Samsara panicked. “She vanished!”

  “She’s still there, silly,” I giggled in her mind. “I know that because you are still hugging her. She just turned invisible, that’s all.”

  “Why would she do that, though?” Samsara asked, her arms still wrapped around Aisling. Aisling felt surprisingly warm. “Did I do something to upset her?”

  “I don’t think she would turn invisible because she’s upset at you,” I said. “An upset Aisling would probably attack you instead of just staying still when being hugged. It seems like she is just copying the other Kaiju fish girls. Baiting prey with her imitation lure.”

  “Doesn’t that use mana?” Aisling asked. “That can’t be good.”

  “Do you want me to make her stop?” I asked.

  Samsara shook her head. “No. We shouldn’t control her unless absolutely necessary.”

  “How are we going to get her back to the village then?” I asked, folding my arms. “Unless you are just planning on leaving her out here. I wouldn’t mind, but then Nara would probably be upset, and then you would be upset. Which would then make me upset.”

  “Give me a few moments,” she told me. “Let me think.”

  Since our thoughts were shared, I got to see Samsara’s mind run through a variety of scenarios. Some of them involved talking to Aisling. I shot them down by asking Aisling directly. Aisling didn’t respond, clearly still feral and non-sapient.

  Eventually, Samsara landed on one idea. Still hugging onto Aisling, Samsara lifted her into the air. I thought Aisling would flail and wiggle, making it a challenge, but she stayed perfectly still. Wow.

  From my perspective, it looked like Samsara was trying to do a weird yoga move.

  “Yes, it is I, Samsara the yoga instructor,” Samsara playfully went along.

  “And what are you teaching us today?” I asked as she slithered to be right next to me. “I yearn to learn from a master yoga instructor such as yourself.”

  “Turtle holding,” Samsara giggled, adjusting her grip on Aisling. “Today is all about core strength and finding your center, even when your center is an invisible Kaiju turtle girl.”

  “I think her center is full of deer girl meat,” I noted, pointing towards her invisible stomach. “Does this class come with a certification? I might want to put ‘Kaiju Wrangler’ on my resume. It might land me a better job than a garbage collector.”

  “Only if you pass the final exam,” Samsara teased, directing one of her hair snakes toward the corpses. She was using it like one of her fingers since her actual fingers were occupied with carrying Aisling’s shell. “Which involves carrying all those corpses back to the village without dropping a single head.”

  “Challenge accepted.”

  Turns out, it was a very easy challenge. We made it back to Lateo with no issue. As we stepped through the invisible boundary that hid the village, I saw Nara bouncing near the entrance. She stood next to a couple of dozen large woven baskets that looked like they had been hastily assembled from the furs of several monster girls.

  “You’re back!” Nara cheered, clapping her hands. Her eyes widened as she saw the sheer volume of meat held in my tentacles. “Oh, wow! That’s… that’s a lot of food!”

  “Aisling did promise a lifetime supply of food,” I said, lowering the corpses.

  My tentacles uncoiled, depositing the deer girl corpses into the baskets. The baskets groaned under the weight, the fur straining, but they held.

  “Thank you! Thank you so much!” Nara beamed, looking between us. Then her smile faltered slightly as she scanned the area behind us. “Wait… where is Aisling?”

  Samsara glanced at me. “Ramona.”

  “On it,” I replied.

  I commanded Aisling to drop whatever invisibility mutation she was using. Her mind was clearly focused on it. Immediately, Aisling appeared out of thin air, making Samsara’s hugging motion less awkward.

  Nara gasped, taking a step back before her face lit up. “Whoa! Was she invisible? Is that a new mutation?”

  “I was just testing out a new ability,” Aisling said, smiling at Nara. It was a bit cumbersome to keep up since Aisling was now fighting my control, trying to pounce on Nara. “The Kaiju Core must have given it to me.”

  “That is so cool,” Nara breathed. Then she looked at Samsara, who was hugging Aisling and lifting her off the ground. Nara crossed her arms, her tail swishing in annoyance. I could tell it was annoyance since a frown formed on her face. “Hey! That’s unfair.”

  “What is?” Samsara asked, blinking.

  “You get to hug her,” Nara huffed, pointing an accusatory finger. “I want a hug too! I may be way smaller than Aisling, but I’m still her girlfriend!”

  “Oh…,” Samsara stuttered, placing Aisling on the ground. She wasn’t really sure how to respond to that.

  Before the conversation could continue, a commotion drew our attention. A dozen monster girls descended from the stilted homes sitting on the mountains above. They stopped a few dozen meters away, their eyes darting between me, Samsara, Aisling, and the pile of food.

  “Food for the village,” I announced, pointing at the baskets. Excitement was rising inside of me. Were they going to worship us?

  One by one, they dropped to their knees.

  “I worship Ramona and Samsara,” a wolf girl murmured.

  “I worship Ramona and Samsara,” a spider girl echoed.

  I closed my eyes, savoring the sensation. Samsara did too. I [Tracked] our souls. We now had 4,435 souls.

  If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.

  “Don’t you love being worshiped?” I asked Samsara. “The feeling is just addictingly good. And without any of the downsides of actual drugs.”

  Samsara opened her eyes. She looked up at the vacant expression of Aisling’s face, which I was currently holding in a neutral stare.

  “It helps,” she admitted. “But… I still want to save Aisling. Really save her. This isn’t Aisling. Sorry if I’m ruining the mood.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” I said. I couldn’t really get mad at Samsara anyway. “But honestly? The best thing we can do for Aisling, and for everyone here, is to make sure the Monster Purifiers are no more. If we wipe them out, nobody else gets fused into a monster girl blob.”

  “That won’t fix Aisling,” Samsara pointed out.

  “No,” I agreed, watching the villagers haul the baskets, each one grabbing two.“But it makes sure none of them end up like Aisling.”

  The sun began to dip below the valley walls, casting long shadows across the village. The air cooled.

  Nara lingered as the other monster girls finished their work. She looked up at Aisling’s tall form, her expression softening into longing.

  “I know she’s too big for the house now,” Nara said, fidgeting her hands together. “But… I still want to sleep with you, Aisling. I can climb up. Just sleep on top of your shell.”

  “Bad idea,” I thought immediately. My grip on Aisling’s body tightened. “If we fall asleep, Aisling would roam around. And if Aisling wakes up with Nara sleeping on her back… Nara becomes a midnight snack.”

  “We can’t let her do it,” Samsara said.

  “What do you say?” Nara asked. “I hope you don’t mind me sleeping on top of you.”

  “Ugh, we can’t keep doing this,” Samsara said. “Controlling Aisling is just making everything more difficult. As we keep telling more and more lies, Nara is going to know something is up, like right now. And what if Aisling gets her mind back? She would hate us if we kept lying.”

  I frowned. “And that would mean one less worshiper.”

  I weighed the options.

  Option 1: Nara climbs up and sleeps on top of Aisling. She gets eaten when we go to sleep. We have one less worshiper, but Aisling gains more souls. This also leaves Samsara extremely upset. And Aisling might not forgive us later if we restore her mind. Leading us to lose two worshipers.

  Option 2: We tell the truth. Nara gets mad at us for lying earlier. But Samsara is way less upset, and Aisling should still worship us after we fix her. She would appreciate it if we made sure Nara was safe from her.

  Clearly, option 2 was better.

  Samsara mentally sighed. “You’re right. We have to tell her.”

  “You can’t sleep on her,” Samsara said.

  “Why not?” Nara frowned. “Shouldn’t this be Aisling’s decision?”

  “That’s the point,” Samsara said. “Nara… Aisling isn’t all there.”

  Nara tilted her head. “What do you mean? She talked to me earlier. She patted my head.”

  “That wasn’t Aisling,” Samsara said, the words hurting her as they came out. “That was Ramona.”

  Nara blinked, her smile freezing. “What?”

  “The Monster Purifiers… they destroyed her mind,” Samsara explained, rushing to get the words out before Nara could panic. Originally, when we tried to free her, she tried to attack us. When we brought her back to Lateo, she was dead, as you saw. We managed to revive her, but she was still acting the same way. She’s… feral now.”

  I kept Aisling perfectly still.

  “Ramona has been controlling her body,” Samsara continued. “Making her walk, making her talk, and making her gentle. We… we wanted to give you the Aisling you remembered. We wanted to make it easier for you.”

  Nara stared at Aisling’s unmoving face.

  “So… she’s gone?” Nara whispered.

  “We’re trying to fix her,” I interjected smoothly. “But right now? If I stop controlling her, she will try to eat you. That’s why you can’t sleep on her. If we fall asleep, she will eat everything nearby.”

  Nara wrapped her arms around herself, silence stretching between us. Any moment now, she would berate us. Maybe even renounce her worship. I was okay with that. I had gained many more worshipers today.

  Instead, Nara sniffled and wiped her eyes.

  “She patted my head,” Nara mumbled. “Even if it was you… It felt like her hand.”

  She looked up at me. “Thank you.”

  I blinked. “Wait, really?”

  “Thank you for making her seem… real,” Nara said, her voice trembling but grateful. “It’s better than seeing her act like a monster. And… and I’m glad you told me before I climbed up there. I prefer hearing her voice, even if you’re making her say the words.”

  “You’re okay with what we did?” Samsara asked, clearly taken aback.

  “She’s alive,” Nara said firmly. “Her heart is beating. That’s what matters. You’ll fix the rest. I know you will. Just like how you found her before.”

  She stepped closer to Aisling’s leg. “Can I… can I still sleep with her? If you control her?”

  “Are you suggesting we stay up the whole night?” I asked, folding my arms. “It’d be better not to risk it at all.”

  “Oh, okay,” she simply said. “I’ll just wish her goodnight then.”

  Nara stepped forward. She wrapped her small arms as far around Aisling’s ankle as they would go, pressing her cheek against the skin. She kissed the rough skin.

  “Goodnight, Aisling,” she whispered. “You get better, okay? I’m waiting.”

  She stepped back, wiped her face again, and gave us a watery smile. “Goodnight, Ramona. Goodnight, Samsara. Thank you for bringing her home.”

  She turned and ran toward one of the empty houses, disappearing inside.

  “Okay,” I said. “Now we still have a feral Kaiju problem. Where do we put her?”

  Samsara looked at the unmoving Aisling. “We can’t send her away. If we send her to the Wild Lands, she might wander off and get killed, or loop back around and attack the village while we are asleep.”

  The only other option left was to kill her. Of course, Samsara wouldn’t like that at all.

  “We can’t keep her frozen all night,” I added.

  “We take shifts,” Samsara suggested.

  “Shifts?”

  “One of us sleeps, the other stays awake and keeps a grip on Aisling,” Samsara explained. “Or at least, keeps watch to make sure she doesn’t move.”

  I sighed. “Fine. I’ll take the first shift. You should rest.”

  “Thanks,” Samsara said, wrapping me in a hug. “I know you thought about killing her, but thank you for going along with this.”

  I accepted her embrace and returned the hug. “I’m glad you’re not upset right now.”

  We sat down near the river with Samsara hugging Aisling. She insisted on doing this since Aisling just stayed still when she did this last time. I used my hair tentacles to pull the black Kaiju cat fur blanket over Samsara and Aisling. Then, I carefully maneuvered two other tentacles over her eyes and the eyes of her hair snakes.

  I could feel Aisling trying to break out of Samsara’s grasp this time. My will kept her still. Samsara’s breathing slowed as she drifted off, her grip firm on Aisling. It was like she was treating her as a body pillow. Well, she was a body, but not really a pillow.

  As I sat there, I [Tracked] our souls again. It was still 4,435. We were close to reaching 5,000 souls and unlocking our third Kaiju evolution.

  Suddenly, a thought popped into my mind. Initially, Aisling tried to attack us. But after using [Sacrificial Soul Transfer] on her, even though she kept trying to eat every other creature, she eventually stopped trying to attack us. Would this apply to other feral monster girls?