Vash had finally tracked down his "pupils," through word on the grapevine. After days of going from village to village, asking around, until he finally heard news from a pigfolk he was passing by on the road of a large-breasted squirrel girl and her goth girlfriend playing Simon Says in Hogs' Landing…with the Pure Mother Bee.
"My Melissa!" His heart sang at the news. "My BAY-BEE! SWEET-HEART!"
"Uhhh…" Herb Hogsden scratched his head at the oddly passionate stranger. "Do you need directions?" He turned, pointing the way. "Though, I must warn you, it's become awful strange—"
However, Vash was already gone when he looked again; only blazing fire-trails left in his wake.
Meanwhile, in a bygone era of network television…
The scene is all in black-and-white.
The audio is distorted, slightly muffled and fuzzy-sounding.
It is all so deliciously vintage.
Akira and Melissa were sitting down to a breakfast prepared (with love) by doting wife and mother Kiko, of eggs—sunny side up for Melissa, scrambled for Akira—pancakes and sausages, with a side of freshly squeezed [Orange Juice]. They were all dressed in their "Sunday best": Akira, in his [Nice Suit'n'Tie], puffing on a pipe while he thumbed idly through the morning newspaper. Kiko, in a wifely apron and deep purple dress with a tiny seashell pattern, her hair all done up in a standard-issue frilled bob. Melissa, in a frilly pink dress and [Mary Janes], french braided pigtails.
"Darling," Akira said patriarchally to Kiko, in his deep solid bass that trickled like honey.
He removed his pipe just enough to smooch her once on the neck, as she was employing her [Watermorph] skill to channel orange juice from her hat-shell basin into his cup. "Looking good enough to eat!" He chuckled. "And so does the food."
Hers was a Stepford Smile for the History books, if there ever was. "Oh hush, dear," she recited.
"Best get straight to eating, now. Wouldn't want you to be late for work."
With this, she shifted her cold robotic stare onto Melissa.
"The same goes for you, little miss."
Melissa smiled—one of her front teeth charmingly absentee—and gave a measly shrug: a surefire sign of a witty retort to come. "Whaddya mean, mama? I don't go to work the same as papa does—I'm only just a kid!"
Cue the laugh track: uproarious applause; the unseen audience ate this shit up.
But then suddenly, there was a wrench thrown into the peaceful scene: An ear-piercing YARP! Prelude to VASH kicking down the front door completely free of its hinges. Atop of which, there laid—
"BUSTER, oh no!" Melissa cried, instantly brought to tears.
—Buster, the family dog-wolf, dead from a burning bludgeon strike!
"What'd you do to him?!"
Vash briefly sniffed at the air, rubbing his belly with a small anguished groan. "Damn...my dumb black ass really shoulda ate before I got here: 'cuz that shit smells TIGHT!"
At this unexpected intrusion, Akira and Kiko were waking from the effects of the spell.
Where were they? And why?
How did they even find themselves in such a ridiculous setting?
It was like the start of an Isekai novel!
Melissa was staring daggers at Vash, snarling through her fully exposed teeth. "YOU!"
Vash swung his [Scorchbrand Slugger] forward, stopping it as it was pointed straight at her. "That's right, BAY-BEE GIRL! Your one-and-only daddy is here to bring an end to your evildoing!"
"GET LOST! And if you dare start rapping again, I'll stuff your mouth full of bees!"
Vash was picking his nose. "Just lemmie have another chance."
"I already gave you a chance!" Melissa stood up sharply. And as she did, she angrily conjured a gust of wind to send the chair she was sitting in flying across the room, shattering against the distant wall. "I'll never go back to calling you daddy ever again, after what you did!"
The [Slugger] roared with flames, responding to its owner's emotions. "It's not MY fault there be low-level girls running around all in they underwear and SHIT!"
Melissa floated onto the top of the table. "I'm supposed to be your ONLY baby girl, creep!"
Not even waiting for the laugh track to fade, she unleashed a loud whistle—
CRASH!
Cue a sound of shattering glass.
A family dog-wolf had just busted in through the window.
CRASH! CRASH! CRASH!
A whole pack of them—big shocker!
By now, Akira and Kiko had more or less returned to their senses.
"Why is everything all black and white?" Akira asked incredulously.
"There's so much spray in my hair...it feels even harder than my shell-met." Kiko said, and looked down at her newly acquired homely attire in marked disgust. "Also...why am I wearing an APRON?!"
Vash chimed in, "focus, my pupils! She's getting away!"
"Oh!" Both looked to where Kiko had been—catching sight of her just as she flew up the chimney! So they pursued her, through the back door, while Vash resumed his unflinching Texas standoff with the pack of wolves, sensig right away that these weren't just your average run-of-the-mill EXP fodder wolves…
"Hoho," Vash said, grinning at what he saw taking place. "This might actually be a challenge.
Outside, Akira and Kiko found Melissa sobbing alone in the backyard sitting in a tire swing that was hung from the branch of a large old oak tree, her nice dress and face smeared in soot.
"What's on your mind, sport?" Akira said with a brimming Kennedy smile as he patriarchally strode up to her, hands in his pants pockets, his out-of-place charms earning him a sharp elbow nudge from Kiko—bringing him back to his proper senses. "I mean...Melissa," he tried again, more seriously. "It's not the time for games; we need to talk."
"You're cross with me, aren't you?" she questioned him, sniffing back tears.
Akira moved beside her, wrapping one arm around the back of the tire swing. "It's not that I'm angry. I just want to hear the truth…from your perspective."
Through blurry eyes, Melissa gave a faint smile of burgeoning trust.
"Okay...but maybe it would be easier to start by showing you my [Status Menu Thingy]."
~~~~~~~~
Name: Melissa Melissa
Race: Beegirl
Level: 4
EXP: 409/1230
Class: Pure Mother Bee ★★★★★★
Guilds: Farmer's Guild (Deity)
< Strength: 3 >
< Agility: 12 >
< Stamina: 6 >
< Willpower: 15 >
< Dexterity: 5 >
< Charisma: 10 >
< Luck: 8 >
~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~
Skills:
Windcaller
Ability to conjure powerful gusts of wind.
Limitations:
The strength of winds you can create is based on your
Blessing/Blighting Pollen
Scatter magical pollen to place a boon or a hex onto a target or plot of farmland.
The [Nature Boon] will increase the success and rate of production of crops, as well as its yield, by an effect based on your
[Pollination Form]
Transforms self into a swarm of honeybees all sharing the user's consciousness.
While in this state, all magic spells can be freely cast.
Legendary Skills:
[Queen of the Hive]
PASSIVE: Gain EXP from allies gaining EXP. However, you cannot gain EXP through normal means.
ACTIVE: Mind-altering spell which causes a select number of targets to begin to consider the user like family. The strength of the illusion grows as it gradually starts to infect a wider area and number of targets, all becoming subservient to the Pure Queen Bee in some capacity.
Limitations:
Can only create one "family" at a time.
Only effective on targets with
Can be broken by outside intrusions, of those unaffected to the spell's effects.
Targets must already share a natural bond as a basis for the skill to have an effect. In other words, they are already in an exclusive romantic relationship together.
~~~~~~~~
"So…that legendary skill is what you've used on us," Akira pointed out. "[Queen of the Hive]."
Melissa nodded. "It's why the entire village has been made to look like"—she limply gestured at their surroundings—"this!" (A 1950s American suburb.) "A 'hive' created from a shared illusion."
"What about the wolves falling from the sky?" Akira then asked, scratching himself. "Is that also your doing?" He was sweating, fanning himself with one hand, though certainly not because of the inoffensively balmy weather: rather, since he'd only just recently grown conscious of the tightness of his attire, after breaking out of Melissa's illusion. Particularly around the bust area.
"The falling wolves? Oh…" Melissa waved it off. "They always do that; that's just how monsters spawn in this world."
"I...see," remarked Akira, staring at her with an inscrutable expression: a halfcocked frown and a suspicious glare with a subtle dash of bewildered amusement. As then, he abruptly distracted himself with hurriedly loosening the first few buttons of his [Nice Suit'n'Tie] as well as the crisp white shirt underneath, so that his suffocated breasts could finally be freed from their era-accurate bondage. Then giving a relieved sigh, after it was all said and done, as her precious pair immediately flopped out with a nice rewarding jiggle.
Kiki further consulted with the goddess, in the midst of this light softcore fan service:
"You used to date Vash-senpai," she said. "Earlier, you called him your—"
"My daddy!" She exclaimed, then abruptly became more withdrawn. "He used to be...until I dumped him. But he still won't leave me alone: he keeps trying to win my heart back by writing me these crappy poems."
Biting her lip, she turned away sharply. "He's only making this harder on the both of us."
Kiko had an uneasy frown. "Vash is a weirdo stalker? How am I not surprised," she said. "But if you don't mind me asking: what caused the break-up in the first place?"
Melissa briefly sucked in her lips, giving a purely resentment-filled grimace.
It was evidently a sore subject, filling her with near-acidic levels of ire to even recall:
"He touched. A newbie's. Boobies," she said. To which Kiko gave a silent, disapproving nod.
Akira, meanwhile, had been turning these new details over in his head to form a number of conclusions.
Personally, the world's richest, youngest, cutthroat playboy billionaire CEO had never been in an online relationship before, nor had any problems with women—he was in a relationship with seven in real life, currently—so he couldn't relate to the concept of being sad after a breakup. But on a more factual side of things, it was clear to him that this breakup had been difficult on Melissa: likely being the root cause of her drinking issue, as well as why she might have resorted to using [Queen of the Hive]: in order to attain some much-needed structure in her life.
Breathing deeply, wearing a stony scowl, he lowered his head so that his hat cast an ominous shadow over his eyes when he faced her.
His voice was lowered to a low, ruthless growl:
"So…you're saying that you were manipulating Kiko and I from the start?"
Melissa and even Kiko recoiled in fear at seeing him so intense.
"Uhh…" Melissa nervously started to say. "Papa, if I say yes: does it mean you're going to disown me?"
Akira set a firm hand on her shoulder, causing her to flinch.
Then, lifting his other hand up high—looking like he was going to hit her—she closed her eyes to brace for a blow—
But instead, he patted her warmly on the top of her head.
"Huh?" Melissa opened her eyes, her antennae twitching in confused joy. "Papa, does this mean…you aren't angry?"
Akira was smiling as his eyes were twinkling, like they were on the verge of filling with tears.
"Honey…I've never been more proud of you," he said, continuing to lightly pummel the top of her pigtailed head with his palm. "To do something so dastardly, with no concern for another's agency…" With a restrained grunting sound he doubled back suddenly, hunched over and shaking—as if building up his strength for a huge reveal—before then BURSTING forward, eyes now fully and unabashedly gushing with tears, showing her a prominent thumbs up. "My daughter: it must be fate that I adopted you, because you truly possess my S-tier genes!"
Now, it was Melissa's eyes that were twinkling with overwhelming familial love!
"Oh, father!" she cried out, her wings buzzing in glee, levitating her up to his eye-level. "To make you proud, I hereby swear to be the absolute worst to everyone I ever meet!"
"That's my baby bee-girl!"
"Daddy! I love you with all my heart!"
The pair hugged while Kiko watched queasily from the sidelines, already weirded out enough as it was…even before the two started violently french-kissing.
After all, wasn't this kind of thing always inevitable in a harem novel with a "little sister?"
And this went on, for an uncomfortably long while, until suddenly—
KABOOM!
There was a giant explosion, coming from the front lawn of their lovely suburban home!