Thunderclaps 3: Chapter 5 - Our Souls at War

“The Worst is a threat to the human race and all life on earth. We summon all the world’s superheroes here in the name of the United Nations.”

(1986, statement by the UN Secretary General)

At this time, the Offbeat known as The Worst had absorbed the energy from the Soviet Union’s Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant and reduced 1/3 of Siberia to scorched earth.

 

Blue lightning struck before Flare’s eyes.

The light was absorbed into Snow Wing and Cemetery’s backs. The light was also flowing into the other heroes’ bodies.

“This isn’t right. The energy flow has reversed. Someone switch on the lights! Hurry!”
The bowtie men or the maids must have obeyed Milk Crown’s command because the many lights on the ceiling and walls came back on, flooding the Neo Arena with light.

The rapid change in brightness briefly blinded them all. When the white light dazzled Flare, she heard a daring voice.

“Hi there, Storyteller. Long time no see.”

“What? Who are you?”

The loathsome Kotodama master’s voice was followed by an earsplitting scream.

“Gyahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!”

When Flare’s vision returned, she saw the gaunt man writhing on the floor. White smoke rose from his upper body and the sound of roasting meat came from him.

Someone who hadn’t been here a moment before now stood calmly on the stage. An elderly man with a small mustache, old-fashioned round glasses, a black shirt, and black pants was looking down at the agonized Storyteller with a cold smile.

Storyteller shouted angrily up at the man while still spewing smoke.

“You fool. Your heart will now stop!”

(That man is dead.)

Flare groaned in her mind. That Kotodama master could control people’s bodies with his words, so his voice was a surer weapon than a gun. The mysterious intruder’s heart was sure to stop.

The mustached man should have been dead, but he grinned and held out a water gun.

“Your words are meaningless now, Kotodama master. Take a look at yourself.”

The tattoos from Storyteller’s shoulders to stomach had vanished. The skin had been torn away, leaving his red muscles exposed.

“I dumped some acid on you. Do you remember a few years back when you were working as a phony paranormal expert and you lost your powers when the tattoos on your legs were erased?”

“Y-you would throw acid on someone in the cover of darkness!? And you call yourself a hero!?”

“I don’t recall using that term.”

Flare watched in shock, but then she heard Cemetery shouting while red in the face.

“Dad!? What are you doing here?”

Flare was dumbfounded.

“That’s the legendary crimefighter?”

“I’m Mister Unfair,” he said, not sounding particularly proud of it.

“Kill him!” shrilly shouted Milk Crown and more than 30 bowtie men pulled out guns.

“Stop!” shouted eight voices at once.

Flare leaped forward on instinct and jabbed her hands into the broad back of the bowtie man in front of her. The large man’s feet left the floor and he flew several meters across the stage, like a paper in a gust of wind, and crashed into another bowtie man.

(My powers are back!)

She was already flying and sending her fist into another bowtie man’s cheek.

The other men were also collapsing. Snow Wing threw a glowing knife from her wing, hitting a man in the chest and knocking him out. Rose Device fired a rubber bullet fired from her arm with extreme precision, knocking out another. Madam Scroll sent out her scrolls to wrap up several of them in their firing stances. Ocelot summoned the spirits of an anaconda, a jaguar, and other animals to attack the men. Silver Bullet vanished and silver lightning knocked out several men in a split second. Star Thunder fired electricity that sent the men falling to the floor.

Cemetery appeared from the shadow of the bowtie man closest to her father. The macho man disappeared after being dragged into his own shadow.

Nanjou Shuhei was entirely relaxed, like he had known the eight women would use their Offbeat powers to protect him. He spoke to the daughter he hadn’t seen in far too long.

“Looks like you’ve gotten the hang of it.”

Cemetery’s head emerged from a shadow and she whispered to her father in consternation.

“Dad, what are you doing here?”

“Doing a job. An old friend hired me to help you out.”

Shuhei looked to each of the young heroes before continuing.

“Comet Hawk hijacked the machinery below the Neo Arena to return the energy stolen from all of you. I also rid Storyteller of the magic he was using to bind you. You’re all free.”

He poked the toe of his rubber-soled shoe against the back of the Kotodama master bound on the floor by a scroll. The skinny man’s burned body rolled over, bumped into Milk Crown, who was bound by another scroll, and yelped weakly.

The heroines couldn’t believe they were seeing Storyteller brought so low, but it helped convince them that the nightmare really was over. Snow Wing’s giant breasts had shrunk to their original A-cups and Madam Scroll’s enlarged nipples were normal sized. The golden rings on their nipples and clits fell away to the floor with their spellcaster stripped of his power.

When Silver Bullet saw the throbbing penis shrink back into a clitoris, she ran around the stage and celebrated. The stage was filled with silver lightning for nearly a minute.

“I can’t believe it,” said Silver Bullet once she was done rejoicing. “We couldn’t do a thing for three months and you do it like it’s nothing.”

The other women nodded in agreement and Shuhei grinned.

“His Offbeat power checkmates you as soon as you meet him. But he’s powerless if you catch him unawares and eliminate the tattoos that give him his power before he can speak. One thing puzzles me, though. When I defeated him in the past, his Kotodama control only lasted a few days. His magic may have been boosted by their supposed emperor.”

“Oh, right. Their emperor. Come with me, Snow Wing.”

Flare took off from the stage with her cape fluttering behind her. Snow Wing didn’t have time to respond, so she simply flapped her wings to follow after Flare.

The two ascended rapidly and crashed into the floor of the room built into the Neo Arena’s ceiling. Flare with a punch and Snow Wing with the sharpened point of her wings.

The room was built like a box seat at an opera house. It contained luxurious chairs, a table, wine, and snacks.

The only person in the room was a gray-haired man wearing a black shirt and pants just like Mister Unfair. Flare recognized him. She had spoken with him a few times before.

“You’re Kashima Kengo, the journalist who specializes in Offbeat stories. What are you doing here? Are you the Emperor of the Dark Arena?”

Flare approached the man with a harsh look, but Snow Wing shrieked and crouched down to hide her exposed chest and lower body. She blushed bright but still grabbed Flare’s arm.

“Um, um, please wait, Flare-san. He is…”

She hesitated to continue while Kengo approached. He tore a curtain from the window, placed it over the crouching announcer, and told her something via eye contact.

His young lover nodded and resumed speaking.

“He is…Kengo-san is Captain Sky.”

“Eh?”

The name of that legendary man echoed in Flare’s mind.

“Eh?”

After her debut as a superhero, that older hero had run over to shake her hand. He had been the one to tell her about Super Offbeat.

“Kyahhhh!”

Flare screamed and crouched behind the end of the curtain covering Snow Wing. She was past caring if a criminal saw her like this, but a living legend was a different matter.

(Captain Sky saw me naked! And with my penis out too! Why does this have to happen to me!?)

She couldn’t look Kengo in the eye anymore, so she looked to the floor while hearing the calm, mature voice of a man who was well accustomed to finding himself in abnormal situations.

“I checked this room ahead of time, but there was no sign of anyone here. This was all I found.”

He tossed the top half of a mannequin onto the floor for Flare to see.

“The emperor wasn’t here!? But what does that mean?”
Flare left the box seat with a curtain wrapped around her. Snow Wing followed with Kengo in her arms. The three of them rejoined the others down on the stage.

“Oh, my! So this is the big comeback of Sky & Shadow!”

Kengo and Shuhei stopped Madam Scroll’s exclamation and then walked over to Milk Crown in such perfect unison you wouldn’t think a single day had passed since they were a crimefighting duo. Seeing a page out of Japan’s superhero history walking before them made the younger heroes’ eyes sparkle like they were no more than fangirls.

“Good sir, would you kindly tell us where your real emperor is?”
The white plastic smile moved side to side and a pathetic voice came from behind the mask.

“That’s what I want to know. Everyone working in the arena thought he was in the box seat. I never imagined it was only a doll.”

“Are you sure you aren’t just saying that and you are the emperor yourself? A common way of making your organization look more impressive than it really is. Either way, we’ll be taking a look at your face.”

Shuhei grabbed the chin of the mask.

“Wait! No! That hurts!”
He must have used the adhesive for movie special effects makeup because the plastic smile made a sticky sound as it was peeled away. The face below was that of a dignified middled-aged Asian man who no one would ever imagine could shout and cavort like he had on the stage.

“Isn’t this Jade Horn?”

Every hero in Kantou knew that name. He was the boss of a Chinese mafia group based in Yokohama. Or he had been.

“There was a big commotion in the underworld a few months back when their big boss vanished from Yokohama,” said Kengo.

“Hey, what gives? You were known as an arrogant son of a bitch, so what are you doing prancing about on stage here?” asked Shuhei.

The underworld boss tilted his head with some white glue still on his forehead and nose. When he spoke, his voice was a lot deeper than before.

“You want to know why?”
His thick eyebrows shot up. The eyes that had made violent gangsters tremble in fear with a single glance were now full of doubt and confusion.

“I don’t know. Why was I doing that?”

“And who is the Emperor of the Dark Arena?”
“I know the emperor ordered me to do this, but who is he? I can’t remember. I have no memory of- aggggh!”

Jade Horn’s face – no, his entire head – distorted like it was made of clay. There were plenty of Offbeats who could transform their body, but Jade Horn wasn’t supposed to be an Offbeat.

It spread beyond his head. His flesh collapsed and flowed out of his white costume.

His melted flesh touched Storyteller’s shoulder. The disgust and fear were so great Storyteller screamed from his still-tattooed mouth.

“Eeeek! Agh, gweh!”

The terrified Kotodama master began to melt away too. Their bodies fused into a single puddle on the floor.

Meanwhile, a chorus of screams came from the stage. All the unconscious bowtie men came to at once only for their muscular bodies to melt.

The maids waiting uncertainly in the stands met the same fate. Their beautiful faces and sexy bodies became a fleshy fluid.

“We have to do something!” shouted Rose Device.

The heroes exchanged a glance. In truth, not one of them – from the newcomers to the veterans – knew how to help these people. Even the men bound by Madam Scroll’s magic scrolls were melting. No one knew what this phenomenon even was.

While the heroes tried to figure out something to do, the many melted people mixed together, flowed through the cracks in the floor, and disappeared underneath.

“Eeeek! Yukie-chan, help me!”

A woman’s scream came from one of the chunks of flesh flowing below the floor. Countess Cruel swung her scarlet hair and opened her mouth wide with her lower half joined with the stream of flowing flesh. It wasn’t long before her alluring face had melted away.

Near the vampire, an arm as flawless as a marble sculpture burst from the fleshy goop and clawed at the air. Several dark insects clung to and crawled along the surface of the arm.

“Is that Damned Beetle!?” yelled Kengo when he saw his old nemesis.

Those two were not the only Offbeat victims. A man’s face emerged from the flesh, his forehead split open vertically, and a dark red mist sprayed out. Three bloodshot eyeballs floated at the end of the spray.

The red mist with eyes tried to escape toward the ceiling, but it stopped moving partway there and was swallowed back up by the split forehead like film playing in reverse. The mouthless mist spewed invectives.

“How can this be!? How can I - the great Malign Gale – be trapped by some goddamn rotting flesh!? This shouldn’t beeeeeeeeee!”

A dark shape made unintelligible gurgling sounds while trapped at the bottom of the pile of flesh. Flattened against the floor, Nether Brute grew smaller and smaller before vanishing into the flesh.

Even the powerful Offbeats dubbed the Forbidden Four by the Dark Arena were melted and vanished into the melted flesh soup on the floor. The only survivors in the Neo Arena were the heroes and the majority of the criminals who had passed out after having almost all their energy absorbed. Not one of the Dark Arena’s personnel remained.

Snow Wing looked ready to vomit as she asked a hesitant question of the more experienced heroes.

“Um, was that a mass suicide?”
Kengo shook his head with a pained look on his face.

“If anything, I’m guessing they were killed against their will to silence them. I’ve never seen such a horrific method before, but I have seen members of criminal organizations killed for the same reas- ah!”

Kengo held a hand to his beautiful gray hair. The others also grimaced and held their heads.

Something was forcing its way into their brains. But not physically. It was an emotion. It was like the dark feelings brought on by a gruesome scene, a horrific truth, a cruel act, or a sickening disaster had been condensed down and suddenly placed in their minds.

Words bubbled up from the swirling unpleasantness, like poison gas rising from the bottom of a polluted marsh.

“I am…”

Instead of hearing the words with their ears, the meaning of the words was directly written into the language center of their brains.

At the same time, goop flowed from the ventilation duct on the Neo Arena’s wall and spread out like a stain on the wall. It only covered the area of a tablecloth, but that goop on the wall was the combination of all the flesh that had disappeared below the floor earlier.

The flesh had taken on a color none of them had a word for and a new face appeared on its surface. It was really only the wrinkles and bumps in the surface looking like a face, but it clearly contained a will that was staring down on the humans below.

The arrogant face’s movements synced with the voice playing in the heroes’ heads.

“I am the Emperor of the Dark Arena.”

Visual imagery flooded their minds along with the words.

Two things were locked in a fierce battle. The heroes could not identify what the things were. One was at least a being with a material form, but the other was not even made of matter. It was a being of pure energy.

One was made of matter and the other of energy, but they both had a will of their own. In that sense, they were intelligent lifeforms.

They had one other definite difference aside from the nature of their existence.

The energy being would be classified as “good” by human standards.

It felt sorrow and anger when other forms of life were lost. It wished for no more life to be lost. And it risked its life to fight toward that end.

Conversely, the matter being was “evil”.

It did not care how many lives were lost in the pursuit of its own desires. In fact, it found pride in how skillfully it slaughtered them. Humans had no way of comprehending what the matter being’s desires even were, but it believed many more lives needed to be taken to fulfill them.

The two beings’ battle was not fought on earth. Nor in space. It was fought in a super-dimensional space that not even Star Thunder, a resident of an interstellar civilization, could imagine.

Their battle had continued for eons, growing fiercer as it went. When they had finally thrown their strongest attacks at each other, space had ruptured.

The good and evil beings had been swallowed up by the spatial rift they had created and they were dumped into another world. They had been separated and the matter being had landed on a certain planet.

The natives referred to the planet as earth.

After landing on earth, the matter being had lost most of its corporeal form and its power from the shock of crossing dimensions.

It had entered different humans to recover its lost body. It had controlled its hosts’ brains, having the hosts do its bidding without them even noticing anything was amiss.

But this was more than just brainwashing. A more horrifying fate awaited the victims. The matter being spent the time necessary to fuse with the hosts’ cells and recreated their bodies without them even noticing. They still looked human, but they had been remade on the molecular level to be like the matter being’s original body. Once a host was no longer necessary, their body would melt away and truly become the matter being’s body.

It had created a comfortable environment for itself and absorbed more and more people.

After recovering enough of its body, it had split apart to take even more human hosts. That had increased the number of people it could control and increased the size of its body.

“I spent 40 of your years.”

The emperor’s powerful and wicked emotions pushed in at them.

“But finally the preparations to return to my dimension were complete. I manipulated countless criminals, boosted Storyteller’s power, had Jade Horn create the Dark Arena organization, and had Professor Beyond complete a device that would absorb Offbeat energy and cross dimensions. I was but one step away when you insisted on interfering.”

The wickedness roaring in their brains was growing. The heroes’ thought their skulls were going to burst.

“But I am patient. A new chance will always present itself. So I will take you as my new hosts and use you in place of the Dark Arena.”

The stage shook violently and large cracks ran along the border between the stands and the stage.

The flesh goo erupted from the cracks to surround the circular stage in a donut shape. The goo continued to grow until it had formed a tall flesh wall encircling the heroes.

“I will consume your bodies and minds both.”

The circular wall collapsed inwards. The avalanche of flesh stickily covered the stage.

“Don’t move, everyone. I will freeze space.”

Rose Device gave her instruction before activating the spatial stasis field generator in her chest armor.

The space around them was solidified into a barrier using laws of physics that could only be expressed through equations that only Shizuko understood. The wall of artificially materialized space could not be broken even by a direct attack from the world’s largest nuclear bomb. The field had only ever been broken by an Arabian djinn who ignored the laws of physics in the first place.

The flesh tsunami contacted the frozen space. Rose Device’s calculations said this should repel the extradimensional monster.

“Pathetic.”

Pure contempt echoed within Rose Device’s nanomodule system.

“In my home universe, spatial stasis is mere child’s play.”

An unknown anomaly caused feedback within the armor’s generator. The defense system could not compensate and the emerald armor locked up.

“Ahh!”

The chest armor tore apart and the spatial stasis field vanished. The flesh monster pushed in without a moment’s delay. Madam Scroll used her scrolls, Snow Wing her glowing knives, and Star Thunder her electricity, but to no avail.

“Noooo!” screamed Announcer Ozora Miki rather than Snow Wing. “Get this gross stuff off of me!”

Something other than the panic she was feeling led her to reach out her right hand and grab Cemetery’s left hand.

Cemetery squeezed her hand back.

“Eh?”

“Huh?”
Snow Wing and Cemetery did not understand what they were doing. Their held hands were now raised overhead.

Gray lightning scattered from their clasped hands.

“What’s happening?”

“What is going on?”
When the lightning struck the flesh wall, a groan of rage exploded in the heroes’ minds. They felt faint, but the flesh wall withdrew from them all at tremendous speed. It regathered into a single blob and stuck itself to the backmost wall of the Neo Arena’s stands.

Snow Wing and Cemetery exchanged a glance with their clasped hands still raised.

“Did you do that, Nanjou-san?”

“Was that you, Ozora?”

They asked the same question and then shook their heads.

Kengo and Shuhei’s eyes widened toward their successors.

“When did you two get that new power?”

“I had no idea you had developed a combo move.”

Snow Wing opened her lips to say she didn’t know any more than they did, but completely different words left her mouth. And Cemetery spoke the exact same words at precisely the same moment.

Their voices joined into one and spoke to the distant monster instead of Kengo or Shuhei.

“So we meet again, ––––.”

They spoke a term no one could make out. Perhaps that was the true name of the monster that had fallen from another universe. The monster sent more words into the heroes’ minds, which included another term that could not be comprehended by the human brain.

“–––––!? You were on earth?”

Snow Wing and Cemetery were flustered, but their mouths calmly spoke the same words.

“I fell to earth just like you. In the shock, I was split into two elements which were absorbed into nearby earthlings. I lost my will and slumbered within the earthlings. I currently reside in these two women.”

“Are you the light that fell on the yacht Shuhei and I were onboard?” asked Kengo, his voice cracking.

“Correct,” said the two as one. “I fell into a deep sleep within you, but ironically enough, I was awoken by the telepathy sent by my enemy ––––. Unfortunately, I cannot exist in this universe without fusing with another lifeform’s physical body. If I am to defeat –––– and prevent –––– from taking any more lives, I require your assistance, Ozora-san and the daughter of Nanjou. Please help me.”

Snow Wing nodded hesitantly and Cemetery firmly.

“O-okay. Given the circumstances, I’m willing to help.”

“Time to get back at that motherfucker for what he did to us!”

A pair of pure white wings grew from the tombstone drawn on the back of Cemetery’s black jacket. They were the same wings that Ozora Miki had received from Captain Sky. The total of four wings carried the two hand-holding women up from the stage.

“No one else interfere. Only my power can defeat ––––.”

Snow Wing and Cemetery held hands and soared toward the flesh while their fellow heroes watched on. But they were not in control of this flight – their bodies were moving all on their own.

“––––, you have nowhere left to run. Give up now.”

The two of them stopped in midair directly in front of the flesh mound quivering like a giant pile of gelatin. Snow Wing took her free left hand and Cemetery took her free right hand and held the palms toward each other. A black orb instantly appeared between the hands. The orb was made by concentrating shadows themselves and giving them three-dimensional form. Both of them sensed great power coming from it. Their skin tingled from the power it radiated.

“This ends here!”

They held those hands out with perfect timing. The orb left their hands and collided with the flesh mound. It drove deep inside the center of the mound like a bullet fired into agar-agar. The orb sank below the floor of the stands with the monster flattened below it.

(We can win this!)

Snow Wing rejoiced on the inside.

(We can actually win this. We never have to do that embarrassing stuff ag- eek!)

Her joyous thoughts were drowned out by the rotten monster’s mocking laughter. Her mind was soon filled with filth.

“Foolish –––––. You aren’t even aware how weak you have become, are you? I only withdrew earlier because you caught me off guard and didn’t have time to prepare a body, but now I am ready to face your power. Do you understand your predicament? For the past 40 years, you have remained unconscious, simply supplying your power to these earthlings who call themselves superheroes. I, on the other hand, have bene working to recover my lost power. Perhaps we were once evenly matched, but you will soon learn that I am now vastly superior to you!”

The black orb shattered. The squashed flesh swelled out, stretched into the air, and attacked the two women.

“Kh.”

A new orb appeared in their hands.

“Surely you know your efforts are wasted.”

The orb held great power by earthling standards, but it was swallowed up by the flesh monster along with Snow Wing and Cemetery.

 

They found themselves in the Justice Circus HQ’s conference room.

The walls were decorated with portraits of the superheroes who had filled out the Justice Circus’s roster over the past 36 years.

A few of them had lost their lives in the pursuit of justice.

One had been killed in the explosion after carrying a nuclear time bomb into space before it could detonate in Tokyo. One’s body had broken apart after absorbing the energy of an artificial earthquake generator. One had fallen after taking a bullet for just one girl.

And one ordinary highschooler had her portrait there after being named an honorary member for triggering the self-destruct device on a weapon of mass destruction and losing her life in the subsequent explosion while all of the heroes were restrained.

Snow Wing and Cemetery sat side by side at the round table overlooked by the portraits of so many past heroes. At some point, their costumes had been returned to normal, so nothing inappropriate was exposed.

Kengo and Shuhei stood behind the young women with stern faces.

No, they were wearing their hero costumes instead of their civilian clothing, so they were not just old men at the moment.

They were Captain Sky and Mister Unfair.

“I am disappointed in you, Ozora-kun,” coldly stated Captain Sky.

“Daughter, you are wasting my power,” scolded Mister Unfair.

“We were wrong to leave our powers with you two.”

“You cannot live up to our names.”

Their harsh criticism weighed on the young pair’s shoulders like boulders. Snow Wing replied quietly while viewing the reflection of her face in the polished table.

“I knew I was never cut out to be a superhero. I’m a coward. I never know what to do in an emergency, so I get flustered and screw everything up.”

She shrank down in her seat, but Cemetery glanced over at her before turning around and glaring at the two legends behind them.

“Not so fast. I never claimed to be a hero. I’m just a thug. But Ozora’s worked really hard to be a hero. Sure, I’m an embarrassment to your name, dad, but handing someone Offbeat powers out of the blue and expecting her to be the next Captain fucking Sky is asking the impossible.”

Cemetery’s plea did nothing to tear down the men’s icy looks.

“Failures like you do not deserve that power.”

“We will be taking it back.”
Four steely arms were placed on Snow Wing and Cemetery’s shoulders. Several times the gravity was now bearing down on them.

“You can have it back if you want, Kengo-san, but how are you going to- ah!”
“What the fuck is this, dad!?”

The hands on their shoulders transformed. The fingers swelled out and bumps appeared across the surface. A sticky fluid left those bumps. There was far too much of it to be sweat and it covered their entire hands.

“What is happening?”
“Something isn’t right, dad.”

“This is a side effect.”

The Captain and Mister responded calmly. Almost like the bizarre change to their bodies wasn’t happening at all. But even as they spoke, their total of 20 fingers grew longer and draped over the mounds at the chest of Snow Wing’s suit and Cemetery’s black bustier.

“Our bodies were transformed by containing an otherdimensional energy being for so many years.”

“We could resist the side effects while the energy being was within us, but the symptoms are showing themselves now that it has moved to you two.”

“Our bodies will return to normal if you return the energy being to us.”

“And if you return the energy being now, the same side effects will never develop in you. It’s win-win.”

“So return it to me, Miki-kun.”
“Give it back, Shino.”

Snow Wing’s eyes widened as the Captain’s lengthened right thumb rose up like a snake preparing to strike its prey.

“Nh, gh!”

She tried to scream, but the finger entered her mouth after growing to three times its width. She tried to close her mouth in surprise and ended up biting the finger hard with her front teeth. The finger felt strange and decidedly inhuman.

Maybe it was due to the bite, but goo erupted from the finger into her mouth. Something as warm and sweet as boiled honey spread through her mouth and forced its way down her throat.

“Nh, nhhh.”

Her throat burned. Every single cell in her mucous membranes were excited.

Her stomach burned too. Her stomach lining squirmed with desire.

The same thing was happening to Cemetery. Her father’s sticky fingers covered her nose to force her to open her mouth. Then his index finger slipped through the slight gap between her lips and teeth.

“U-urp!”

A sweet, boiling liquid filled her mouth and seeped into the rest of her body. A pleasant warmth gathered in the bottom of her stomach.

But the heat wasn’t just in their bodies. Their minds were also burned by intense flames, preventing them from thinking. Their thoughts had been obstructed to the point that they weren’t even aware they weren’t thinking clearly. The powerful words spoken behind them began to seep into the depths of their mind without any resistance.

“You are too incompetent to be a superhero. You are not Snow Wing. Return to being Ozora Miki, the announcer.”

“You are so useless you cannot even handle being a lone wolf street gang who doubles as a hero. You are no more than a child. You are only my daughter, Nanjou Shino.”

Snow Wing hadn’t resisted the words that much to begin with, but Cemetery always snapped back at anything her father said. But at the moment, she did not even consider defying her father, the great hero.

“Yes, I am not Snow Wing. I am only Ozora Miki.”
“You’re right. I am not Cemetery. I am only your daughter Shino.”

The men’s arrogant laughter rang in Miki and Shino’s minds after they responded obediently. But even that sounded calming and reliable to the young women.

“Now, we shall remove from your bodies what you do not require.”

“Climb into the table.”

“Understood.”
“Okay, dad.”

They stood up on the large round table without even questioning it. The table’s surface reflected their costumes from the bottom up.

“Sit down.”

“Spread your legs wide.”

(Something isn’t right.)

That thought entered a corner of Miki and Shino’s minds.

(Kengo-san wouldn’t ask me to take such an embarrassing pose.)

(Dad wouldn’t ask his own daughter to do this.)

(He just wouldn’t.)

The warning bells rang again and again in the back of their minds, but those bells were too quiet and they were drowned out by the great wave of pleasant heat filling their minds.

The small butt contained in the sky blue bodysuit and the curvy butt pushing out the black ultra-miniskirt sat atop the Justice Circus logo on the round table. A total of four thighs were spread wide.

(This is weird.)

(It isn’t right.)

The doubting voices within them were growing quieter and fainter. The heat in their minds grew more intense, pushing them to move. Miki’s right calf crossed Shino’s left shin so they could both spread their legs next to each other.

Miki wore a low-leg bodysuit with bare legs on TV every day, but she had never posed like this for the viewers. The blue triangle of cloth looked so insufficient between her thighs that had grown a lot thicker thanks to the martial arts training she had taken up since becoming a superhero.

The great heat filling her brought beads of sweat to her thighs. The blue fabric digging into her crotch was darkened by a wet stain, either due to the sweat or something else.

The part of Shino’s lower body revealed was not seen on a regular basis like Miki’s was. She had used her great flexibility to spread her legs to nearly 180 degrees, so her black miniskirt had been pulled all the way up. The plastic material squeaked when it rubbed against her sweaty thighs.

Something shined a bright white within her wrinkled skirt. Surprisingly, she preferred white panties. They were even more obviously wet than Miki’s bodysuit.

“There, that’s a good girl.”

“Don’t worry. You’ll enjoy this.”

All of the living legends’ fingers stretched out. At this point, they were 20 tentacles instead of human fingers and they attacked the women’s exposed crotches.

(Oh, no.)

“Hyah!”

Miki screamed when ten sticky tentacles rubbed at her thighs. A sensation more pleasurable than anything she had ever experienced ran through her thighs like an electric current.

(No.)

“Ahh!”

The same thing happened to Shino. No, it was worse for her. Five tentacles wrapped around each of her thighs and rubbed their slime all over her skin. They also alternately squeezed and loosened while working their way up toward the base of her legs. The motion was a lot like milking a cow.

Shino felt like something was being milked out of her thighs. She couldn’t help but think all the sinful incompetence and laziness inside her was being converted into a pleasureful nectar and sent up toward her crotch.

And in act, something hot was gathering in both women’s lower bodies. After gathering in their hips, it concentrated on their crotches and created a great pressure from within.

“Ahh, no, it’s coming out!”

“Kh, ahh, I can’t bear this.”

The labia inside the bodysuit and panties spread wide simultaneously and the flesh within moved like the cilia of a Venus flytrap. But instead of trying to trap something, they were trying to release what was welling up within them. Both women cried out at the same moment.

“Hyah, ahh! I-I’m about to cum! No one’s touched me there, but I’m cumming!!”

“Nhh, kh! What the fuck? My dad is making me cum? Ahh, I’m cumming!!”

Bodily fluids erupted from within their clothing and underwear. It of course couldn’t squirt out too far with the clothing obstructing it. The warm fluids soaked their clothing, spread across their lower bodies, and leaked out onto the table.

But this wasn’t love juices. It was a clear fluid tinged faintly yellow. A pool of their combined urine formed on the historic and honorable symbol of the Justice Circus.

Pissing themselves after an unexpected orgasm made them both blush bright red and hang their heads. Their lover and their father were the last people they wanted to see them like this, so they couldn’t look the men in the eye.

But the tentacles lifted their jaws, forcing them to look up at the pleased faces of Kengo and Shuhei.

“Ah, no.”

“Don’t look.”

The old men grinned indecent grins the women had never seen on those faces. These smiles laid bare a monstrous instinct to devour women as prey.

“Do not worry. You are doing fine.”

“Don’t be embarrassed. That’s the natural response.”

Yet that was all they had to say to evaporate all the anxiety, confusion, and embarrassment in Miki and Shino. Those two were confident they could trust these men.

(Think. You need to think.)

(Dad isn’t this kind of guy.)

The alarm bells were still sounding deep in their souls, but the warnings never reached the surface of their minds.

“We will make you orgasm over and over.”

“The more you cum, the more your minds relax and the easier it is to extract the energy being from you.”

“Really? Nh.”

“Ahn.”

Their doubts were erased by a pair of kisses, but these were not gentle, loving kisses. Their lips were forced open and the toothy barrier breached as a tongue shoved its way inside. But these were not human tongues. Just like the fingers, they had become tentacles coated in slime and fleshy bumps.

The tentacles wriggling deep in Miki’s mouth rubbed along the surface of her tonsils.

“Agh!”

Her tonsils were as sensitive as an erect clitoris.

“Urbhh, ngh.”

She could not moan or sigh properly with her mouth filled, but that only increased the sensitivity further.

Shino received the same throat assault. The tongue tentacle persistently tormented her tonsils, rubbing its slime on them.

“Urbh, bhm, gh!”

“Ah, ghhh, bh!”

They both shook their heads with drool dripping from between their lips and the tentacles. More and more flowed out, like love juices from an aroused vagina, wetting the tentacles and their own chests and stomachs.

(This feels so good. My mouth feels so unbelievably good.)

(I-I feel weird. My throat isn’t supposed to feel this good.)

Miki and Shino both placed their hands behind them and subconsciously lifted their butts to wiggle their spread-legged crotches around. A clear mixture of feminine nectar and urine sprayed from their bodysuit or panties, soaking each other and the men.

(Ahhh, I’m cumming again! This throat tentacle is making me cum!)

(Ugh, my dad’s tongue is making me cum!)

“Ghhh!!”

“Bhhh!!”

The two tentacles pulled out of their mouths with a sticky sound.

“Ahh!”
“Agh!”

After the tentacles were gone, they coughed up lots of slime, saliva, and stomach acid, dirtying the table.

“Your bodies are ready now.”

“We will plug every one of your holes.”

“We will make you cum endlessly.”

“We will remove the energy being from you.”

All of a sudden, excessively erect penises were sticking out from the bottom half of Captain Sky and Mister Unfair’s costumes. The heads were already past their navels and nearly up to their solar plexuses, but the penises were still growing.

The super-long erections split into a Y-shape, gaining two heads. These too were tentacles, like the fingers and tongues. The entire throbbing shafts emitted sticky precum, not just the tips.

The finger tentacles pulled on Miki’s thighs to spread her legs painfully wide. Captain Sky pressed his penis heads against the urine-soaked blue bodysuit covering her crotch.

“Ahh, hh.”

A loud moan escaped her mouth while the fluids soaking the fabric flowed out. The special fabric was made to be thin but sturdy and the touch through it sent powerful lightning racing through her.

“Ahn! That feels good, Kengo-san. I love it.”

One of Mister Unfair’s squirming penis heads rubbed against Shino’s black skirt, making a loud squeaking sound. The other one rubbed at the center of her panties, forcing out the fluids soaking it.

“Nhh! Yes, yes, dad! Ahh!”

The pleasure caused fresh nectar to soak the white panties.

Their flowing love juices washed the Justice Circus logo.

“Time to begin.”

“Prepare yourself.”

The Captain’s two tentacle penises slipped inside Miki’s bodysuit. The swollen penis heads moved like they owned that cramped space, pushing open her flesh and entering her vagina.

“Eeek!”

Miki arched her back as another shock hit her. Her anus was forced open as Captain Sky’s other dick entered her there.

“Ah, ahh!”
The bumpy flesh tentacles rubbed at the sensitive flesh inside both holes. Instead of simply moving back and forth, they twisted, shook their heads, and even vibrated.

Every new movement of the bizarre tentacles penises sent out pulses of pleasure from her hips that robbed her of the ability to speak. When her brain received that signal, a melody of ecstasy played in her head.

Shino’s underwear remained on her body, yet her father’s two penises entered her and moved like they had minds of their own.

“Khh, ahhh, yes, that’s incredible! It’ll drive me insane!”

The waves of pleasure coming from her two holes ruled her entire body and she couldn’t think about anything other than receiving even more carnal pleasure.

“Ahh, ahn, hnn, no, I’m going to cum again!”

“Khh, ahh, nh, I’m going to cum again too!”

Two of the finger tentacles wrapped around their thighs grew even longer, tangled together beyond recognition, and entered their bodysuit or panties. The two fingers searched out their erect clitorises and pulled the hoods entirely away.

“Eek!”

“Nhh.”

Their exposed clits were poked, prodded, and stroked. This new pleasure joined the powerful sensation of the two penises going wild inside them and they both reached their limit in no time.

“Eeeek! I’m cumming! I’m cumming, cumming, cumming, cumming!!”

“Ahhhhh! I’m cummiiiiiiiing!!”

They both achieved a powerful orgasm, but the tentacle onslaught did not let up in the slightest. The fingers and penises continued their extreme movements at the weak points that were even more sensitive after climaxing.

But there were still more tentacles. The shoulders of Captain Sky and Mister Unfair’s costumes swelled out and burst from within. Tentacles just like their fingers rushed out. It looked like the men had sea anemones on their shoulders.

The living legends had fully transformed into monsters. Their expressions were hideous things that made no attempt to hide their wicked desires. The women normally would never have trusted someone with that look, but they couldn’t think straight thanks to the endless pleasure. In fact, they hadn’t been able to think straight since entering this conference room.

The tentacles growing from the men’s shoulders swarmed the women’s chests. They wriggled around in search of a gap in their costumes, getting the fabric all sticky and finally slipping inside. The sticky tentacles tangle around Miki’s A-cups and Shino’s unusually large breasts for her short stature.

The endless stimulation caused the four breasts to grow firm. Then they were bound just like the women’s thighs, tentacles squeezing from the base to the tip. Their breasts felt so good they had to wonder if this was what Madam Scroll had felt when she was remade to feel pleasure while she was milked. This pleasure was even greater than when Storyteller had increased Miki’s bust size and attached magical pleasure rings to the nipples. Perhaps the biggest difference was how the women were accepting the pleasure this time.

“Khh, ahh!”

“Nh, ah.”

The thin tentacles wrapped around the tips of their breasts searched out the nipples, wrapped around them, and endlessly stroked them. The pleasure was so great it felt like they had a pair of clitorises on their chests.

“I-it feels so good! I can’t help it! I’m…I’m never going to stop cumming!!”

“Ahhh, it’s so good I-I feel like I’m going to die! Ah, ahh, I’m cumming!!”

Strength left their arms and they collapsed backwards, their backs hitting the table with a wet thud.

“Ah, ahh. Nh, p-please no more.”

“I-I can’t take anymore. Ahh, I-I’ll die.”

The living legends’ tentacle tongues entered their mouths again. The tentacles rubbed against their tonsils again and pushed so deep down their throats it felt like the tentacles were going to reach their stomachs.

Every erogenous zone on their bodies, including several that shouldn’t have existed, were tormented at once while they were pinned atop the table. Pleasure was all they could feel. In fact, their very beings were being remade into tentacle-derived pleasure.

The carnal pleasure became everything to them, with the exception of one tiny twinge of uncertainty. It was a strange feeling, like they were about to lose something that was supposed to be important to them. It was a vague worry that they couldn’t afford to lose that thing. It was an alarm bell that had been ringing nonstop for ages now.

But was it really so important compared to the pleasure being gifted them by those living legends? What did it matter if they lost something they didn’t even need?

“Don’t be fooled!”

A rebuke rang through the sex scent filling the conference room air. To Miki and Shino moaning shoulder to shoulder, it sounded like the voice came from behind the two men violating them.

“Those are not Captain Sky and Mister Unfair. They’re illusions created by the monster to extract the energy being from you! Don’t listen to them!”

The clear voice carried a powerful tone they were very familiar with. It was the voice of a kind and reliable woman.

(I know that voice.)

(That voice!)

Captain Sky and Mister Unfair raised their voices to drown out the outside noise.

“Ignore the distraction, you fools!”

“Listen to us and no one else!”

The two men sent their various tentacles even deeper inside the women’s bodies to fill them with even greater pleasure and keep the voice from reaching them.

“Now cum- gwah!”

“Cum some more for- agh!”

The men’s horrifically twisted faces burst as an arm thrust out from them. They froze in place as the pair of arms tore through their bodies. Their torsos were shredded, but they shed no blood and contained no bones or organs. It was more like life-sized photos being torn through from behind. The only difference was how the shredded pieces vanished into thin air instead of falling to the floor.

Once Captain Sky and Mister Unfair were gone, the tentacles inside Miki and Shino also disappeared.

The space between the shredded and vanished men split open and a woman entered the conference room.

“Flare! What happened to the Captain and Mister Unfair?”

“Where’d my dad go?”

Flare still wore her humiliating costume that left her chest and crotch bare as she grabbed their hands and lowered them from the round table.

“Get a hold of yourselves, Snow Wing and Cemetery. They weren’t real. They were only an illusion. This isn’t the Justice Circus HQ either.”

“But- ahh!”

After being lowered to the floor, Snow Wing noticed the change to her outfit. Her ordinary costume was back to being the revealing Dark Arena version.

The same was true for Cemetery.

But in exchange, the slime coating them was entirely gone. There was no trace of the bizarre rape that lingered in their memories.

“Then where are we? And why are you here, Flare?”

“We’re inside the monster. Its telepathy is creating this illusion. After you were swallowed, so were the rest of us. I managed to enter the telepathic link with some guidance from the energy being. In the real world, you two are likely holding hands inside the monster. If we don’t defeat the monster soon, all of us will be fused together.”

Snow Wing paled and shook her head.

“But that isn’t possible. The energy being inside is in too weak a state to win. What are we supposed to do?”

“No, I have not been as weakened as –––– claimed.”

The words came from Cemetery, but not in her usual tone. The calm way of speaking was the same as the energy being they had heard earlier. Cemetery looked dumbfounded, but her mouth moved on its own to speak.

“In this universe, I must enter other lifeforms to exist. I must use an earthling’s body as a medium to use my power. But earthling bodies are so fragile I cannot fully draw on my power.”

Snow Wing spoke tearfully to Cemetery’s face.

“That still means there’s nothing we can do. But Flare-san is another story.”

From one sentence to the next, Snow Wing’s voice switched from being her own words to being the energy being’s. She held a hand to her mouth in shock and Flare nodded.

“Yes. According to the energy being, it can draw on its full power if it uses me as a medium. Hold my hands, you two.”

Cemetery looked at the proffered left hand and shook her head.

“Sure, you’re strong, but you’re still an ‘earthling’. It doesn’t make a difference.”

Flare gave the younger hero an earnest look.

“I am not an earthling. I am an artificial human created by Doctor Disorder to be the strongest lifeform from the molecular level.”

Some time passed in that illusionary space. Doctor Disorder was that infamous of a villain. The rookie announcer and the delinquent girl were both familiar with him.

Snow Wing and Cemetery started by holding each other’s hands.

“Then please do this.”

“We’re counting on you.”

Snow Wing took Flare’s right hand and Cemetery her left. The three of them squeezed their points of contact tight.

“Ah.”
Flare felt a strange power flowing inside her. It was fresh, warm, and intense. She felt a desire to share the rest of her life with this power.

“Are you ready?”

The question came from Flare’s mouth.

“I am.”

So did the answer. Snow Wing and Cemetery nodded as well.

A pair of radiant wings erupted from Flare’s back. Like a volcanic eruption, the wings instantly grew tall and spread wide. The illusionary conference room’s ceiling and walls were repelled, shattered, and erased by the light.

A shadow also spread out at Flare’s feet. It collapsed the floor as it spread wider and deeper.

The three women’s view was covered by the light and shadow.

Flare, Snow Wing, and Cemetery all wept.

Because they knew what this meant.