing as both places and people.

Tartarus is the principal enemy of the Amazon nation and our allies, the Twelfth Legion Fulminata and Delphi Strawberry Service. As a place, it's where monsters come from, where they go when they die, and where they eventually crawl up out of once again to kill more humans. As a person, he can't be killed, and regards humanity with the utmost malevolence and monsters as disposable cells of his own body.

...If we're gonna be talking about supernatural beings with this little respect, could we move the conversation somewhere with better encryption? My Signal username is WitchRaven.777

Raven drops links in the chat to the Google and Apple app store download pages for Signal.

ugggghhhhh this WORK you're making Katie do WORK. Fine. Whatever. She jumps through all the hoops and types in Raven's username.

oh yeah, Nyx and Chaos, those are the guys from Hades I was remembering

but you said some monsters are like, sapient and shit, right?

and apparently capable of not doing what Tartarus, which is apparently both a place and a guy, wants

i swear to god if you guys are pulling some shit where you're genociding innocent monsters because their kids might grow up to be magic jihadists or whatever

 

Our goal is to only kill monsters who pose an active threat to humanity or have served in the armies of our enemies. We employ people of all species; demigods, monsters, nature spirits, and clear-sighted mortals are all represented among upper management at our front orgs and in the Queen's Cabinet. Monsters respawn some years or decades after death; the only ways to destroy one permanently are to dump it in the abyss of Chaos or eliminate its name from the collective memory of civilization, both of which have been done only a handful of times, and never by us.

We are allowed to make judgement calls based on statistical tendencies. If you see an empousa hungrily eyeing the neck of the drunk and brainwashed mortal man she's leading off to her bedroom, and you have the expertise to be reasonably confident that's in fact what's going on, you don't have to wait until she's actually started sucking his blood before you whip out your gun. We're not perfect, but we take it seriously. Good judgement is our highest value.

There aren't many monster juveniles—the fastest growing populations are empousai and eidolones, both of which form from the ghosts of fully grown adult mortals—but for what it's worth, we don't kill kids. We've only done collateral damage that even might've harmed them during active conflict with an enemy threatening thousands of mortal lives.

We are also allowed to marry prisoners of war who are of legal age and consenting, and to punish prisoners who have taken human lives by setting them to forced labor, including as personal servants. Full disclosure: Gwen's husband, Cooper, was raised by a Cyclops clan that opposed the gods. They met when she captured him in the war with Kronos. She also has a storm spirit slave she carries around in a flask, who serves as her attendant on the battlefield where she can't bring her husband or automaton. I don't like it, and if it's a dealbreaker for you wrt joining my team I understand.

But what you should know is that Gwen had to give Cooper that name; the clan patriarch called him and his dad "Runt Jr." and "Runt" for having the physical deformity of being only six feet tall. Zoë—that's Gwen's storm spirit slave, though for inscrutable Gwen reasons she calls it Mountain Dew—was responsible for the 2011 Joplin, Missouri tornado that killed over a hundred humans, and was gathering allies in preparation for another attack of similar scale. The alternatives to keeping it under her close supervision would've been letting it go kill more or sending it back to Tartarus.

I won't pretend it's all sunshine and rainbows, but we're the best the world's got.

And why is opposing the gods, as in, the Greek gods, a bad thing?

Especially in the eyes of a matriarchy

You do know about all the stuff, like, most of the male Olympians did, right?

The catchphrase you'll hear when you ask about that topic is "As above, so below".

What it's officially supposed to mean, when the higher-ups say it, is something like this: Juno, not Jupiter, is the rightful ruler of Olympus, and Ares is her special little boy just like Athens saw Athena as Jupiter's special little girl. All the screwed-up stuff she's done that's unbecoming of the dignity of a queen isn't her fault, she was driven to it by her rebellious and unfaithful husband.

Just as the gods developed disassociative disorders when Rome started sacrificing and praying to them under different names, when we take over, reinstate paganism, and restore the rightful roles of women and men, the gods will wax in power, and the rightful roles in their marriages will be restored too. Juno's standards of behavior and judgement will rise to match her new level of power and responsibility. A rightly ordered Olympus, fed on the sacrificed cattle of eight billion people, will triumph over Tartarus and fix the Mist once and for all, and we'll finally be able to release all our once hidden and hoarded magic and science to a grateful and adoring public.

What we mid-level grunts know it really means, when we use it amongst ourselves, is something more like this: Western civilization, for all its flaws, is the most successful and prosperous collection of humans yet standing on the surface of this planet. Seattle (that's where our capital is currently located), for all our flaws, is the most effective defender Western civilization has against the endlessly respawning hordes of Tartarus. And the Olympians, for all their flaws, are the least bad advocates Seattle could ask for, among the whole fucked-up family of classical divinity.

Maybe world domination—excuse me, world optimization—is more than a pipe dream, or maybe our leaders are just blowing smoke up our asses to pacify us while we play defense forever, eternally beating back the forces of Tartarus like weeding a garden. Maybe someday Olympus really will get its shit together, or maybe the best it'll ever be to us is the farmer that fences off his cattle and shoots the wolves, the declawed indoor cat owner who at least keeps the coyotes away from her pet.

But either way, it wouldn't be better if we gave up the fight and let the storm spirits run loose to do more Joplin tornados, leave the centaurs and hydras free to cause more hundred-car pileups, the rogue empousai unimpeded in leaving behind them a longer string of drained and wilted beautiful young flowers of Western manhood. It wouldn't be better if we redirected our prayers and sacrifices to the Titans and primordial gods, looking up at them pleading facedly as they stomp us like the bugs they think we are.

...I'm gonna be honest, this time the essay in your inbox wasn't entirely mine; I copy/pasted some of that from old group chat messages by Gwen. She's way better than me at the whole inspirational war speech thing.

If I go find a cyclops and ask for their side of the story, will they say that the Titans may not be perfect but they're better than those barbarous Olympians who want to genocide or enslave them all?

Believe me, if I were married to a cyclops woman, she could easily tell stories about my family that would make humans sound like we deserve to be wiped out.

Honestly, most monsters on the opposing side say stuff like "predators and prey is the way of the world, the human cattle deserve to die at our hands, bwahahaha!". Sometimes even before Hope gives them the truth serum to loosen their tongues and really get 'em yapping! Prometheus could give a compelling pitch, but it's worth noting that he went into hiding when Kronos died, and his old teammates laugh at him for being such a rube as to think Kronos could give civilization a better deal.

But if you don't believe my words, you'll be able to observe the differences in our conduct and tactics. They don't worry about causing collateral damage that could kill kids; they preferentially hunt preteen demigods because that's when they're at their weakest and most vulnerable, not to mention juiciest and tastiest. They don't care if their war-spouses are consenting or if age. They don't concern themselves with upholding honor or avoiding perfidy; they gleefully backstab one another and shamelessly betray deals.

And if, once you get the chance to see for yourself, you still think both sides are equally evil—just remember which one is offering you $250k cash and a personal android! ;)

She wouldn't entirely disagree with the monsters on that, she'd just prefer to be the predator if possible.

well that does sound pretty damned tempting, but how do I know you're telling the truth about either the perks or the ethical aspect and aren't just gonna kidnap me?

Incentives! If you set someone up to succeed when your org succeeds, you can count on them to do their best work for you. If you're honest with someone up front, they're not gonna turn right around and leave because they found an unpleasant surprise. If you apply coercion or fraud, you have to keep doing the coercion or fraud over and over, and looking over your victim's shoulder to check their work. You're a currently unaffiliated party with a rare and valuable ability; we have every reason in the world to be nice to you.

People only have to be nice to people with rare and valuable abilities because if they don't, they'll defect to another faction. That doesn't really apply if the other faction are a bunch of baby-eating serial rapists who'll probably torture me just for the hell of it.

Our allies are happy to poach people from us if we're not paying them enough, and vice versa! We don't march in perfect lockstep, and indeed, for mid-level people like us the healthy internal competition is one of the best things about the alliance. The legion have a city called New Rome, it's in Berkeley. And Delphi Strawberry Service is Dionysus and Chiron's organization, on Long Island. They'd each be happy to send a recruiter to talk to you as well.

but my source for all of this is just you, so for all I know it could all be lies to justify getting me in the van

If we wanted to kidnap you we simply could!

...do you want me to trace your location, to demonstrate that we can pick you up whenever we want and have chosen not to do so without your invitation?

go ahead

Raven sends Katie an address. It's in Austin, Texas.

y'know what, fuck it, i'm in. but, to be absolutely clear, I will betray you the instant I find out one word of what you said was a lie. I don't like liars.

Legit! When and where do you wanna meet? Is there any proof of our capabilities I should bring?

Well, since I'm effectively being recruited for an adventuring party, Dragon's Lair feels thematically appropriate. Your username implies you're a witch, bring whatever the hell you do magic with. And uuuh, whatever weapons you guys use on your dungeon crawls, if that won't get interpreted by normies as a regular mundane weapon and get you kicked out.

Holy crap, there's a Labyrinth entrance right into there! 2 PM tomorrow work? And no, our weapons wouldn't be perceived by mortals, rare silver lining of the Mist.

Yeah, that works for me.

When Katie arrives at Dragon's Lair the next day, there are five people waiting outside:

a woman standing straight and still in combat boots and camo faux-tactical gear, with a hip flask that occasionally emits sparks,

a woman dancing around a little in a black dress and pointy witch hat, recognizable as Raven by her face though her hair is different from the profile pic,

a woman fidgeting and bouncing her leg in nitrile gloves and a lab coat with a few rust-colored flecks on the sleeves,

a woman slouching against the wall in a Dallas Cowboys hoodie and grey sweatpants, smoking a cigarette,

and a nervous-looking man in khakis and a blue and white striped shirt with a little bumblebee plush in the front pocket, with his hand balled up in a fist with keys between the fingers.

Holy shit, they're all fat? Katie's p:honeytrap is spiking. She steps forward awkwardly. "Hey. It's me. The girl from the internet. So this is your, like, squad or whatever?"

Raven steps forward to meet Katie and extends a hand to shake.

"Lovely to meet you in person! This is my team, yeah. Gwen, Hope, Lauren, and William."

Each person gives a little wave as their name is called.

"What name should we call you, do you want to go by your username or—"

Katie is very clearly not used to shaking people's hands. "Katie."

"You wanted demonstrations of my magic and our weapons, right? Which would you like to see first?"

"Up to you."

"I say we start with weapons, then. Gwen, care to go first?"

Gwen extends the screwdriver attachment of her knife and pulls out the toothpick, and it morphs into a giant golden spear with a wickedly sharp point. She looks noticeably more comfortable with it in her hand.

"Pretty sick, right?"

"Indeed!"

"Hell yeah."

Gwen sticks out her arm for a fist bump.

She bumps Gwen's fist and looks at the blond guy. "So is this guy gonna be, like, put down if I take the job?"

"Nah, I'll work for Delphi."

"Oh. Okay. Sorry for taking your job. Hope you have fun." She turns back to the rest of them. "Guys, word of advice, maybe don't make your prospective new hires meet the person whose job they're taking. I feel awkward now."

"Noted. My bad."

^{"it's literally fine..."}

"Wanna see my weapon now?"

"Also, he's ugly. Man, it's gonna kick ass living in a matriarchy and being able to say that about men now." She considers asking what their policy is on trans people, but it's probably too touchy of a subject and she should be glad she at least gets to do it to cis men. "But yes, show me your weapon."

Will rolls his eyes, almost imperceptibly.

"Pro tip: you don't actually wanna say that about people's husbands or sons."

Raven pulls a revolver out of her purse.

"Loaded with Celestial bronze bullets, to kill monsters. Could also do regular ones if we're expecting mortal threats; I'm the designated person on that because, frankly, I'm the least trigger-happy. But when I'm really not fucking around..."

The gun turns into a wand.

"This is the magic focus you were asking about."

"Oh. Oh Jesus. I'm so sorry. I thought he was just like, your platonic slave or whatever, I didn't know,  and like, I'm a dyke, if Raven didn't tell you, I think that about everybody's husband. Like, I don't generally judge other people's tastes, but like, when society is pushing shit on you you just want to tell it to fuck off, right? Raven did say you guys weren't the homophobic kind of radfems."

^{"I'm not a slave!"}

"Nah, we're cool, he's not my husband or son. Just warning you it's not an entirely un-fraught thing to say."

In response to "when society is pushing shit on you you just wanna tell it to fuck off": "True as shit."

"Oh. Okay. Like, only husbands or sons of Amazons, or am I only allowed to roast incels whose moms are dead?"

"No one's gonna, like, challenge you to a duel over some mortal dude. They might civilly disagree, if he's her type."

"Got it. Also, we're calling them 'mortals'? Are you guys immortal, or is it one of those weird linguistic things like how we cook bacon and bake cookies?"

"The latter. Monsters respawn when they die, everyone else goes somewhere. Most commonly judgment in the Underworld."

"Got it. I try not to ponder my own mortality more than absolutely necessary, so uuuh, were you all gonna show me your weapons or whatever, because there's still two of you left."

Hope looks at Raven.

"Uhhhh, did you mean my backup weapons, or the abilities I actually use in battle?"

She turns to Katie, pulling out in one hand a sewing needle that turns into a shortsword and in the other a scalpel that turns into a scythe.

"These are the backup weapons. My real power...do you happen to be sick right now? If not, I'd have to make you sick and revoke it real quick, to demonstrate."

"No, I'm good, thanks. Does it just work on pathogens, or like, stab wounds, headaches, period cramps?"

"Just pathogens. I'm quite skilled at treating wounds, though, on account of the medical degree and all.

...and wow, now I almost wish that so long as my blessing has an offensive aspect it'd work on period cramps, it would be fascinating to see how a man reacts to that."

"She means a well-paid and consenting man," Raven clarifies. "Hope, people don't know you."

"Are there a lot of monsters with disease-inducing powers in the Labyrinth, then?" Katie is entirely unfazed at the mention of human experimentation.

"Nah, not a lot, I'd say. The hordes are overall more scared of me than I am of them. There are disease spirits, and we've tangled with 'em a few times before, but they're more common in the Underworld or Tartarus itself than up in the Labyrinth."

"Ah, okay, so it's mainly the offensive aspect that's useful. How bad does it go? Can you like, instantaneously give someone late-stage AIDS or Black Death?"

"I can, but I wouldn't. Too great a risk of collateral damage in battle, and little research value. Unless I had some exceptionally brave volunteers for a human challenge trial and some exceptionally promising vaccine or treatment, I guess. What I use against monsters is prion diseases, they clean themselves up because monster bodies dissolve into dust upon death."

"Huh, dissolving on death but being susceptible to prion diseases kind of gives mixed signals on whether monsters are biological creatures vs magical constructs that just look like animal life. Have there been studies on this?"

"A few? The field's still in its infancy. Their flesh looks like it's made of cells under a microscope, genetic testing shows genes in common with whatever regular animal species they appear to be derived from, and so on.

If they're like gods, then the way it works is that they are magical constructs, but the constructed body is a perfectly faithful replica of a real one, down to the cellular level. If a god impersonates your husband, the demigod kid would pass a paternity test."

"Fascinating! I wonder if there's anything actually magical going on with all demigods then, or if the enhanced strength and whatnot are just the result of half their DNA being basically custom-designed."

"Some aspects of the demigod package—the perception through the Mist, the response to nectar and ambrosia—are unambiguously magical, but yeah, the genetics of the strength and constitution are a hot topic in medical research in our bases and at New Rome University.

One hypothesis is that, when a god impersonates a human and sleeps with one, whatever gametes they release are the best possible ones the human they're impersonating could've produced. Best in the sense of being most fit for the tasks demigods are meant for; our psychology is such that we're mostly diagnosed with ADHD or dyslexia, but that's because those are the natural costs of optimizing for warrior mindset."

"Is it antisemitic of me to wonder if a disproportionate amount of psychiatrists are secretly monsters?"

"Lol, insert that one Nixon quite here."

(She actually says "lol" with her flesh mouth.)

Will laughs and fist bumps her.

"A disproportionate number of child psychiatrists are. Same with teachers, youth pastors, juvenile detention guards, and so on. Any role with power over kids."

"Ugh, I know an adult psychiatrist who's a monster, though. A telkhine. Kinda my archnemesis, ever since I killed him and he pulled off a too-fast respawn when Gaea opened the Doors of Death."

Raven clears her throat.

"Lauren, care to show your weapon?"

"I'd rather save it for when I can actually fry some baddies."

"Check this out, tho," she says to Katie with a smirk as she pulls the strings of her hoodie and vanishes.

(She gives the distinct impression of having, in fact, specifically said "tho" without the "ugh".)

A few seconds later, a finger very gently pokes Katie in the belly, and a voice from nowhere says "hey".

"OHFUCK!" Katie flails around, then assumes a combat stance, then after she's had a second or two for her brain to process what just happened she relaxes slightly. "God damnit, don't do that again. I could've fallen and cracked my skull open on the pavement."

Lauren reappears.

"Awww, I'm sorry. Won't do it again."

"Good warrior instincts, though. I wonder what we could make of you with some performance enhancing drugs," she says, with a meaningful glance at Hope.

"Only if she's cool with it," Hope replies to Raven.

To Katie: "we do have lots of options on that front, if you're interested. Stuff mortals don't have, because magic is involved in the manufacturing process."

waow hot women complimenting her. "I mean like, the mortal ones tend to have unpleasant side effects, y'know, particularly for cis women. Doesn't look like you guys are suffering from them, but you're demigods so you presumably don't need the drugs."

"I use 'em, actually!" Lauren pipes up. "Just cause demigod women can reach peak human strength naturally doesn't mean I wanna spend all that time in the gym.

Side effects—everything has some side effects, it just depends which ones you personally don't mind. The one I use is has magic in its manufacturing; it promotes really easy muscle growth, but also encourages the accunulation of fat. Some people do go for T, if they don't think the side effects there are unpleasant, but it's rare.

Even with only mortal options, masculinization is avoidable if people just weren't woke moralists about it. Google 'SARMs' someday."

Raven rolls her eyes at "woke moralists", though an affectionate smile remains on her face.

Gwen makes air quotes at "if people just", also without any malice on her face.

"Yeah, mortal medical regulation is unfairly biased against 'enhancenent' rather than 'treatment'."

Accumulation of fat, you say? Katie doesn't comment on this though, still too much of a touchy subject and there's a new topic she wants to bring up. "Oh yeah, that reminds me. If you guys are like, the Illuminati of feminism, then we need to replace 'patriarchy' with a better term. I've been complaining about this for years. 'Patriarchy' is too technical-sounding, it brings to mind some secret council of 1950s sitcom dads meeting in a smoke-filled room to brainstorm new toxic beauty standards, which primes people to roll their eyes. The conservatives, by contrast, struck gold with 'woke'. Just the sound of it gets across the idea that it's not some organized institution, it's a vibe that lives in people's hearts."

"I just call 'em barbarians."

"Well, they are, but you shouldn't say it."

"Lauren's right. Katie, this would be fascinating to think about later, but for now can we finish the demonstrations so we can get inside and start signing papers? For my magic, I could... levitate you, or turn you into a toad or not, or demonstrate my hypnotic voice. Any of those sound good?"

"First one please. Just be careful." Even when it's a hot woman Katie would be stupid not to remain cautious about literal mind control.

Raven once again removes her gun from her purse and turns it into a wand. She starts swirling it around in little circles.

"While I warm up, there is one more weapon to show. Willie, if you would?"

Will furrows his brow, frowns, and grits his teeth. He raises his foot as if to stamp it.

"It's just Wi—or, uh—"

His scowl gives way to a barely upturned smile, his foot returns to the ground gently and silently, and in a pleasant customer service voice he says "I mean, yes ma'am."

He unclenches his fist to reveal his ring of keys, which briefly assumes the form of a tommy gun before returning to its original position.

"Good boy, Willie."

Barely perceptible eyeroll.

The circles Raven is swirling her wand in have gradually grown larger throughout this display.

"Katie, tell me when."

"I thought you said he wasn't allowed to have a weapon. Will I be like, inhering that one when I take the job? Anyways, yeah, go ahead and levitate me."

"Men in general aren't. He got a special dispensation because of his job, it's one of the things HR was raising a stink about. And no, that one's his to take with him to his new job at Delphi Strawberries, though you'll be getting a selection from the Seattle armory and we do have another like it in there."

And then she waves the wand upward, and Katie feels herself gently rising into the air.

Katie gets a view of the world from twice her usual height.

She enjoys the view of the ladies's cleavage from above. "Whee! I can see Mexico from here! Okay, you can put me down now."

Raven notices her looking, and winks. Then she lowers her back to the ground.

"That was fun! Ready to get the paperwork out of the way and make a plan for moving?"

"Yeah. I uuh, live with my mom, so moving won't be hard. I'll just need to box up my PC and a couple other things and I'll be ready to go."

"A U-Haul rental's worth of stuff, or just a regular truck?"

"Probably just a regular truck, even including all the stuff that has purely sentimental value that I'd be basically fine leaving at my mom's."

"Great!"

Raven pulls out a clipboard and paper that really shouldn't have fit in her purse.

"Could you fill this out? It's just some basic personal and demographic info. And if you have proof of US citizenship—birth certificate, passport, ID card with the star on it—that would be helpful for getting your employment sorted at one of our front orgs, though we can fake papers if needed."

Katie inspects the paper very carefully to make sure she's not signing anything. "I have my ID at home. IDK if it has a star, it's a standard Texas non-driver ID card."

No signature required; the line for full legal name says to print.

Lauren, who's been texting away, looks up from her phone.

"My sister says we can borrow her truck for the trip back; she'll be down here in three hours. Is that enough time for you to pack your shit?"

"The practical stuff, definitely. I'd need boxes for the sentimental stuff."

"What kind of boxes, plastic or cardboard? I could get you some while you work on the practical stuff."

"Preferably plastic, but cardboard could work."

"Epic, I'll get an Uber to buy some and the rest of you can head with Katie to her place."

"That reminds me, I should tell you about our electronics policies! Most supernatural beings have a talent for tracing, intercepting, and sometimes even spoofing electronic communications. The mechanics are mysterious. Lauren once asked her brain passenger, Larala, how the ability worked; she reported back an answer of 'I don't know, how would you explain vision to a blind person?'. That said, anything that seems on a vague vibes-based understanding like it 'shouod' help probably will. End-to-end encryption messes with their ability to impersonate you or read the contents of a message, using a proxy or VPN confuses them about your location, and so on.

So we ask that you get a VPN app on your personal devices and set it to on by default. I recommend Proton, it doesn't slow down my browsing noticeably at all. We also prefer Signal or WhatsApp for texting rather than your default messaging app; we wanna make sure comms stay encrypted between iPhone and Android users."

Lauren nods at the quote.

"Ugggghhhh, do I have to use that for everything, or just work stuff? Like, do the monsters not know where you guys's HQ is?"

"Oh, when you're on base you can do whatever, the monsters aren't suicidal enough to come for us there. The VPN rule is just for phone use when you're out with us on missions, and advised when you're with family you don't wanna lead the monsters back to if you make enemies.

We are pretty serious about keeping work comms end-to-end encrypted though, we really don't want them to know all about our strategic capabilities."

"Got it, probably useful to have that separated anyway so I don't accidentally send work shit to normies."

"I could use my hypnotic voice to cover it up if there's a serious infosec breach or get you busted out if you got committed, but yeah, better not to have to, it makes me feel gross to use nonconsensually."

"Okay, good, the fact that you specify nonconsensually implies you're not the lame kind of radfems in that way either."

Lauren snorts. "You should see my browser history."

Gwen rolls her eyes.

"Nope! 100% sex-positive intersectional feminist over here."

"I don't like the word 'feminist', really. It implies mortal women are the primary victims of their arrangement, rather than the boys being equally harmed by being burdened with responsibilities above their capabilities."

"I'm not really on board with all the ideological stuff. Born and raised Roman citizen, legion tattoo and all. Just switched to Seattle because they have better regulations around medical research."

"Not many Asian people in Italy, so I assume there's some kind of magic Byzantium situation going on with whoever is granting Roman citizenship?"

"Ah, yeah—New Rome, not old. The legion's city. It's moved with us—them—from France to England to Virginia to California, over the last few centuries."

"Olympus and the Styx also move; they're in NYC and LA now."

"The Bermuda Triangle rivals the Mediterranean in monster population, the Kansas City area exceeds the old Cretan capital at Knossos in density of Labyrinth entrances, and the Hyperborean giants and other edge-of-the-world 'beyond the view of the gods' type populations mostly relocated to Alaska."

"So the Greek gods aren't really the Greek gods, they're more like the 'whichever civilization is currently most powerful and advanced' gods? Are people concerned that they're gonna become Chinese soon?"

"They're tied to 'Western' civilization. They go to wherever the centers of power are within the area most culturally influenced by ancient Greece and Rome."

"Awfully problematic of them to believe in a colonialist white supremacist construct like that."

"People have been thinking of themselves as the heirs of Greece and Rome longer than there's been the idea of the 'white race' as a biologically distinct group."

"Yeah. I know. I just find the idea of wokescolding literal gods to be funny. Hey, were they not ever headquarted in the Ottoman Empire, or Imperial Russia?"

"Nah, Olympus and the Styx have tended towards a western direction in their movement, whenever there have been multiple competing claimants to be the successors of Rome."

"So I guess if China doesn't start getting Greekpilled American global hegemony will never end."

Gwen's ride to get the boxes arrives.

"Care to continue this conversation en route to your place?"

"Yeah, sorry for dragging on."

"It's fine! Lead the way."

"Oh, yeah, I don't have a car either, let me figure how I can specify to Uber that I need a car that can accommodate 6 people."

She figures it out. Lauren's sister drops off the truck on time, and the gang load Katie's stuff in.

"Bye everyone! I gotta get to the meeting with Delphi. Katie, it was nice to meet you; give me your Discord or Steam username if you play games and would wanna with me sometime."

"Oh, sure, yeah. It's TribadistTrogolodyte."

"Niiiiiiiice. A fellow Hussie enjoyer?"

"I uuuh, kinda. I read a decent way in and honestly it felt like the animations were tests I had to study for by reading the pesterlogs, but the female trolls are hot."

"Legit. Hey, we should draw each other's trollsonas!"

"And cosplay them."

"Sorry, I would love to, but cons have all these rules about changing your skin color to appear as another race."

"That's not what that means and you know it. Also get in the fucking truck."

"I'm really sorry to disappoint both of you, but I can't draw for shit and have autism sensory issues about makeup."

(Author's note: in spite of the implications of the facecasts, the only one of them in makeup is Raven.)

"Legit."

While getting in the truck, Lauren says "Me too! Or, like, autism is a psyop, but I have a reasonable and normal reaction to goop on my face."

"I'm with you on psychiatry, but personally I find it useful to have a word to describe the thing I am besides 'tgirl-coded'."

Lauren nods.

"Katie, would you take the middle seat? You're the smallest."

Waow. What an invitation. "Yeah, good with me."

Gwen takes the driver's seat and Hope the passenger seat; Katie ends up in the back wedged between Raven and Lauren. Neither of them seem to at all mind being pressed up against her.

God this is so hot. She wants them to actually be into her so bad but she knows probably none of them are. To distract herself, she looks up the route on her phone. "Oh shit, we're going through Salt Lake City. Do the Mormons have any weird magic shit going on?"

"If they do, we don't know about it. There's little evidence either way on the existence of a capital-G God; a popular theory is if one exists they have...the thing the Greek gods do with split personality Roman aspects, but times a thousand, so much it impairs their ability to act in the world."

"Oh, huh. Yeah, if that's how it works, then that makes sense. Thanks, Martin Luther!"

"Thanks, Muhammad, I would say. An Abrahamic-centric view of monotheism makes sense, because number of believers matters and so does their relative standing on the world stage, but the fragmentation there very much didn't start with Luther."

"Anyways, the New Mexico desert is really pretty too."

"It's beautiful! I haven't been on a road trip out this way in forever, I'm so excited."

"The desert sucks."

"You think Missouri is fit for human habitation, so opinion discarded."

"Do you want me to kick all the video game music off the playlist for this trip and double the amount of country? Because I can still do that. Privileges of being the driver."

"You live in a matriarchy and you listen to country music? Isn't that like, treason?"

"I like the sound, I'm very picky about the lyrics."

"By which she means," says Lauren with an eyeroll, "she's too woke moralist to enjoy any violence that isn't righteous enough for her."

"Hey, I concede the ones where mortal women kill their abusive husbands are righteous, the weak do what they must and all. It's just upsetting to think of having so little power you have to resort to killing such a pathetically damaged individual."

"There's country music that isn't either that or just outright treating women like objects?"

"There's plenty of country that isn't about gender or relationships at all! Admittedly a lot of it is instead about God or America, which some people find just as bad."

"Look, I acknowledge the practical advantages of starting world unification here and of American patriotism to that project, all I've said is that I personally don't feel any particular emotional attachment to it over any other future province of our empire."

"And all I've said is that if capital-G God exists then he's a monster and no amount of cutesy tunes about what kind of guitar he plays can change that."

"Based and true!!! It's like, what's god's chosen species? Humans. The only species that has both war and menstruation. Who're God's chosen people? The Jews. I shouldn't have to explain this one. It sure seems like having his attention correlates pretty heavily with being miserable."

"Hey, at least in our lands where people have their priorities in order, we're doing our best to lock menstruation back in Pandora's b—Pandora's jar, sorry Raven. I'm certainly not giving out any nonsense 'week of placebo pills' in my birth control prescriptions, and that's before you even start getting into the drugs you can only make on base."

"Good catch!

And, you know, to be fair to menstruation, when you get into the evolutionary psychology of it it's a fascinating case study in how our trials can make us stronger, in a less obvious way than just 'motivating us to make a pill to fix it'. Hundreds of thousands of years of selective pressure for psychological functioning while bleeding monthly and giving painful birth is probably what gave the female sex the resilience to seeing damage to the human body that makes us so much more fit to be warriors, once Olympus and Samuel Colt obviated the muscle strength issue."

"Yeah, easy for you to say, when you don't even have to remember to take a pill to stop your periods cause you can just magic them away."

"You can do that? I haven't gotten birth control, I'm afraid of side effects and hate doctors and anyways pain for me is easier to ignore the further away it is from my head, so it's not that bad anyway." She just barely thinks fast enough to stop herself from mentioning her ripping out her own toenails.

"Using magic on a human body is never without risk. The magic wants to turn you into a toad, it takes practice and willpower to make it do anything useful. But yes, if you're not a coward like certain people I can fix that for you."

"What else can you do?" Katie has some requests but even if Raven was into her, vocalizing them would still probably weird her out.

"I did mention the mind control, right?"

"Yeah. Can you like, do that in combat, or are there too many limitations?"

"Oh I can so do it in combat!"

"Wow, that must be really powerful. Why even bother carrying a weapon?"

"With sufficient training and raw willpower, one can resist the hypnotic voice. I'm not the only one with the ability, either, it's a common blessing of Venus and Hecate for their descendants and some people have it more strongly than me."

"Huh, that's gotta cause some problems. Does this explain any historical figures I'd know of, Hitler, Jim Jones, maybe even some people who are around today?"

"Jim Jones was entirely unrelated to us, sometimes things are just mortal-on-mortal violence. Hitler was a son of Hades, and charmspeak isn't a usual blessing of his but isn't unheard of."

"Wait, like, if belief changes shit, then is Hades actually evil now because of how Christian audiences assume he's just Greek Satan?"

"Nah, the weight of tradition blocks that off in this case. Hades's kids were acting roguely in WWII, I heard they got some pretty nasty fates in the Underworld."

"Kids? Multiple? I assume you're talking about Mussolini, given Hirohito was already explicitly descended from a deity."

"Mussolini, yeah. Also Tojo, the gods don't have many kids in Japan but they did start having any after the Meiji Restoration."

"I would expect that to be embarrassing for him but I don't know enough about Shinto theology as it existed during WWII to be sure."

Raven shrugs.

"Anyways, do you guys have self-driving cars that work for interstate travel? Because this is reminding me how I'd really like to get to go on more road trips."

"Do we have the capability? Yes. Have we actually made enough yet that any random warrior can requisition one for a vacation? Not yet."

"Sad!!! IDK, maybe whatever experimental drugs you guys end up giving me will make me safe to drive."

"Huh, why aren't you safe to drive now, is it a coordination thing? We have some stuff to steady the hands and some stuff to speed the reflexes, but you'll have to cycle through a few to find one that works for whichever problem you have without making the other of those worse, or if it's both to find a combination that doesn't cancel itself out or have nasty side effects. The gods made us a twitchy lot for a reason, it's hard to improve on their tradeoffs."

"Both, I think. It's like, on the one hand, as you saw before I have a really strong startle reflex, but also like, I think the other part is that I have trouble noticing or remembering where objects are? Like, I also have trouble finding things when I don't remember exactly where I left them, and I think it's the same underlying thing. I guess with a car some of the objects are moving which makes it way easier for me, but still not safe, especially considering I legitimately find wearing a seatbelt to be akin to a straitjacket. If I'm actively aware I'm in a dangerous situation, like I'm holding something sharp or fragile, I can kind of counteract this, but it requires a level of mental exertion that I don't think would be sustainable for me to do every day."

"That actually sounds like something normal mortal stimulants might help with, have you ever tried Ritalin or Vy—wait, right, you don't trust doctors and the mortal government are a bunch of Nazis who won't let you try those by informed consent.

What's the problem with the medical profession, is it just that you've met a lot of us who are monsters or is there more to it than that?"

"I've had some bad personal experiences, particularly with the kind that can actually force you to take meds rather than just not letting you. But I'm suspicious of them in general, though I have heard the structure of the field is abusive to the doctors themselves as well as the patients. A lot of things are like that."

"My medical training wasn't abusive to me, but it probably would've qualified as such to, like, a normal person who wanted to have things going on in their life besides medicine."

"Hey, can you do minor surgery? Because among various other medical problems I've been ignoring for ages because of my fear of doctors, I have this lump on my shoulder that's been there for ages and doesn't hurt or anything, so it's probably not cancer, but I should still probably have it removed."

"General surgery is my specialty, actually! Everyone pushed me to go into infectious diseases because of my magical power, but I thought my dextrous hands are actually the advantage that would let me have more fun and save more lives, and so far I think I've been proven right.

I like to think of myself as a repair mechanic for the machine that is the human body."

"Do you know if whatever the thing is will rot away once it's out of my body, or can I keep it and put it in a jar or something?" Best to be upfront with her disgustingness if she is gonna end up with any of these ladies.

"I'd wanna examine it once removed to figure out exactly what's going on with it, and then we could talk about what kind of decay processes it's likely to undergo and discuss preservation options!"

Raven and Lauren look unbothered. Gwen makes a bit of a face, but Katie might not be able to see it as Gwen is still the one driving.

"Anyways, I haven't tried stimulants because I already struggle to consume enough calories to sustain myself and I hear they make you worse at that and I don't want to starve to death."

"That's a risk it's well worth planning for, I would certainly not recommend continuing with one if you're losing weight. It's not nearly universal, though; I actually gained weight when I started because I would actually remember to eat."

"Hey, me too! Except for me it was less about remembering to eat and more about not feeling like shit all the time and thus wanting to."

"Yeah, for me it's kind of a mix of both of those things. Often I'll be so focused on a task that I don't eat until I finish it and suddenly realize I'm starving, and then I don't have the energy to procure myself a meal." The mention of them gaining weight has her considerably flustered. She struggles to maintain her composure.

"Bet that won't be a problem for you anymore, now that you're on our team! It was a thing of the past for me as soon as I met Raven."

Raven has a hypothesis. It's not based on very many data points yet, but her intuition on these things very rarely steers her wrong, and she has an easy test that would at worst result in some momentary minor cringe.

"Yeah, she's right. There's no way a tiny little thing like you is gonna get away with hanging around me without eating enough to grow up big and strong."

And even if it turns out to be a mistake to say it like that, it's not incorrect to observe that that girl really needs to eat more. So there.

(The official stance of the Amazon Empire on workplace fraternization is "yes", and their enforcement processes for sexual harassment in any configuration other than male-on-female could perhaps most charitably be described as "informed by a keen awareness of the costs of false positives as well as false negatives".)

Katie.exe has stopped responding. "I, uh, wow, I mean, that's really sweet of you. I hope you're telling the truth, Labyrinth crawling probably burns a lot of calories." She's suddenly much more aware of how big Raven's tits are, but is heroically resisting the urge to act on this information. She's probably just being motherly in a platonic way, lots of women are like that.

Gods fucking damnit, she wasn't considering "inconclusive" as a possible test result! Usually when she talks to someone like that they'll either opt for "flirt back" or "get offended"!

(William chose "both". She would follow that thought up with one about how no always means no, and you can never read someone well enough to say otherwise. Then she'd beat herself up over what an anti-feminist, inegalitarian, regressive, chauvinistic, and all-around Gwen thing to think that was—sorry Gwen, she says it with love—except, well. Uh. When she'd called him on it he'd admitted, and was willing to repeat under hypnotically enforced honesty, that that's exactly what he was doing. So.)

In any case, this is the first time Raven's seen someone pick "say nothing", and she's not sure how to proceed.

"Oh, uh, my bad if I'm reading you wrong and overstepping, here. It's my strong advice as an experienced Amazon warrior that you should eat more while working this job but I can be perfectly professional about it if you'd prefer."

Oh fuck, is she? Is that why the whole squad is fat? No fucking way. "Reading me wrong how?"

Gods this is so fucking embarrassing, Raven is not supposed to have to use her literal words to say this.

"Uh, I mean, if I'm wrong to have assumed either of 'you're attracted to me in particular' or 'you think larger women are prettier in general'?"

Sbe covers her face with her hands.

Holy fuck. "I, uh, no, yeah, you're right about both." Katie is visibly trembling as she says this. She wants to lean into Raven so bad but she still feels like she shouldn't without explicit permission.

She removes her hands from her face and lets out a sigh of relief.

"Okay, good. Good. It's just, well, I've spent the vast majority of my adult life—really most of my life per...uh, most of my life full stop, Gwen and Lauren if either of you clowns make a menstruation joke I figuratively swear on the metaphorical River Styx that I'll—you know what, never mind."

Raven clears her throat and starts over, and as she regains her stride her face is once again increasingly lit up with the full force of her earlier confident smile.

"Usually I'm in the company of supernatural community members like myself, who will either flirt right back or tell me to fuck off, I'm not used to little mortal cuties like you being so shy!"

Gwen shakes her head, though if Katue looks in the rear view mirror at the right angle to see her face she's still smiling.

"Raven, you're utterly shameless."

Katie cautiously places a bony hand on Raven's meaty thigh. "is that generally how it works in the supernatural community? Is mind reading a common demigod power?"

Raven responds to the hand with a satisfied "mmmmmmmm" noise.

"Heh. Nah, just...assuming everyone's enough of a big girl to say 'no' if they don't like something.

...while we're on the topic of mind reading, by the way, my hypnotic voice can be used to compel honesty and forthrightness, it ends up with much the same effect. If it's, you know, not too soon to bring that up."

As turned on as Katie is right now, she's still too paranoid to let her guard down so blatantly. "I'm... No, I think I can manage on my own. Yeah, I liked the way you were flirting with me, if that's indeed what it was. A lot." She tilts her spindly, delicate body in Raven's general direction.

Raven snakes one arm behind Katie's back, and pats her head with the other.

"Good girl for using your words."

"Thanks. So like, since I'm already being a freak in front of all of them, are you the reason why your whole squad is so, y'know..." Even now, years of prior experience have made her afraid to say the word out loud.

"Plus-sized?"

"Obese?"

"Curvy?"

"Fat as fuck?"

"Yeah, that. Glad you guys aren't mad at me for bringing it up."

"Hey, I don't care how much fat I have on me, it's what's under it that counts."

She flexes her prodigious arm muscles, which are the biggest in the group.

"Won't pretend I've never tried to lose it, but living a healthy lifestyle isn't worth it if it makes your life miserable, and anyway there's better things you can do for your body than chasing a number on a scale."

"Taking up space as a woman in this world is a revolutionary act. I believe that's true in every possible sense."

"It's just kinda the path of least resistance when Raven's cooking is available all the time."

She perks up even more at that last statement. "God, I hope so. But anyways like, so are you guys a polycule or not? Is this like a rule 63 Sacred Band of Thebes situation?"

"'Polycule' is such a mortal concept. My teammates are my best friends, and I love them. Sometimes I show my appreciation in physical ways. Why does it matter what we call it?"

"Hope's a perv about doing weird Frankensteinian medical experiments on us—"

"The ritual of going into an office and doing paperwork and stuff around my appointments helps me put those thoughts in on a box so I can stay professional, and when I have to treat my teammates out in the field and am in the right mood sometimes they come up!"

"—and Raven's a perv about cooking dinner for us—"

"Guilty."

"—and yeah, I tease them some because I don't get it, but at the end of the day I really am profoundly grateful for the Captain America super soldier serum to bulk up my body and the vast amount of raw material it has to work with."

"Gwen, if you're curious, is a perv about monsters. Hence the Cyclops husband and the storm spirit personal attendant."

"And you're a perv about everything, if you go by the AO3 bookmarks."

"Or nothing. The most I'm up for in real life is, like, sloppy tongue kisses or full-body entwined cuddles with friends who are very clear on not expecting it to go anywhere or mean anything. Or, if you don't need the translation into Normal Person because you're fluent in the original Tumblr, I'm aro and ace with queerplatonic makeout partners."

God damnit, that last part's a disappointment. Oh well. More importantly... "So what you're saying is it's not weird that you're getting me extremely turned on in front of them?" Finally having proper takeoff clearance, she rests her head on Raven's chest.

"Hey, as long as you're not leaving bodily fluids in the truck that I'll have to explain to my sister, I don't mind."

Raven makes another appreciative "mmmm" and starts stroking Katie's hair.

"Do I look like a Transylvanian to you?" Fuck, that she probably shouldn't have said but she'd already switched her inhibitions off.

"What, a vampire? No, I don't mean blood, I mean like...pussy juices, ass sweat, squi—ohhh, wait,  transylvanian, like—haha, good one!"

If Katie is still making snarky commentary her brain is still too online. What does a forehead kiss in addition to the hairpetting do?

"Aaaanyways, Raven, what was that you were saying about making sure I grow up big and strong?"

Raven continues playing with Katie's hair.

"Oh, yes. Any warrior of mine needs some meat on her bones."

She kisses Raven's neck. "I like it when a woman has aspirations for me. Theoretically, I could just hide in the back and let you handle the monsters, but you see greater potential."

"It's such a shame how mortal women are tragically constrained by their biology and society, held back from enjoying the greatest pleasures in life. Strength. Victory. Growth, in every possible sense of the word. I look forward to breaking those bonds for at least one woman in my little corner of the world."

The kisses migrate downward from Raven's neck. "I like the way you think. Tell me more about what you see in my future." Thigh squeeze for emphasis.

"Arms that could lift any unaugmented mortal off the ground. Thighs that you could crush a monster's head between. And frankly..."

She gropes Katie's tits.

"...I'm interested to see if I can get these little mosquito bites to grow into some real melons."

Her "mmmm"s in response to the kisses, interspersing her speech, are gradually morphing into soft moans.

She nibbles Raven's shoulder in lieu of any actual food. "I need a belly, too. Gotta have something for those melons to rest on. Also when I lay on my stomach my ribs poke into the bed. Not making that up. I'd really like for that to stop."

The nibble elicits a slightly louder moan.

"Oh, sweetie, we'll fix that right up."

"Hope the higher ups don't get pissed about constantly needing to upsize my armor."

"It's expected for my girls."

"I hope I don't get us all killed because you're distracted by all the jiggling."

She snorts.

"Please. Being horny increases my effectiveness through additional motivation way more than it saps it through distraction."

"I assume you've also learned to avoid feeding your girls so much that they're too full to dodge?"

"Ooooh, too full to dodge! What a concept...

I can't actually say I've had to learn to control myself in that regard, the other girls would never let me stuff them that full all at once. I guess you'll just need to help me figure it out.

And then maybe, once I do, then sometime we're damn sure a mission isn't coming up I could get you so bloated you can't pick yourself up to move at all, and play with you while you're like that, helpless for me to do whateeeeeeeeever I want to..."

One of her hands has returned to Katie's hair while the other continues squeezing her boob.

"Those calories are a valuable long-term investment in future monster-killing ability! We can write it off as a business expense!"

"Indeed."