Chapter 29: Scene 29 – Tasting Failure (Vote #3)

"I just don't understand." Gaia stared at the system message, unbelieving in what it had to say. Gaia had been so confident that she had picked the correct wager.

"I'm… bewildered." Amanda was trembling. Was this girl a pervert too…? Was there something wrong with the Nebulossoms? There was the pervert on her property bedding her mascot, the pervert who stole her first kiss, the pervert who just bet her virginity. How was she supposed to take this? She didn't want it.

"I would have bet two!" Gaia sobbed. "I didn't remember I could play the second card, okay? It was a rookie mistake; it won't happen again!"

"Oh, thank the Divines," Amanda sighed in relief, imbuing Gaia with a few points of Faith.

"What?" Gaia blinked. Why does she feel slighted? That was her virginity! Did she just get... turned down? Is that what she's supposed to glean from this declaration? "I get to keep my virginity?"

"Not that I'm not grateful you're saving me from this awful fate," Gaia began cautiously, shuddering at the visceral demonstration from Calico's fingertips. "But what will we do about the bet I've just made?"

"I… what?" Gaia blinked. "You trust me? That's it? You're not going to enforce anything?" That was decidedly un-machine-like. From everything she'd witnessed and experienced from this terrible system and its impact on society, she expected to be puppeteered into an uncomfortable situation or lain in bed alongside the Malice.

"What." Amanda's screen flickered with errors. Amanda? Married to a girl? That's not possible for someone like her, no matter how cute she was.

"What." Gaia stopped thinking. Married to a Malice? That's not possible for someone in her position, no matter how cute that monster was. "Simulated timelines? What is she talking about?"

"…because you mess with the fabric of history," Gaia muttered, and Amanda shot her future wife a confused look. Well, she wasn't sure if Gaia was her future wife, was she? There were still two out of fourteen futures where they didn't end up together. What kind of person was Gaia, exactly? Amanda had to give her guest a more thoughtful examination this time around.

(Do I know Mystery Maid?) The nebulossom had read all of Malone's books twice over. Gaia worshipped the ground under that woman's feet. Malone wrote the book on Malice and being a victorious magical warrior under any circumstance. She was the most powerful warrior in the worldNonwithstanding figures like Mad Dog Maid. Gaia swallowed the lump in her throat.

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Amanda felt frustrated for reasons she could not comprehend. What was this cat doing, butting in on her catch? Using magic on her future wife? Calico had been kind until this point, only… what? Amanda put her oversized noggin to work. Had she been nice?

Something had been bothering her, and she couldn't put her finger on it. Perhaps it was Calico's attitude? She had said rude things before and during her transformation process. She'd stopped just short of calling the dungeon core a moron— until twenty seconds ago when she'd been much more direct.

Worse, they hadn't finished their game, and Calico was trying to steal Amanda's prey. Her prey, not someone belonging to that ball of yarn. She could see Gaia slowly reaching for the tangled mess, already ensnared in her trap. In a few moments, if Amanda did nothing, the magical warrior would also find herself turned to the darkness.

Amanda snarled, surprising herself. It wasn't like her to grow tired or angry with others, but she had done everything Calico had asked. She'd become a monster, fought off a literal god, and pleased her subordinate. Some of those things were exceptionally difficult, and she still swept in and took her cut of Holly! Now, here she was, stealing her next prey as well?

What was she, a puppet to her master's whims? If anyone were going to be a puppetmaster here, then it would be Amanda, not some enemy-of-the-world, some unknowable entity backing a shadowy council she couldn't see.

Amanda cleared her throat. "Gaia?" Her voice was harmonic, directed, and clear. The nebulossom was shaken from her fugue state and made to look directly at the dungeon core.

Amanda placed down two cards, meeting the stare head-on. "Round Three." Two cards were offered. If Calico were going to make a bargain, she would make a bargain of her own; the opportunity to become her priestess, to drink deeply of her own flavor of corruption. "We are playing a game together, right?"

Gaia slowly nodded. "We… we were. You're right. Let me make my wager."

 

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