Nick had been feeling a lot better about himself since his session with Director Swan. In the couple of days since then, he’d been working on implementing a lot of the exercises and thought redirection techniques she’d taught him. This afternoon, he sat in front of the mirror in his room.

  He couldn’t actually see himself in the mirror, his senses didn’t work that way. Even if they had, he was low enough to the ground that all he would have been able to see was BREAST displayed proudly on his hat. However, the positioning gave things a sense of ritual that helped him.

  I am not my body. I am my mind. My mind is good.

  People do not fear me, they fear things that look like me. I should not take their fear personally.

  I am lovable, and worthy of love. Both from myself and others.

  He repeated those affirmations and others for a good ten minutes. Like always, it felt silly at the start but by the end, he was feeling pretty damn good. A rustle from behind him told him his girlfriend was finally noticing he wasn’t in bed.

  “Everything okay, B?” Gwyn asked, sitting up and rubbing the sleep from her eyes. As she did, the blanket fell away from her enormous boobs, just barely covered by her soft pajama top. Nick allowed himself to be thankful for 360° ‘vision’. Hell, maybe he should be thankful for the tanked appreciation of visual stimuli, because human Nick would have been rendered stupid by Gwyn’s pendulous puppies.

  AFFIRMATIONS! scrolled across his hat as he wrapped a tentacle around Gwyn’s waist and used it to pull himself into her lap. He flipped the bill of his hat up to jiggle one of her boobs. She slapped at it, it was too early to be flirty. After a, probably unintentionally, very erotic stretch and yawn, she gave him a sleepy smile.

  “Oh yeah?” she asked, rubbing a hand along the base of one of his tentacles. “What’s Swan got you working on?”

  MOSTLY BODY STUFF

  REFRAMING FEAR

  APPRECIATING WHAT’S GOOD

  THAT KINDA THING

  Gwyn bent down to kiss the crown of his hat, and her plump lips felt soft against his…. skin was the wrong word, but he didn’t have a better one for the fabric he could feel. She gently picked him up off her lap and got out of bed, collecting her jeans, shirt and hoodie from the floor.

  Holy shit, Nick thought, watching the Thiccness elemental struggle into her jeans. She would have been out of my league on my best day as a human, and now that I look like a monster I can barely keep her out of my bed.

  He was jarred out of his appreciation by a black combat boot smashing his bedroom door open. It was attached to a beautiful goth woman, who, uncharacteristically, didn’t even blush when she saw a half naked Gwyn. In fact, Kennedy looked frantic.

  “Cait and Lira are in trouble, I can feel it!” she yelled, locking eyes on Breastman. “Samsara is already on her way! Also it’s like 3, why are you two just getting out of bed?”

  “Fuck you!” shot Gwyn, “I’m naked! Leave!”

  Nick didn’t hear Kennedy’s response, as a hand reached through a swirling Mandala made of rainbow light and pulled him through.

  He fell through an infinite world of those same swirling designs, before he found himself in an entirely new situation.

  A monster that looked like one of Gwyn’s favorite horror movie directors had gotten a hold of the rights to Finding Nemo was pulling Lira to its mouth.

  Tentacles are my thing.

  As he fell, he hardened the tip of a tentacle and spun, swinging it like a bullwhip. It slashed straight through the imposter’s tentacle, a familiar wash of pleasure hitting him as the tip parted flesh.

  That’s your body. Its not you.

  He splashed into the water, but got another two tentacles up to catch Lira as she fell. His panoramic senses had picked up Cait near the entrance to wherever they were, and he tossed the redhead her way. He patched his hat’s text-to-speech into the comm network with a thought.

  SAVED YOUR GIRLFRIEND, said a foppish British voice over the comm system. Gwyn had thought it’d be sexy, but it ended up funny enough that his team had wildly opposed his requests to change it.

  “You’re actually pretty close to a biblically accurate angel, you know?” Cait responded, grinning as she caught Lira. Cait shined gold like the sun in what Nick called his ‘Altered sense’ that let him pick up the energy of the Bullshit Waves. As he opened that sense, he realized the whole world was awash in that energy.

  Another Wave? So soon?

  The Wave that had Altered Cait and him had been two weeks ago today. He’d been born the year the Waves started, and he was hard pressed to remember two occurring so quickly after each other. His other senses picked up two orange tendrils shooting towards him in the water, and he remembered that he was too busy to wonder about Waves.

  He slapped the incoming tentacles away with his own, only to have them replaced with more, like a goddamn hydra. This thing was big, and had a lot of the same raw strength he did but a hell of a lot more tentacles.

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  Bad time not to have my blast rings.

  Without a way to do massive damage, he focused instead on taking away the beasts ability to do the same. Every tentacle that came his way found itself calamari, and Nick spared a moment to wonder if they were all actually in for a treat after this.

  A massive impact above shook the water, announcing Cait rejoining the fight. Through the water, Nick could see his friend laying into the body of the creature. He could also see that whatever this thing was, it was getting bigger. Its back pressed against the ceiling of the aquarium, cracks starting to show in the masonry.

  CAIT, WAI-

  Too late. With one more enthusiastic and explosive uppercut from Cait, the Clownfreak burst through the ceiling. As it reared into the sky, roaring, another mandala flashed above its head. Kennedy fell through, raven black wings spread wide as her crow/puma hybrid pet followed behind her. The dark angel unslung a wicked looking shotgun from her back, slamming a blast into the Clownfreak’s eye.

  Nick felt a familiar tickle as the empath linked to him, and suddenly she had a lot more pale flesh exposed as tendrils emerged from her skin, grabbing more of the handguns she kept around her person. He also felt the flow-through from Rose, the Cruma. The thing seemed to like to be linked to him through Kennedy, sensing some kind of kindred spirit. Nick didn’t think it was really him it was sensing though.

  Kennedy unloaded into the Clownfreak, but the monster was still growing and it was like a mosquito trying to suck a human dry. On the ground, Nick and Cait fought its tentacles, an increasingly losing battle as the monster’s skin thickened with its growth.

  “So, I have a plan!” yelled Cait, to a groan from Kennedy.

  “Does it start and end with getting eaten?”

  “It doesn’t end there!” Cait responded defensively. “I’d get it from the inside! Titanocarp! Doing this to giant fish is kind of becoming my thing.”

  “You just want to be naked on the news again,” Kennedy countered.

  “It’s a bonus!”

  For once, no-one told Cait no. Unless some heavy hitters showed up to support the team, it was looking like a little Bimbo Botulism might be the only way they had to take this thing out.

  WHERE’S WILDS WITCH?

  With the sorcerous deer, and especially with Kennedy drawing on her power, they could probably take this thing down.

  “Haven’t seen her since yesterday!” Kennedy called back.

  Well shit.

  “BREAST MAN! Alley oop!” called Cait, waving her arms for his attention.

  Here goes nothing.

  Nick whipped out a tentacle, wrapping Cait’s ankle and pulling himself over. In position, he wrapped a few more tentacles around her legs, swinging her around like an old timey sling before shooting her straight up.

  He followed her arc up, watching her get her bearings at the apex. She aimed, and shot herself into the Clownfreak’s waiting maw with a nano-powered punch.

  “Hey!” called Kennedy. “Try not to get swallowed this time! Go through the roof of its mouth!”

  “Pretty picky for a girl that isn’t getting eaten.” Cait responded.

  “Des Moines has no responsibility to enable your vore fetish Cait! Take this thing out quick!”

  Kennedy made a good point. The aquarium was already fucked, and the damage was starting to spread to nearby buildings just from the enormous monster moving.

  SHE’S RIGHT, DON’T BE SELFISH, I CAN EAT YOU LATER

  “Its gross when you say it!” called Cait as a booming crack sounded from inside the monsters mouth. It coughed out blood, and nearly coughed out Cait too. Nick could see the indestructible Amazon hanging on to a tooth.

  “Sending Rose!” called Kennedy. The Cruma slammed into the Clownfreak just below its jaw, digging in it’s claws and giving Cait a foothold to boost herself back into its mouth.

  “That’s a good girl Rose!” gushed Kennedy. It might have been his imagination, but Nick thought he could hear the Cruma’s rumbling purrs from 100 feet below it.

  “One mo’ ‘gain!” cried Cait, another boom sounding from inside the thing’s mouth. This time it howled in pain, and a torrent of blood gushed out of its mouth. It thrashed wildly in helpless pain

  “Uh, I’m pretty sure I’m hanging on to a hole in the bottom of this thing’s brainpan,” said Cait. “But with this blood and the thrashing I can’t pull myself up. Can y’all do anything about that? No rush, I’m locked in.”

  That would have been sarcastic from anyone else, but they actually hadn’t found any limits to Cait’s ability to keep her limbs locked in place.

  MAKES YOU MISS HOTGLUE

  “If that was a joke, too soon,” replied Cait.

  NO, THIS VOICE JUST ALWAYS SOUNDS STUPID

  KENNEDY, FOLLOW MY LEAD

  Nick swung himself up, trailing tentacles as he went. He anchored himself on window frames, trees, cars, anything he could reach. With the remaining tentacles, he latched on to the Clownfreak, grabbing fins, tentacles or teeth.

  Kennedy mirrored him on the other side, and he sent patience across their link.

  GET READY CAIT

  He sent a ‘Go!’ signal to Kennedy across their link, and pulled himself taut. Kennedy couldn’t quite match his strength, but for one painful instant they stood the monster up, straight and still. Then their tentacles started to snap, and Nick hissed in pain.

  It had been enough, though. A series of booms sounded from the Clownfreak’s head, and blood began to seep from its eye sockets as the massive bulk slumped to the ground. Another boom, and Cait shot out the top of it’s skull in a geyser of blood.

  “Booyeah! Big fish 0, Amaranthine 2!” she yelled, pulling herself into the air with another fist pump.

  “I honestly kind of expected you to come out of this one naked too, somehow,” Kennedy said, landing next to Cait. The Amazon was covered in brain, bone, and blood, but the romper she’d been wearing on her date with Lira had survived the encounter. Probably not wearable again, but intact.

  “Someone told me not to get swallowed. It’s the stomach acid that usually does it. Glad Lira called you, Kennedy, I don’t think I could have saved her without help from the both of you.” Cait gave Nick and Kennedy a broad smile, holding a fist out to him which he promptly bumped. Kennedy, however, blushed.

  “Yeah, good thing!” she replied, and Nick couldn’t quite sort out the jumble of emotions she was putting out, both link and scent.

  WHERE IS LIRA?

  “I called Samsara to evacuate her once I remembered that was something I can do. Every time I think I’m getting good at this Guardian thing, I remember how insanely inexperienced I am,” Cait explained, rubbing at the back of her neck.

  Kennedy walked up to her, patting a patch of her shoulder that only had blood on it, brain and bone conveniently absent.

  “Don’t worry big girl,” she said warmly. “That’s why mom put someone with experience on your team.”

  YEAH, WHERE IS DAWN?

  Kennedy glared at him, but Nick honestly hadn’t realized she was talking about herself. She’d been a Guardian for, what, three months? Not exactly an expert. The deer lady had guarded New Davenport for years prior to its fall.

  WHOOPS!

  “Its fine, you’re right anyway,” Kennedy sighed, annoyed. “I texted her when I was grabbing my guns, but nothing yet.”

  “Kinda feels like we should have trackers on these things,” Cait said, summoning her nano-comm and waving it.

  “Oh? You want Lira and me to know where you are at all times?” Kennedy smirked at Cait. True to form, Cait didn’t respond like a person capable of shame, grinning at the teasing girl.

  “Would you be into that? Kinda an NTR thing?” she asked, and Kennedy was the one who blushed, punching Cait in the shoulder.

  “Fuck you. Anyway, I’m pretty sure Mom does have trackers in these, but mostly as a safety precaution. She’s pretty big on personal freedom for Guardians,” Kennedy explained.

  SHOULD WE ASK HER?

  “Nah, point is, unless it was an emergency, she wouldn’t tell us. And if it was an emergency, she would’ve already told us,” Kennedy shrugged. “Maybe Freeflow is back from whatever mom had him doing up north.”