Frenemy of my Evil Step Aunt (Patreon)

A Prelude to Bad Day 2, we take a moment to step away from The Rendering Pit to visit some old friends. 

 Written by the marvelous Rabidbadger of FA, characters are copyright their respective players.

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Joseph let out a groan that had all the hallmarks of a really good stretch, though actually moving enough to engage in such an act was a thing of the past for the otter. Even flexing his fingers where they sat, wreathed in soft bulges, barely exposed from the mound of storage-saturated adipose that his body had become was a bit of a trial. He experienced the feeling when his ‘captain’ was unusually active throughout his ‘hardware’ (also known as Joseph’s ever-expanding ass). 

“Oof. What’s gotcha thinking so damn hard, boss?”

No answer. The otter blinked, and looked around – as much as he could anyway. His own cheeks got in the way of some of his vision, and the curved pillow of flesh that had taken up residence where his neck used to be stopped him from turning his head all that far. As far as Joseph could tell, they were still where they were when he let himself doze off for a nap. Resupply station in the middle of bum-nowhere-black dropping off salvage and survivors from some mining accident Red had descended upon like a damn hero.

A second sound, more feminine, and a bit more of a moan came not from the actual ship itself, but it was in the back of Joseph’s mind anyway. It felt strange, that twice removed connection – he didn’t have a direct link to Agatha or anything, but with the two of them serving as the core housing for the AI in charge of this circus he’d joined there was some sensory overflow. 

“Eesh, spinning both barrels even… and not answering. Agatha, what’s up?”

One of the medwaldos circled around to Joseph’s front, while a thundering footfall behind him announced that Glaurec’s attention had been garnered as well. The massive, heavily modified reptilian leaned himself against the crest of the otter’s ass, leaving Joseph squirming a little inside himself as he felt the gigantic pillow of flab that was his rump spread outward from the weight of the new recruit. Joseph tried not to immediately remember the overly endowed man’s exploits regarding the perch being leaned on, that kind of distraction wasn’t going to help right now.

Then Glaurec started tracing a lazy circle in the fur atop Joseph’s right cheek with a single clawed finger. Mercifully, it stopped there while the medwaldo’s screen flickered briefly, before displaying the puffy cheeked visage of a mouse with long brown hair.

“Yeah, do tell ma’am.”

The mouse abruptly shuddered in precisely the same fashion Joseph just had when she tried to speak, but it was brief, and she began speaking immediately after (while a trickle of something gold began to ooze down her shoulder). 

“R-Red felt something that has him all kinds of tense and freaked out when we buzzed past that cargo convoy. He’s digging through every bit of data he can mine out of every network in reach.”

Joseph couldn’t help but shiver again, both from the teasing around his butt, and the continued warm thrumming that kept dancing through his beached, blubbery frame. That, and the disconcerting notion of something that could set the AI he housed part of off like this.

“W-what ah, what might that be? If you’ve got a clue, that is.”

There wasn’t an immediate response, partly because Agatha looked visibly uncomfortable with the answer she had, but had clearly been hoping to avoid. Partly because Joseph was interrupted by the hard-muscled weight of Glaurec crawling up on top of him, taking a position over the otter’s shoulder – much like the one Thaminga had apparently assumed on Agatha as more of the dramatically altered woman began to pool downward toward the nest of flesh between the mouse’s breasts.

It took about three seconds for both groups to recover enough composure to continue.

“He, uhm – he thought he felt, and I kind of maybe heard, a voice we recognized.”

Glaurec’s voice poured into the ship’s echoing space, the gold-toned rumbling always a little predatory even when it was pleased (which it usually was). 

“Not one you’re overly fond of then, I assume?”

Agatha delayed for a couple of hard breaths, cheeks puffing in and out, trying to shake off a medwaldo’s attempts to stuff a hose into her lips.

“H-hey! Quit that! I’m not… well, I am, but that – this is important! It was, I mean I think it was…”

SHE WAS HERE.

Both otter and mouse winced visibly, though that was as far as it got. The other two both nearly fell from their perches as the reverberating tones of their artificially grown ‘captain’ flooded both of the ships in his budding ‘fleet’ sounding something none of them save Agatha was familiar with thus far.

Red was furious.

She was here. Minutes ago. Some festering little roaming spawn of her and that Cloud, and if we leave now we can catch her.

Joseph only vaguely suspected he knew what might be happening, but then Agatha went red in the cheeks, and began breathing in short, quick bursts.

“Red! Come on, we got away! Why – why would we…?!”

Thaminga, please help the medwaldo with mom. Mom, it will be all right. This is a scouting program. It’s a piece of her, one we can pick apart for information. Like they tried to pick me apart, only I’ll do it right.

An air of disquiet settled heavily and abruptly into the ships, though Thaminga didn’t spend too much time considering resisting the ‘order’. She was still inclined to maintain her ‘free agent’ status but even knowing she could survive in a vacuum with her nanomechanically converted form didn’t make her want to risk the ‘fox’ AI getting angry enough to make her do so. Given all that, she helped the medwaldo fix its dangling appendage to the mouse’s face, equal parts oxygen, sedative, and a feeding nozzle that slid into Agatha’s lips – the whole arrangement left the mouse looking visibly calmer almost instantly, if a little vacant.

“You, ah, you wanna clue the rest of us in on the details a bit, boss? Just to ease things along a bit mate.”

There was a moment’s pause, before the humming of levitation plates from every waldo bot in the ship kicked in at once. Coupled with the ones underneath Joseph doing so, leaving him and Glaurec both floating gently upward.

Thaminga, Glaurec, secure mom and Joseph please – then help the bots get everything ready for a fast burn. I could smell a piece of the lesser AI who started the chain of events that led to me. One that tried to do some very bad things to mom and I, and I want her between my teeth. 

Joseph could almost feel the milliseconds passing and Red growing more annoyed with each one. Glaurec’s hands sliding over him as the reptilian augment dismounted carefully weren’t moving fast, which the otter appreciated – apart from the anxiety. A bubble which burst when the other living crewmember began easing his floating, lard-encased body over toward what served as a ‘bed’ for him. A padded alcove of sorts that, were it not for the maglev plates, would probably require a heavy loader to get his ass out of. 

The plates deactivated the moment he was in place, leaving Joseph getting another shiver from the amount of wobbling and jostling his body did after it dropped the six or so inches into all that padding. Glaurec enjoyed the show for a moment, before stepping back to survey the flurry of activity in the rest of the ship.

“Alright, shiny little pirate king. What next?”

*** 

Agatha couldn’t think so easily, not past the flood of cherry chocolate paste hitting her tongue and the pleasantly fresh, floaty tingle her lungs seemed to be carrying out into the rest of her body. Feeling was a lot easier than thinking, though. She felt Thaminga flowing off her body and taking up a position by her butt, easing her hovering mass toward her ‘room’ on the ship. She felt the gradual, gentle undulation of her body’s refusal to stay still if it was touched or moved. She felt the seething coil of fury in her child’s warm, synthetic heart buried in her womb – and the little splinter of something colder in it. 

Her child was afraid. Agatha couldn’t blame him – she was too. This would draw attention, even if Red could overpower whatever ghost of the Cloud they were chasing.

Inwardly, she reached out – again, more with feeling than with thought. It was the closest thing she could manage to grasping for Red’s shoulder, or taking his hand, with him not having a body and hers being a rather unhelpful nigh-sphere of adipose and data. There was a flush of something warm that ran through her chest and back in response. It was close enough to a hug – it had all the same emotions running through it.

It’ll be all right, mom. I just can’t leave us running from this, or let them keep plotting in secret. They’re all dull and boring and predictable yeah, but they’re still dangerous. Besides, I really do want to peel Yaela’s code apart between my jaws.

Agatha couldn’t really blame him there. She kind of wanted to do the same.