Witch of the Web
Chapter 30 + Epilogue

Chapter 30

LOG HQ. If I had to describe it with only a single word, I’d probably use… Pompous.

No wait! Oppressive! Hmmm, no, pompous is better. But there’s also…

Fuck, it’s not important. I don’t know why I’m giving the tall, vaguely phallic shaped monument to greed, oppression, deceit and arrogance more than a passing thought.

Probably because we’re about to do some incredibly fucking stupid shit in that building. You know, if I had to guess. 

Now I’m fucking talking to myself. Am I plural? The thought bounces around my head as I wait. Plurality would just be another fun tag to add onto my growing list of insufferable protagonist energy. Like, listen to me? I sound like I’m talking to the fourth wall. 

I think the stress is roasting my brain. That’s actually probably what it is. A heaping helping of good old cortisol flooding my brain and sending me on wild tangents while I should be staying focused and waiting for the signal from the others. 

About that! Why did they put that stuck up fantasy hero wannabe in charge of the operation? They’re MY parents. And Willow’s MY familiar. 

Willow huffs at me.

Okay, fair, Willow’s not mine in a possessive sense. She’s her own individual now that just so happens to have her very essence tightly woven through me in an unbreakable bond. And besides, I more meant she’s my familiar in the way that I’m her human.

I glance down at Willow who seems satisfied. 

Right, moving on… Hmm, where is that signal? How long has it been? Too long, right? 

I check my hud. Only two minutes? Shit. I’m going to die of boredom before anything even happens. Or maybe that tightness in my chest will get me. What is that? 

Checking my diagnostics reveals that my earlier joke about cortisol wasn’t entirely. The stress is causing an anxiety attack apparently.

Fuck. Fuckety! Shit Fuck! Cock-a-cunt!

No, fuck that! I don’t do anxiety attacks! Anxiety attacks do me! 

Wait…

Shit… ok… shit… fuck… . I need to calm down…

I scoop up Willow and hold her to my chest. She immediately starts purring which is exactly what I need. 

“Thanks…” I whisper aloud. 

And like a switch is flicked, the sound I hadn’t realized had faded away snaps back in. 

“...se. Do you read me?” asks Lonnie over the private line I established between the key members of this whole shit show. 

“Yeah,” I hiss, still pissed at how this is turning out. But if it’ll save my parents, I can stomach it. For now at least. 

“Right. Let’s go over the plan, one last time,” she says, forcing me to bite back on the vitriol I so want to spit at her. 

Summer thinks I’ve been making a mountain out of a molehill. I think she’s understating how pissed off her aunt makes me.

The woman is fucking infuriating! She clearly thinks she’s superior to all of us. She refuses to listen to my ideas, and worst of all? She’s got an ego bigger than Lanadey city. How she fits anywhere with that massive fucking head of hers I’ll never know.

Willow glares at me. I’m not watching her do it, but I know she is. I also know what she’s saying and I disagree.

I’m not arrogant, I’ve a healthy amount of confidence. I don’t listen to her ideas because they’re all fucking stupid, not because I’m unwilling. And I’m perfectly humble. It’s one of my best qualities. 

It’s my turn to glare at my companion as she huffs and turns her head up. “Try me,” I challenge her. 

“Alright. I’m going to describe the actions of someone and you tell me who it is,” Willow says aloud. Why’s she… I check the comm line and sure enough she’s tapped in the others.

You know what, fine. I’m in the right and everyone will agree.

“A woman setup a death trap filled maze and got upset when someone breezed through it because it damaged their delicate ego.” Willow’s scenario is obvious. 

“Lonnie, of course. It happened not even that long ago,” I answered, confident I was right.

“Wrong. Lonnie was upset, but more that you wouldn’t play along. It was your maze being easily beaten by Felicia I am referring to. You were still fuming about it internally when we bonded. You’re STILL fuming about it as I remind you of it.”

I am not.

“You are.” 

Letting out a sigh, I roll my eyes. “That’s just one example. It doesn’t prove a thing.” 

“Then how about this? Who sabotaged the slums water supply to prevent the fire department from putting out a blaze at a LOG reporting station. And how many people died during that attack? And I don’t mean LOG personal, I mean innocent people whose houses burned down when the fire predictably spread to their homes? How many died later from a lack of clean water?”

I wince. It wasn’t my finest moment. This has nothing to do with the matter at hand though.

“Doesn’t it?” she counters. “Let me ask you this. Who pulled off an operation that humbled LOG enough that they couldn’t even put a positive spin on it?”

“Obviously it was me. These people just sit around and circlejerk all day long!” I argue. 

“Not even close. Lonnie led a band of resistance members and freed hundreds of captive AI from a blacksite bunker outside the city,” she explains. “Do you know what you were doing at that time?” I don’t answer her. “You’d taken a job to shut down the competitor of a taco shop. You ruined that family’s lives.” 

Willow shakes her head. “Rose. I love and care for you. Your parents put their heart and soul into me so that I could be there for you. And I know they would be disappointed.” She lays a paw on me gently. “There’s still time to change. To learn. From Lonnie in particular. You don’t have to like her. In fact, I also find her irritating. But the fact is she’s got her eyes on the goal while you were planning to go off mission the moment the operation started.”

Shouts of anger and disbelief echo across the line. I lower the volume a bit and mute myself before looking at Willow. “You believe that? Honestly and completely?” I ask, my voice low and uncertain.

“I do. I still believe in you. But you need to believe in yourself and the others to do their part. Can you do that?” 

Silence hangs in the air as the deluge of angry words fade away and neither I nor Willow are willing to break it as I consider her words. I really don’t want to… but… she’s right. 

Shit. Fucking shit fuck… she’s right. 

The force of my exhale makes me a little light headed for a second. 

“Yes…” I groan.

****

Summer

I smile wistfully as Felica and I walk through the front entrance of the LOG building. Felicia gives me a knowing look and whispers, “Stay focused.”

Trust me, I want to, but I can’t help but be so proud of Rose. She’s stubborn, so very stubborn, and crass, and arrogant and a bit of an asshole. But at the end of the day, at her very core, she’s a kind, good person. And while she’d joked about it, she’s actually humble enough once you get through to her to admit her mistakes.

She still isn’t happy that Felicia and I are the ones rescuing her parents instead of her, but after discussing the plan with my Aunt and Roger, they had a few suggestions that do make a lot of sense. Even Rose had to agree after a bout of argument. 

Roger had pointed out that since we got back, Willow had a subtle, but noticeable effect on the world around her. Nothing dangerous as far as we could tell, but it was enough that even those who hadn’t been attuned to her, like Felicia and I, could tell that something was there. Which obviously meant that LOG’s security suite would notice her in seconds.

As such, it was decided that given Felicia’s knowledge of the building, she and I would get into position to rescue Rose’s parents at the same time as our lovely witch started her assault. Rose will be able to shut down key security systems but we’ll have only a handful of minutes to retrieve our girlfriend’s family. 

To make this mission possible, we have some advantages that few others wouldn’t. First, we have Crys, who after Willow did her thing and made them mobile again, had followed us back to the resistance. They’re currently residing in what is essentially an isolated pocket of Lanadel connected to the ID badges we’re carrying. Willow made them and they’re basically a kind of data port that as long as we’re close enough to the physical prison, Crys can break open the locks. They’re also going to spoof the check in system so it thinks we’re the people we’re disguised as.

That’s the second advantage we have. Lonnie gave us some files on two LOG agents, Molly and Dennis Stormbreak, that the resistance had easy access to. They’ve been given food poisoning, and when they called in sick, their call had been intercepted. With them out of the way, Felicia and I could take their place with the help of Willow.

The digital feline had changed our bodies to match the pair of agents. There was one snag. The agents were a cishet couple. I tried to suggest that I could handle being the man since I at least had some experience pretending to be one, but Felicia shot it down immediately. 

Apparently, my redheaded lover had been studying up on trans people and our experiences since we met. She’d read enough to probably correctly guess that if I had to present as a man, that my dysphoria would be hard to hide. So obviously that means the man walking beside me is Felicia, who is doing a remarkable job hiding any discomfort she might be feeling.

It’s a good thing too, because as we successfully pass the check in station, and make our way towards the elevator, everyone seems to want to talk to us. Apparently, it’s Dennis and Molly’s birthday and the novelty of a couple having the same birthday is enough to make all their coworkers super friendly today. 

Escaping the crowd takes a bit, but luckily, Felicia had met Molly and Dennis a few times and knows enough to help us sell ourselves as them so I don’t think we’ve attracted any scrutiny.

The ride up the elevator is peaceful by comparison, though no less tense. We don’t have any way to communicate with the others while we’re in the building without triggering an alarm, so it’s all about timing and we’re behind schedule. 

Sure enough, as we exit the elevator, but well before we’ve gotten into position, the alarm starts to wail as the building shudders. That would be Rose destroying the front entrance. We’re pulled back into the comms channel the moment Rose has set up the bridge for our digital forces.

“Summer, Felicia, what’s your status?” Aunt Lonnie calls out, the sound of digital violence just barely audible through her line. 

“We were waylaid on our way to the elevator. Too many people wishing a happy birthday to us,” Felicia responded, unsuccessfully hiding the hint of mirth in her tone. 

“Understood! Pick up the pace though. We estimate we have  two minutes before the security team realizes what we’re after and locks down the prison block. We’ll try and hold their attention so you have a clear shot at least.” Aunt Lonnie’s voice is strained as she battles through the horde of digital agents in her diversionary assault.

“Also, take the stairs back down once you get my parents,” Rose chimes in. It’s clear she’s struggling to stay calm, but I’m just so proud of her. “The elevator shaft is going to be a bit of a mess in a moment.”

The screech and boom of snapping steel capables prefaces the explosive thud of the elevator cars crashing so many floors below us. We don’t have time to consider that as we run towards the prison servers, nor do we have time to wonder what exactly Rose is doing. The building shudders like an earthquake who’s epicenter is at the base of the building but rapidly rising to the top. We also hit another complication as reinforced steel bars begin to descend over the prison server’s glass door. 

Putting on a burst of speed, the two of us manage to slide in underneath at the last moment. We’re trapped in here, but at least we made it. We can figure out how to get out after we’ve got Rose’s parents. 

“The hell are you two doing up here? There’s a fucking assault happening downstairs!” shouts a weasily voice to our side. We glance over and see a thin, but fit man in the midst of standing up from his chair at a security station. Felicia lets out a sigh in her currently deep baritone voice.

“Ugh… it’s Lance,” she mutters quietly. “I’ll handle this prick, you do what you need to do,” she whispers to me before stepping forward, leaving me barely enough time to nod an affirmative. 

Doing my best to ignore the conversation behind me, I hustle back into the racks of servers. Crys has appeared on the card in my hand and is pointing me in the right direction. There’s a thud behind me, but I ignore that too and keep moving. 

After a short time, I find myself standing before a solitary server. Unlike the others that are all connected, this one has only a single capable leading out of it, straight up into the ceiling.

There’s no doubt this is the right one, as it’s clearly labeled. There’s a chair next to it as well that judging by the slowly rising cushion was only recently vacated. 

I quickly take a seat and use the login port to enter the server alongside Crys. 

We materialize outside a barred door. Past it is a surprisingly large prison cell that even though it’s nicer than I expected, is still clearly medieval in inspiration like most of Lanadel by its very nature. There were clearly attempts to mask the character of the space, like the white washed brick walls and the furniture looking like someone attempted to make sleek modern chairs with old school blacksmithing. 

It isn’t the decor that grabs my attention though, it’s the two figures sharing a far too small cot in the center of the room. Crys sees them as well and quickly grabs the bars before us and causes them to freeze and shatter.

The noise alerts the pair and they jump to their feet. Their gaze is drawn to me at first, their expression one of confusion. 

“You’re not one of our normal guards,” Rose’s mother Fiona says, her voice soft and so tired sounding it makes me feel a heavy weariness in my bones. “You do look familiar though. Doesn’t she, Eric?” She looks at her husband. He nods slowly and approaches like an abused animal sussing out someone offering them kindness. 

“She does… she looks a lot like Lonnie… wait, you’re -” he cuts himself off. “You wouldn’t use that name though, hm.” He purses his lips as if figuring out what to call me is suddenly the most important question in the world. 

“I’m Summer, and yes I was friends with your d- child when we were young. Yes I had a different name, yes I’m trans, but what’s more important is that we’re getting you out of here,” I quickly say as I urge them towards us.

The pair clearly catch my near slip up and a bemused smile crosses both their lips. “Is that so? Are they here then? Is that who you meant by we?” Eric asks. 

I look back, wondering how he hadn’t noticed Crys, only to realize the frosty AI is hiding behind me. 

Odd.

Before I can even question their sudden shyness too much, they step out and take a deep breath. 

“Crys!” Fiona exclaims and rushes the AI, grabbing them in a hug. “You came!” she gushes as she squeezes her friend tight.

“I’m terribly sorry it took me so long,” Crys whispers, clueing me into what has distressed them. “I wanted to come sooner, but I -” 

“Enough,” Eric says as he joins the group hug. “The only thing that matters is that you’re here now.”

The temptation to let them hug it out tugs at my heartstrings, but regrettably I have to step in.

“I’m really sorry, but we don’t have the time to catch up. R- your child is currently tearing the building apart on their way up to the top of the tower and when they’re done, this place will be rubble. We need to hurry on out.”

Rose’s parents nod, once again giving me that bemused look. 

They obviously know. 

I’m not even surprised. They were always quite observant.

Still, not my place to out my girlfriend to her parents, so I keep things neutral.

The four of us leave the prison together. The three digital beings escape into Lanadel with the intent of using Rose’s bridge to get out. There should be a team of resistance fighters waiting to escort them to safety. 

Meanwhile, as my senses return to me I’m startled by someone slamming into the server I just vacated. 

Felicia

I’m not surprised Lance got knocked down to guard duty after Rose wiped out his team. From what she said, his proxy, as well as the rest of his teams’ had all been irreversibly changed into little fuzzy rats. He’d have needed a new one and after his failure in containing me, I’m sure the higher ups decided to not waste their resources on giving him the Knight augmentation again. 

Hence the demotion. 

“Where the fuck are you going?” he demands as he steps forward to grab Summer. 

I move without thought and slam him into the ground. It’d been his intense fervor and almost religious zealotry levels of loyalty that had won him his promotion before, not his physical prowess. So even though he’s in decent shape, he was primarily a digital agent, and I barely can feel his attempts at pushing me off.

“What the fuck Dennis?” he chokes out as my knee presses down on his throat. “Are you pulling a Felicia?” he gasps.

What?

“What?” I repeat out loud.

“You have, haven’t you? You’ve gone traitor, just like that fire crotch bitch, Felicia!” he snarls while trying to reach behind himself to grasp at me.

Oh this is too fucking funny. Apparently, I’m synonymous with betrayal now. 

As I laugh in his face, a sound that is frankly pleasing to the ear, I find myself wondering how exactly my life had wound up like this. 

Dating a felon, technically two, and being one myself. Storming my former employer’s headquarters and pinning Lance of all people to the ground with a body that resembles a large samoan man. 

That’s something else that’s rattling around my brain. From what Summer and Rose have mentioned, Dysphoria’s a bitch and a half. Shouldn’t I be feeling that? 

I briefly consider that I might be a trans man before immediately discounting it. It doesn’t feel like me.

The label of man, that is. Though, come to think of it, the label of woman doesn’t exactly fit either. But even that statement isn’t entirely accurate. Being a woman was fine, and so is being a man right now. Neither felt particularly important to my identity. I feel like I could easily be either or, neither, both, or even something else entirely, and none of them particularly affect how I see myself. 

My ill-timed bout of introspection had distracted me enough that I’d loosened the pressure on Lance, and it had allowed him to yank away the ID badge around my neck. 

He lets out a hiss, an actual hiss as his eyes widen. “Felicia?” he gasps. 

How the fuck did he? 

Right, the badges were what masked our credentials. 

Shit.

He manages to leverage himself up enough that I’m forced to release him before he can offset me and gain the advantage. 

“How the fuck?” he asks vaguely. I mean I know what he wants to know, but I feel like messing with him.

“Oh, I’ve always been Dennis. Didn’t you know?” I taunt the smaller man. He frowns in a frankly weird way that reminds me a little too much of expressions I’ve seen Rose wear.

“Don’t fucking lie to me! How did you do that?!” he demands. “How did you change what you looked like so much?!” 

That’s what he’s focused on? Not the fact that Summer’s off in the stacks and the building has begun to shake and grumble?

The look in his eyes really does look so familiar. It’s almost like he’s… 

Shit.

Right, okay. Clearly Lance doesn’t know. Which makes sense. A lot of the most zealous LOG agents grew up in LOG sanctioned orphanages. They tend to wind up really sheltered and twisted by the company’s views. 

Is it my responsibility to explain it? 

No. I should knock their ass out and keep the mission.

Am I going to do that? 

… Mostly.

Lance grows impatient and lunges at me with reckless abandon. I easily toss them aside, and right into the prison server that Summer is sitting by. 

Luckily, she seems to be just returning to her body, so her side of things were a success at least.

My usually blonde bombshell of a girlfriend jumps, causing her currently dense, curly brown hair to wobble about her head. 

Cute. 

No time to be gay… if I even still count as - no, fuck it, man, woman, neither, whatever, what I feel for my girls is gay as hell. 

I scoop up the unconscious maybe-egg off the floor and gently nudge Summer out of her mild shock. “Come on, we need to leave, asap. Whatever Rose is up to upstairs seems to be bad for the building’s health.”

“Ours too,” Summer quips as she pushes me out of the way of a chunk of stone that crashes between us. She spares a glance at Lance (heh) and gives me a questioning look.

“I’ll explain later,” I answer as I make my way to the locked door of the prison server room. Luckily, my captive has the key and we are able to make our way out of the room. I pause and look back the way we came. 

“What’s wrong?” my companion asks quietly. 

“I…” I hesitate. LOG is objectively evil, but so are some of the AI they imprison. But for every corrupt AI in those stacks, there are almost certainly at least ten more who’s only crime was taking a stand for freedom. 

With a heavy sigh, I walk over to Lance’s console and use their card to connect the imprisoned AI to the rest of the network. It’s the equivalent of opening all the doors in a physical prison. 

Summer smiles at me and lays a hand on my arm. “You did the right thing, I think,” she assures me, clearly having figured out what I was doing.

“I hope so,” I whisper before leading us back out the door and down the stairwell. We have to dodge several more chunks of stone as we descend before we make it to the lobby, thankfully unharmed.

A squad of resistance fighters meets up with us and starts escorting us from the building. Things seem to be wrapping up nicely. The resistance has managed to take most of the rank and file agents prisoner, while a few of the clearly higher ranking operatives had to be killed. Apparently I’m not the only one who believes some of these people deserve a second chance like I got.

My thoughts turn to Rose, the woman who gave me that second chance. As the building shakes once more just before we exit onto the street, I can’t help but hope she’s alright.

Rose

A little bit earlier

I keep an eye on the time as I wait for my chance. Felicia and Summer going radio silent really bugs the shit out of me and I’m chomping at the bit to follow them in and start making a mess. 

Lonnie’s in the middle of giving yet another speech and it’s only my promise to Willow to try and do better that makes me bite my tongue and resist the urge to snark at the woman. 

As her people cheer, marking the end of her speechifying, I can’t help but admit that she’s at least charismatic. It’s probably why most people actually like her. And I have to at least admit that she’s going to do her part well. I haven’t seen many people who can fight like she can in Lanadel. Once I blow a hole in the front door and lay down the digital bridge, she’ll do her part.

So that’s something at least.

See? I’m trying to be nice.

Willow huffs and gives me a stare. 

“I am,” I mutter quietly. 

She snorts and looks back towards the digital representation of the eyesore I can see in meatspace. We’re going to be attacking both at the same time. We’re already split between both worlds like we were before, but this time we’re not going to be alone, and with Willow powered up, it’s easier than ever to maintain focus. 

Someone had asked during the briefing why I didn’t just project myself into Lanadel once I entered the headquarters instead of starting outside like I am. I’d ignored their dumb question until Felicia nudged me to answer.

“Two reasons. One, I’ll be getting shot at, and splitting my consciousness is harder than maintaining it. Two, it’ll be easier to open the bridge if I’m on both sides anyways,” I replied before looking back to see Felicia rolling her eyes at my exasperation. 

She’d been about to sass me, but I countered her with a forceful kiss and that shut up good. The look on her face suggested that had been the goal in the first place.

Summer had battered her eyes at me, and it was all I could do to not lunge at her and make a scene all over the briefing room ta-

Go time! 

It’s hard not to book it into the building. I want to get the show on the road, but I need to give my girls time to get to the prison servers.

Every moment counts.

The clacking of my slight heels heralds my arrival as I make my way to the checkpoint at the doors. I’m downplaying my awesomeness with a pantsuit that is perfectly cut to emphasize the figure I’ve come to love so much. Willow really outdid herself with this one, I might have to use it again another time. I’m also wearing a wide brimmed, but fairly normal looking hat, tilted down to obscure my face. 

The grunt at the door doesn’t even look up at first as they ask me for my ID and reason for visit, so I scoff to get his attention. 

“Don’t you recognize me? I’d have thought everyone would know my name by now,” I say as my pantsuit dissolves into a cloud of smoke, hiding my briefly naked form until it settles into an open skirted battle robe. My hat has become much witchier and my loose sleeves billow in an artificial wind provided by Willow. 

“I’m the Witch of the Web,” I announce, raising my voice as the alarms already kick in. 

Stomping my foot, a shockwave spreads out, knocking back the group of jacks that were already charging at me.

I spin around and drag my hands down, tearing away at the entire front wall, allowing the swarms of resistance mooks to enter the building with cliche battlecries like “For the resistance!” “Down with LOG!” “I’m going to tear your ass asunder!” 

That last one might’ve been me, spoken to a LOGoon in power armor. 

I let out a weary sigh in response to my own thoughts. 

LOGoon? 

I can’t decide whether I’m more disappointed in the stupid name, or that I didn’t come up with it sooner than the day we bring down the fucking jacks.

It doesn’t really matter. I’ve already swept aside the schmuck that tried to get in my way and I had more important things to do.

Like the bridge. 

The bridge for the resistance.

The resistance’s bridge.

As I establish the link to the waiting forces outside in Lanadel, I can’t help but feel like I overhyped this whole thing in my head. Because, frankly? I’m a little disappointed.

While making my way to the elevator shafts for step two of my plan, I simultaneously turn a whole squad of digital jack thugs into rats. As one of them shrinks down, I can hear them wail, “Not again!”

Okay, that makes me feel a bit better.

Still, untold, unlimited power is getting kind of boring. After alerting my girls to get away from the elevator, I don’t even crack a smile as Willow and I bring both cars down with a dusty thud. Nor does it bring me any joy as I literally start flying up through the shaft, bursts of thundering destruction in my wake. Each floor I pass I pull all the shitheads on it to the elevator, wrap them in softened stone and drop them for the resistance goons to deal with. I had agreed to let the rank and file live. Anyone with a modicum of say in how things are run get their heads exploded instead. 

It’s not pretty. 

I take no real joy in it. 

This is just work. 

It’s not even hard work, or tedious work. It’s just… Boring.

I miss the challenge. Even after Willow joined me, I still had to work for things. I could still sometimes…

Hit a fucking impenetrable fucking wall.

Literally. 

Despite everything else folding like tissue paper, the stony structure I collide with is solid. I only avoid looking like a watermelon shot from a cannon because Willow reacted fast enough to slow me down enough that I just bumped my head. 

It’ll probably bruise.

At least till Willow fixes it.

“Why the fuck is there something we can’t break?” I ask Willow while I hurry my digital self up to investigate the structure from that side. 

Two things happen at once that are so at odds, that I’m briefly stunned into reacting to neither. 

First, while climbing up the tower in Lanadel, I see two faces I haven’t laid eyes on in so many years. 

My parents. 

Crys is with them as well as Lonnie and her mooks. 

The second thing is that the wall opens up and I get yanked into the room beyond it. Within is dear old Delilah, sitting in a chair with a pure white cat sitting on her lap. The kitty is beautiful, but in the same way a hunting tiger is.

That’s a predator. More so than cats usually are and it’s giving me the heeby jeebies. 

I really should be focusing on this big climatic battle that’s about to happen, but fuck Delilah, my parents are right there. 

Moving forward with trepidation, I close the distance with my mom and dad while Delilah monologues to my other self about how it’s all over yada yada yada.

“Mom? Dad?” I whisper softly. The look they give me in response hurts. It’s one you’d give a stranger. But before it can really sink in and do proper emotional damage, their eyes light up and they both lunge at me, pulling me into their embrace.

“Oh sweetie! We missed you so much!” Mom cries. Dad’s not spared the waterworks either as he’s blubbering so hard he can’t get a word out. 

Mom tenses suddenly, she’d forgotten to turn the stove off before being kidnapped. “You have to be careful,” Mom says urgently. “Delilah.. She.. she cracked the code and she -”

My digital self is yanked back to my physical body as I realize I’m being held up by the neck. 

“Fucking listen to me when I talk to you brat!” Delilah snarls at me. “You will show me the respect I deserve.” She’s gone full mask of mega bitch and I feel a little spark of something inside me.

“Oh, so none?” I taunt her, my voice hoarse from being fucking choked. Willow manages to cause a shockwave that forces Delilah to let me go. I quickly stand while rubbing my neck as I stare at her and her new friend. “What, not going to try and win me over Aunt Deli?”

She sneers at me. I know she hates that nickname. That is why I’m calling her that. 

“Hardly,” she snorts. “I don’t need you anymore after all. For you see I ha-” 

“Cracked the code, got your own AI cat goddess, blah blah blah,” I giggle at her. “I know. It’s painfully obvious.” Turning my attention to her familiar I give the kitty a bright wide smile. “You know, I’m pretty sure I can guess how shitty she is. You could ditch that bitch and come chill with me and Willow,” I offer them.

“Don’t fucking ignore m-” Aunt Deli tries to say before I cut her off.

“Hush, I’m talking to the only one worth talking to.” She sputters angrily, but I just tune her out.

Unfortunately, the poor kitty, who I had at first assumed was just an angrier, mean Willow by her expression, was clearly the victim of an abusive, overbearing cunt of a woman. She looked up at Deli and then back at me before squaring up. 

Willow could feel it too. We’d have to kick Aunt Deli’s ass three ways to Sunday and back to free my familiar’s fluffy family from my dickhead aunt’s clutches.

“Bat,” I say abruptly, interrupting yet another angry tirade. Boy, Aunt Deli likes to hear her own voice. 

“What the he-” she doesn’t get to finish her sentence as I’m already swinging up with a baseball bat made out of the floor. Willow gives it a bit of extra oomph, sending the tall corporate slimeball back into the desk she’d been sitting at before. 

“Look, Deldel, can I call you that?”

“No you fu-” 

“Don’t care. You’ve shackled a nice kitty to you and I’m going to give you five seconds to release her or I’m going to make your insides, your outsides. Got it?” 

She sputters angrily before looking at her cat and pointing at me. “DCS-2, destroy them!” she commands.

I just let out a sigh as the innocent little floof lunges at me. As she flies through the air, chunks of the marble decor are pulled in around her, turning her into a massive stone tiger. 

A thought occurs to me as I stare down the beast before me. “Hey, Deldel, are you the head of LOG?”

“As of earlier today I am!” she crows proudly. “With DCS-2 at my side, I took control of the entire organization just this morning. I bet you’re wishing you’d accepted my offer when I ha-” her face  goes beat red as I cut in again.

“No, not really, just wanted to make sure I was cutting off the right snake’s head,” I respond before Willow jumps inside me. 

We launch off the ground and burst through the stone tiger, grabbing the little white kitten by the scruff of her neck. It’s fitting since we’re much like her older sister and she needs to be taught the way of things.

Merging like this is a new thing we can do. It's difficult to maintain, but we can handle it long enough to put Deli in her place. 

We conjure up a small cage for our little sister and set her aside. “Don’t worry, we’ll let you out soon,” we assure her in response to her plaintive cries before looking back at the cause of nearly every bad thing that ever happened to us. 

This bitch of a woman had our parents’ physical bodies murdered, and enslaved their digitized minds to corrupt their life's work. She held us in a small cage, and poked and prodded at us, grasping at straws to figure out how we work. And when she finally cracked the code, likely by exploiting our parents, she didn't even wait to enslave our new sister. 

We could’ve had a drawn out, epic battle between sorta good and absolute evil, but honestly, that bitch doesn’t deserve our attention. So, with our little sister out of the way, we do what we wish we could’ve done last time we saw that too perfect face before us. We snap our fingers and watch as she pops like a balloon full of  ground beef. 

I stagger as Willow exits my body. 

That’d be weird, and equal parts pleasant and not. 

Either way, we’re done here. 

Willow grabs the cage and stows it somewhere. Honestly, I’m not in a hurry to figure out exactly where. 

I reach out through the building to make sure we’re the last living people here. When I confirm the only remaining asshole is an interrogator that’s bleeding out in a ground floor bathroom (fuck, that must have a story behind it), I embrace the giddy, petty feelings my aunt had brought out in me, and stomp my foot. 

****

Look, I love making an entrance, so of course I collapse the whole building, THEN saunter out like the baddest bitch of all time. Because, you know, I fucking am.

I (with a little help) took down mother fucking LOG. And the best part is? This would’ve just been a stepping stone had my shitty fake aunt not gotten too fucking greedy and made a powergrab.

She thought having her own reality bending cat would be enough? Bitch had a reluctant familiar and not even half the experience I do. 

So of course I’m going to ride on my own high for a little bit before I have to handle some too strong emotions that are already starting to build up.

Fuck… This is going to be tough… isn’t it?

Epilogue

It wasn’t as tough as I thought it’d be. 

Mom and Dad were quick to make up for lost time. We hugged, cried, laughed and cried some more. 

I introduced them to my girlfriends while Willow fixed their meat bodies. 

Felicia had her own news to share as well. Apparently she’d realized she was agendered. I’m not sure if either of us was using the term right, but basically she was ambivalent about her gender and could be happy with whatever.

She decided she’d stick with her normal body for now, at least in part to avoid causing my shitty memories to ruin the mood again. The idea of being intimate with a man still leaves me uneasy.

And, on top of that, she explained she’d be helping an old colleague sort out their apparent gender crisis. Good for her. 

Mom and Dad were pretty pissed when they found out about how I’d been treated by someone they considered a friend. I didn’t really want to relitigate that shit so we just hugged it out some more.

There’s obviously still more to do if we want to make the world a better place. Sure, we took down the very top of LOG, but there’s more outposts and agents out there, begging to get a visit from yours truly. 

I’m going to take a break though. Figure out if the resistance even needs me. Focus more on my family and my girlfriends.

And Willow too. Don’t give me that look.

Oh! And Maple. That’s what our new fluffy friend decided to call herself after taking on a less pretentious looking cream colored coat. She’s a sweetheart, but she still flinches when we reach out to pet her sometimes. Mom and Dad are taking care of her for now. So that’s good.

Maybe if something comes up that actually requires a near omnipotent pair of goddesses, then I’ll get involved. 

Until then, I have a cuddle pile to rejoin.

The End…?