WAC Secure Labs

Phero was left thinking again thhat she couldn't do things the way Eris managed, but literally this time; she wasn't able to turn her head completely around or snap her shoulder out of place for the sake of removing her clothes in a unique way. But when it was all finished, the Owner favored Eris with his reaction and Eris had actually gone a bit further than she had, now wearing only a provocative bikini. Phero found herself mentally giving props, but also feeling a rare pang of jealousy. "That's not fair... she saw me leave my shirt on and took hers off anyway! She must see this as a competition," Phero thought to herself, pouting a little. Now that she thought about it, HunterWoman had won the beach competition they'd had, which was pretty similar. "My allies all have such big butts... maybe I should have been programmed with a bigger butt? I am working pretty hard..." she thought to herself, slowing her motions a little.

That said, she understood she ought to be happy that Eris was doing the job, however much she might want to try to blow the box up instead. Snapping her out of her thoughts of Eris, hthe owner gave her a hard slap to the behind, causing her pink skin to go a little red. She smiled as though she enjoyed it, though really, she was the type who preferred a gentle touch... at least, she thought she was. "Aw... If we both try at once, I'm just going to screw up and try to lead Eris, and she's going to do her own thing again..." the bleach-blonde version of Phero thought to herself, tossing aside first her cap, then yanking off her shirt and lanyard quickly while there was a break in the action, so that she'd better match her ally.

"Alright, but I hope you're not planning on splitting our pay two ways just cause we're going along with this," she snarked, feeling unusually snarky, while placing a hand on her hip and pointing one finger to his chest. She continued to circle around with her hand held there, smiling up into his face, until she had made her way to the back. "I'll leave you the front," she notified Eris, while pushing her breasts against the owner's back. She pushed up and down a bit, with a few breathy, aroused sounding giggles, moving her finger to replace it with her whole palm, which rubbed in a searching motion. Slowly, she crept her other hand around to his waist, rubbing down the belly towards the groin in a suggestive motion. The tips of her fingers reached into the hem of his shorts, but no further. Sensing that Eris might want some of that real-estate on the front, she moved that hand up to join the other, rubbing across his chest and shoulders. Her leg, bare except for the low sock and athletic shoe, rubbed up against him from the back as though she was spooning with him, or worse, trying to hump him. Despite herself, she was doing an admirable job of arousing herself just through her own physical contact.

She was getting so into it that she almost missed the most important message they'd received in a while: one from her old beach buddy, Toss, who she'd had an inkling they might hear from before all was said and done. It was basically what they expected: inflicting enough real damage to initiate "combat" could potentially override the program. However, doing so wasn't really in her nature... she didn't want to hurt the Owner or Actor, whichever she thought of him as, whether he was a pervert or an inanimate object even. She wasn't sure what Eris would choose to do, but she wanted to make sure Eris had all the facts, and thus sent her a message. She included Boil, just in case Boil hadn't heard Toss's words.

Quote (Phero)

That was my friend, Toss, just now. She says that our options to get out of here are either to force the chamber to let us out within its rules... which, um, sounds kinda hard... or else we can do real combat damage that will cause it to sense danger and eject us. I don't want to hurt anyone, so I am going to try a plan for the first way. Just interject if you don't want to do it that way... We could also jack out, but I don't want to leave Toss behind. She sounds like she needs us...

Putting her plan into immediate action, Phero bit her lip and whispered to him in as sexy a voice as she could manage. The rules stopped her from going out of the chamber... but it didn't say anything about getting anyone else outside. "So Owner... We can do this halfsy version of two-on-one, but wouldn't you rather do a full, one-on-one inspection? I wanna show you I'm the real deal... If you'll pick up my partner there by her cute shorts and throw her out the front door, we can pull out your joystick and I'll show you what these letters on my ass really mean..." she encouraged him, sounding a level of horny that was 1 part acting and 1 part secretion of misty, pink pheromone gas into the air, a trick that would work as an aphrodisiac for both herself and those around her. It also gave her skin a shiner, slightly wet texture, which he'd notice from the oiled feel of her boobs as they continued pushing against him at an eager pace.

-----------------------------------------

Having received Phero's message, Boil was about ready to take the payment by way of apology rather than doing just what Pass wanted of her. She didn't like being made fun of, especially by a soda drinking shut-in who had the gall to think she ought not be involved in the sexy part of the mission. "You know what, AdjustMan? I'm going to take this card out of my bosom," the scientist spoke in a curt grumble, pulling out her garment a bit to reach inside. When she couldn't quite reach it, she was forced to displace it a little further, pulling it down to below the shoulder and going a bit red as she revealed a single black bra strap. She dug in and got the card out this time, then replaced the neck of her suit. "And I'm going to use it to go into this room 3. I've got a 'friend' there who I very much need to have words with... You may be interested in doing the same, for the good of your friend and colleague." She adjusted her glasses and poked her lower lip up, hesitating to see if he'd let her open the door as she'd requested.

Provided he did, she'd slide the keycard on lab #3 and re-enter, looking for Pass, who was presumably the source of the noise. "I'm done with this game, Pass! I hope you've had your fun, because I am done allowing you to lock up others for your whims," she announced herself dramatically, huffing and puffing steam as she approached with one hand on her hip and the other wagging a gloved finger. "And the misery you've put this poor man through!" she further protested, as though she herself wasn't the one who'd been toying with AdjustMan for the better part of an hour now, at least.

Dharma wasn't sure if this was the right course of action, but she could sympathize with not wanting to be toyed with. If Pass had the nerve to treat strangers this way, she had the nerve to renege on paying them too; her mind was working similar to Boil's, and as such, agreed that they were more likely to get paid at this point by forcing Pass into a corner than they were by completing their original objective.

As the Owner's hand smacked Eris's behind, she jumped slightly, causing her tail to emit a slightly unnerving, but inaudible little screech. However, it would quickly calm down, and Eris would continue her dispassionate glare towards the "Owner", while also simultaneously backing in slightly further into the Owner's groping, enough that it wouldn't be visible enough to anyone else, but would certainly register against his touch. Phero put out an unusual competitive comment for how she was leading in earlier, but Eris only returned a quiet smirk, as her fellow "arcade employee" matched her own state of undress, and began to swap around to the Owner's back instead, in order to double team him from two ends.

Though she would normally be one for playing to win as well, the message that came in through their earpieces seemed to interrupt their little game, and switched out their win condition for something clearly defined. Their employer seemed to have played a prank on them, and now they had to get out on their own. While Eris had attempted to exit the "simulation" from earlier using her fiery tantrum and failed to do so, the new piece of information showed that she wasn't exactly wrong for having tried the avenue. Unfortunately, what was required instead was to deal enough incident battle damage to trigger an automatic jackout. Normally, she would definitely have more than enough firepower to do so, but as she recalled, Charles was quite busy with his own thing, and would likely not respond to her asking for any chips. Her innate damage output was pitiful in comparison, and so she had to consider the former option of somehow bending the rules enough to escape the area on its own terms.

Thankfully, while she wasn't nearly resourceful enough to come up with such a plan on her own, it seemed like Phero was on the case herself, and had sent her a message, relaying how they were to escape, which... mostly seemed like doing pretty much nothing on her own. The thought of not being able to help out irked her slightly, and she was concerned with whether her escaping would lock Phero herself out. It was worth a try, though, since Eris herself had no other alternatives to present, having eliminated them just before Phero's message came in. She tried to respond to Phero's message with an affirmative wink, but the personality enforcement caused her to only manage to make her smug smirk look slightly more condescending. She decided to be more direct.

"Oh, no, I wouldn't want to be thrown out, that'd mean I'd get some time off! I can't possibly leave you behind to do all that work with the boss, Phero. That'd be just--awful!" she said, laced with enough sarcastic tone to cause anyone to twist internally, while also visibly pushing herself back against the Owner's grasp to sidle up on his arm instead.

TicketMan didn't fight the double team attack the two ladies were putting on him, grinning widely and letting what would happen happen, blissfully unaware that his "employees" were currently pondering whether to get rid of him or somehow escape him. "Now come on, girl, you know I'm always good for it. When you known me not to get you paid?"

When Phero made her proposal (and Eris gave her muddled opinion of it), the man seemed to dig deep within himself for the concentration to consider it. "You know..." he began after a period, grinning at nobody in particular, "I like it! But..." he forcefully squirmed in Phero's grasp until he was facing her, then suddenly extricated himself from Eris and pulled up Phero, lifting her ungently by reaching beneath her and pulling her up onto one of his broad shoulders. "Ya got greedy, girl! I'm gonna put you in time out..." He punctuated his comment with another enthusiastic palm on her behind, laughing to himself. "And you're being a bad girl too!" he commented, pointing his free finger at Eris. "Acting like you don't want it. You stay here, and when I get back, I'll correct that attitude and remind you why you love it here."

He carried Phero around the counter and then a short distance towards the front doors when his smile finally drooped a bit. "Oh yeah..." He coughed, then audibly shifted to a whisper, talking out of the side of his mouth. "Open it. What? Yeah, I know. Yeah, but it's almost done now, right? I said yeah."

After he'd had his private conversation (which would be less than secret to Phero), the chamber door suddenly appeared in the middle of the arcade, leading seemingly to nowhere. "You think about what you did and come back in, mmm... thirty minutes or so, all right? And get your head together, or I'll have to teach you a lesson like I'm about to give your buddy. Although maybe you'd like that..."

With that, he set Phero in front of the magic door and headed back towards Eris, clapping one hand forcefully to the other with meaning. "I know how you like to get your lessons, baby. You ready?"

Meanwhile, Phero would find the door was open if she checked (assuming her internal logic let her), a bright light shining from the other side. If Phero made her way through, she'd find herself in the lab again, seeing the scene inside the frosted glass almost like a movie, looking real only through the frame of the doorway. She'd find the earpiece entirely inert, back in control of her actions... but still in the same costume, until she refreshed, at least. The door was open, and she'd be able to hear noises in the hall.

---

AdjustMan didn't impede Boil as he saw with interest that she wasn't dashing off with his card anymore. Furthermore, since she'd chosen the less dangerous sounding of two doors, he saw fit to join her. "Well, I can't very well leave without my card. I'm interested to see what was really going on here, anyway."

With the key in the lock, AdjustMan reached out to hold it there for a moment, speaking his name towards the reader: "AdjustMan."

With that done, the door opened up to find Pass in the vacant room with its identical chamber. Pass was speaking rapidly to an unseen party. "-and that's your own fault! How are you even a part of this, anyway?! I do the hacking and he does the masterminding, but you and Game Boy only- Hiiiiiiieee!" she suddenly squealed, realizing she wasn't alone, whirling around and facing the two new arrivals. "L-l-lock you up?! Misery?! You must, uh... I guess Toss told you all, hm? Well. Well!" Pass made a show of neatly straightening out her robe, which seemed to have become disheveled at some point. "You look like you're ready to be paid. Very good! You've all done an excellent job so far as mortals go and I'll be happy to pay you at the GNA as agreed upon, on one condition! You see, I can release all the locks and, of course, immediately release the hold of the headsets on your companions, and provide you with compensation, even soda... but what you must do is simply allow me to leave, pay you at the GNA, and not mention any of the perhaps slightly misrepresentative mission parameters I presented you with as you collect. Wouldn't that be best for all of us? I just need to leave before T-T-Toss catches me... but that requires me to make a special exit for myself, which takes time. But, of course I intend to pay you! I can't afford to become a GNA client in poor standing, short mortal. How is that?"

AdjustMan rubbed his chin with one hand pensively. "Mmm... I'm afraid I'm not following any of this at all. But my job isn't any kind of law enforcement here, and I don't have any kind of contract with either of you. So, I'll let you two work this out, so long as I get my keycard back."

"Y-yesss, of course, tall mortal. W-w-why would you have any reason to be upset with little old genius me...? You were never a part of this, after all..." The young woman was visibly sweating bullets, her natural grin twitching at the sides as she watched the two warily, as though the huffing-and-puffing SP and the proven weakling could pounce her at any moment.

Phero was pleased to see that Eris was going to go along with her plan; she returned the smug smile with one of her own, even though both of them just wanted to friendly wink. It all seemed to be going according to plan, until she found herself yanked into the air and thrown over the man's shoulder, the scenario playing out with different actors than she'd imagined. What would ordinarily be an "eep" came out instead as startled laughter, which was an odd sensation, even after all of the times recently that she'd been under this behavior-manipulation effect. "It's almost as if I've been the one having glitches lately. It's been a long time since I distributed one," she thought to herself idly, until another raunchy smack to the bottom woke her up.

She had pictured herself being the one staying behind while Eris escaped and either... went for help or opened the box, she hadn't really thought it out much further than escaping. Instead, she was the one going out to fix things, while Eris would be left towing the line for whoever was appreciating the spectacle, if there even was such a person paying witness any longer. She listened a little harder then suddenly realized her plan might not be working by the graces of her own planning; it seemed like the door to the outside, which opened in empty space, was only opened by the graces of whoever was conducting this viewing session. "Fine! But just remember:" she continued, her behavior modification managing to pull together scraps of innuendos present in her mind into vaguely coherent phrasing, "just cause a prize is the biggest doesn't mean it's the best. Don't blow all your tickets on one prize!"

Once Phero was deposited or otherwise leaped off to go through the doorway, which was easy enough to do since she was just obeying TicketMan's instructions for the moment, she had a moment to connect that her settings and her thoughts had returned to normal, while her clothes had not. She looked to the screen for a moment, wondering if Dharma was going to flip her back over to her own clothing... but Dharma's smoldering glare, one curled hand hiding her mouth, made it clear she wasn't happy. "Aren't you glad I managed to get out?" she asked, tilting her head slightly.

"Yes, of course," Dharma sighed, looking no happier. "I was just thinking that we clearly need to reevaluate certain design elements. That man, whether 'real' or not, chose Eris over you, Phero. As a navi designed for the purpose of winning people's hearts, you should be the winner in situations like this. That you were not is a defect, and although it pains me, it is clear that my research team has failed," she spoke with a glare, not admitting fault of her own, of course. "It may be back to the drawing board, as they say. You lost that competition to HunterWoman too. It seems as though others with much less time and money behind them tend to outperform you."

Panicking, Phero tried to think of how to smooth this unexpected issue over. "Um..." she answered quietly, not knowing how a horse is supposed to go about responding to news that they may be headed to the glue factor. "Oh, but remember? Both times, we have those modifying devices equipped! And in this case, I also had blond hair! That's got to make a big difference, right?" she pleaded. "There'll be more opportunities for me to prove I'm good..."

"Oh, of course. We're not talking about starting from zero. I just mean changing different aspects of your appearance and personality to suit what works. Different ass..." she murmured, knitting her brow pensively. "Aspects. Yes."

Phero still wasn't sure she liked where the conversation was going, but she had to table it for now. "I've got to help Eris get out of there for now," she reminded her operator, while she refocused her attention to the task at hand. Unfortunately, she wasn't really sure how to accomplish that... there was no way to tell Eris to come out of the simulation unless she could do it in character, and it was hard enough coming up with a way to get just one of them out. The easier way, she decided, would be to find whoever had been holding the two of them in there and convince them to stop keeping Eris inside. She figured she might do that in the course of meeting back up with Boil. On that note, she also figured she ought to check where Boil was, exactly. Luckily, Boil sent something back right away.

"Alright... the first room," she agreed, feeling so normal prancing around in a bikini that she didn't worry about the fact that she was still showing off her "HYPER" bikini to anyone who would look. Provided the door out of the room wasn't still locked, she'd head out to

---------------------------------

Elsewhere, Boil was putting on her most threatening face and trying not to succumb to one of the fits of boiling rage and high blood pressure that her former operator had been prone to. It sounded like Pass wasn't alone in all of this... there was at least four people: Pass, some "mastermind," Pass's contact, and finally, a "Game Boy." "If Toss is one of those people... is Dart also one of them? She is hardly someone I would call a mastermind, the way it's been told," she thought to herself, trying to make sense of a situation that was being made deliberately obtuse by the perpetrators.

Dharma was already shaking her head, thinking about what a waste it was that there'd be no way to use the key-card without AdjustMan, given that his voice was also a component of it. She tapped one finger against the lab-coat sleeve on her crossed arm. "Hmph. Well, I don't know that we've met any useful contacts. I don't like being disrespected, but there's no use in reporting it to the GNA. If anything, this becomes a useful blackmail opportunity for us going forward. Better to let her squirm. Take the pay for now, but let her know you hold the cards," the president instructed Boil, wishing that she was there in person to handle some haggling. Boil had not earned the vote of confidence yet, in her estimation.

Boil nodded, though she was more focused on what Pass was saying. "Yes, that is fine. If you are paying me right now," she reiterated. "And Eris, of course. She can still take messages. Send it to her," Boil added, not that she personally cared about what Eris got out of this, but there was no need to make a problem where there didn't need to be one. On that note... she passed the card back to AdjustMan. "Now that this is resolved, I see no reason why this can't be returned to you. Thank you for your help."

She began pacing the room, keeping her round head turned towards Pass. "Also, release everyone else you have locked up. AdjustLady and whoever else. Obviously." Her eyebrow twitched and her face reddened; part of her couldn't quite be satisfied with this outcome. "I'm not reporting you... for now. Oh, and also... the peepshow is over. So whoever you're 'quizzing yourself' with, cease monitoring them-"

Right as the words were out, a knock came on the door. Boil lowered her eyebrows behind her thick glasses. "AdjustMan, please open the door," she requested, not wanting to let Pass weasel out of her sight.

AdjustMan was under no obligation to do so, but if he chose to, he would be introduced with another peepshow, as the bikini-clad, newly blond Phero waited outside. Not recognizing him, she smiled as politely as she could, nodded her head a bit, then scooted past, with the word "HYPER" doing an alternating, up and down bounce as she walked. "Hello again, Pass. What have I missed?" she would ask, stepping up next to Boil. If instead the door remained closed, she'd knock a few more times, hoping to join the conversation.

Eris's lips pursed as she watched the Owner detach himself from her, and "threw" Phero out, instead of herself. From what she had gathered, she was supposed to be the one running around, but now she had to lead into what seemed to be the final stretch. The chains on her thought process were still on as well, and she wasn't quite able to leave just yet. Truth be told, even though she knew the mental shift in her attitude was due to the program affecting her, she couldn't help but align with it as well. There was a surprising amount of overlap of her own personality with the personality override that she didn't expect to have. Perhaps she had something like it as well?

With the Owner out of sight, she looked down at the counter, and blinked at it a few times, before hoisting herself onto it and lying down, facing away from where TicketMan had just left. Still in her state of undress, she propped her head up with her arm resting on the counter. Her tail seemed to be drunkenly swinging about for some reason, as if she wasn't controlling it by herself. She heard TicketMan coming back in from behind her, ready to give out his "lessons", whatever they were.

Perking up her head briefly without turning around, Eris began tracing little shapes in front of her with her free hand. "Mmm... I said I didn't want to leave her with you, but that doesn't mean I'm all that up to work, either," said Eris. Her tail suddenly swooped itself back up to point its end at TicketMan, but it still seemed to be somewhat disoriented, as it dislodged Eris's lower bikini half slightly, right before Eris adjusted it back into place with a quick tug. "It's just an inspection, right? I don't really have to do anything besides sit here," she said, going back to tracing shapes in the air while looking as unflappably disinterested as possible.

The Owner rotated his arms before rubbing his palms together, approaching Eris with a wide grin on his face. “Don’t you worry, babe. You’re gonna be working hard later, so you oughta let me do the work for now. She’ll get her turn, but for now, it’s all you and me. Just relax…”
 
Having made his way to Eris, who seemed to essentially be offering herself so long as he ignored the odd attention from her tail, TicketMan paused, glancing over her body for what felt like far too long. “When I’m picking out prizes, I always have the hardest time making up my mind. In the end, though… I’ll go for the big prize every time,” he announced, leering as he walked in closer, making his way over to Eris’s back. “And this time, no matter what, I am gonna get my hands on a big prize… If you wanna blame someone on this inspection bein’ a little rougher than usual, blame your friend. Something about being that girl gets me worked up, heh.” The owner put his left hand on the side of Eris’s body, running it down the hips and all the way down the leg, appraising.
 
After how long he’d deliberated, his choice was the most obvious: the Navi helped himself to a firm grip of the back waistband of her panties, ignoring her tail for the part of the rear he was more interested in. Unless she put a stop to it, he’d force them down for a better view. At about this time, Eris would suddenly feel the grip on her mind enforced by the headphone go dead as all noise from the device stopped… but unless she reacted quickly, she’d feel a new, more physical hold, as TicketMan grasped a handful of one cheek of her bare behind. Her outfit, the lecherous owner, and the room around her remained the same, albeit with the mysterious door still visible.
 
Eris would also receive a rewards package from Pass, although it included no message to provide the context.
[Eris GET: 5,000z; RedFruit1; SP Base (1); PassColax5]
 
PassCola: A unique beverage provided by Pass, these are provided in plastic bottles in a six-pack ring. One was already missing when Pass provided it. The beverage has an addictive, if unplaceable, sugary taste, and it’s hard to open a bottle without finishing it off. Drinking a lot at once will make a Navi hyper, but comes with a sugar crash later.]
 
---
 
Pass grimaced, scrunching up her face when Boil demanded to be paid immediately. “N-no, I said at the GNA, right? If I have to arrange payment now, I’m not gonna have time to arrange my exit!”
 
“The lady said right now,” AdjustMan reminded her, turning knobs on his hand to extend his fingers into a creepy, branch-like structure (although, from Boil’s personal experience, the most he could truly threaten to do to Pass was tickle her or take her glasses, perhaps).

The empty threat was enough to make Pass flinch back again, clutching her tablet to her chest. “D-Don’t touch me with your w-w-weird fingers, male mortal! I’m gonna start the transfer now, it’s just gonna take me a sec to access the funds. Okay? Okay?!” If she was bluffing, it would be some true three-dimensional chess, considering the frantic speed and urgency with which she was now typing.
 
AdjustMan took his card with gratitude after adjusting his hand back to reasonable card-grabbing proportions, seeming to have very easily discarded the previous runaround as water under the bridge. “The pleasure is all mine, although a hope the next time we meet is a bit lighter on the exercise,” he admitted, as though running a couple of laps around his office was some marathon.
 
Pass continued to work, looking like she had a stomachache and keeping her eyes on her work. “Yes, yes. No devices are active, each of you has your freedom. No more monitoring is going on, everyone is free to move except Toss, who I have locked behind a door for my own safety until I can find a way to make it up to her later, and she is free to leave any time she wants… just not get right here… while I’m here,” she concluded with a gulp. “AdjustLady isn’t here. She… jacked out, hehe,” she said with a giggle, momentarily thinking of something that made her smile before wiping her mouth and getting back to work.
 
As he was told, AdjustMan used his keycard to open the door, meeting Phero with his usual unreadable stare behind his mask and lenses. He followed her with his eyes curiously as he returned her nod with a brief one of her own. “Ah… I suppose you’ve been up to that kind of thing here, as well. Were you with your red friend? Is she still in a lab?”
 
“She’s still in the lab, but she’s free, free of danger, and free to enjoy the bounty of my hard work, as you shall be in a moment…” Pass continued to complain as she worked, not acknowledging Phero or her question. “Gggh. I truly, truly ought to be charging for my hand-coded caffeine bombs. It’s like she’s asking for blood, blood from my godly veins! Mortals, tchh!” With a last clack, Pass finished typing, causing a portal of light to open next to her. “That’s my ride. I’ll be laying low for a while. I don’t want there to be any hard feelings over all this, so naturally, you have a very, very generous reward on your way. R-really, you all should be thanking me! Such a huge sum of zenny when, when you all really didn’t have to do any work! Impudent mortals…”
 
[Phero GET: 15,000z]
 
She would begin stepping towards the portal, then stop, turning a red and furious glare towards Phero. “Just so there isn’t any confusion. I was never watching you, okay? It was a pair of perverted demigods who are interested in normie girls like you and the hungry red mortal. So don’t get all cocky, thinking, ‘Oh, I’m hot enough to get an immortal genius to trap me in a room and, and, and get off watching me, then make her rob a bank to pay me for it!’ You only accomplished one of those things, and you didn’t trick me to do it. You certainly didn’t seduce me to do it. Hmph!” If no one else stopped her, Pass would hop into the portal with no further goodbye.
 
“… Well, Boil, I guess we should probably exchange e-mail addresses, hm?” AdjustMan said, turning to Boil eagerly. “You know, in case you want to keep in touch or meet again. My address is AdjustMan@wacsecure.net.”

"...?" In the middle of TicketMan's "inspection", Eris's expression, unseen by her inspector, scrunched up into confusion. Her tail began to stiffen up right as her underwear was tugged on. A subtle hiss could be heard from the blackened protrusion, though Eris herself didn't seem to notice. TicketMan would then feel a strange decrease in resistance from his grip on the waistband he was holding. There was a sound akin to something being dragged through a viscous substance. The Navi would then find himself gripping the panties, with no one wearing them, and a thin string of black muck trailing from one end of the panties. The trail led to a ring of the same substance encircling Eris's bare hip in front of him--as if it was bisecting her.

"Oh! I'm done!"

Eris exclaimed in glee as she hopped off the countertop, her lower half obscured by its height. No longer restricted by the mental hold that the area had previously imposed on her, she seemed to be back to her usual bubbly, oblivious self. Beckoning over towards the doorway that Phero had been through, she turned around to the "Owner" that she had just been presenting herself to, and gave him a grinning salute. "I gotta go now! You can keep that if you want. Bye!" she said, leaping over towards where the doorway was. Unfortunately, even as she soared through the air in mid-jump, her tail would obscure any sort of view that TicketMan would attempt to garner of Eris's exposed lower side, before she ran through the mysterious doorway.

"Score!!" she yelled, her arms raised as she jumped through the passageway. "--Oh, no one's here," said Eris, scratching her head, sounding slightly disappointed. Seemingly uncaring about her current state of dress (or lack thereof), she began to wander about, roughly following the path that she had gone through before, or at least what she remembered of it. "Phero? Boil? Guys?" she yelled.

"Agreed," Boil sighed after AdjustMan's exercise comment, confirming that she felt the same way about the unexpected track meet.

Phero was seemingly ready to let bygones be bygones with Pass. All of the talk of demigods was a little confusing, but she still managed to get the basic gist of it. "Well, I'm just glad somebody had fun! I dunno, you look like you had a pretty good time too. But you shouldn't pick on Toss if it makes her mad," Phero advised her normie-adverse friend. "I've seen what she does when she's mad and i'm not sure you have the constitution for it..."

"I would advise you never do this to anyone again period," Boil added, frowning as she side-eyed their employer. She put on an awkward smile and tried to decide if she was happy that AdjustMan and his weird, branch fingers wanted to meet her again in the future. If nothing else, he seemed like a good contact to have in the future as far as this mysterious lab was concerned, so she accepted his email address. "Mine is Agnis.Agnu@HeartPaynePharmaceuticals.net . Or er... that one will forward to another address that I will certainly read so, ahem, don't worry about it," she coughed, hoping he wouldn't ask for the current address or question her use of the old one. "Hopefully, our next meeting will be more fruitful and not prompted by some silly girl's soda-driven schemes." Though they'd be driven by someone's schemes, as long as Dharma was holding her PET.

"I should go find Eris," Phero informed the others, as she moved out the door and back into the hall. It occurred to her for the first time that she was the only one walking around without presentable clothes...

... Or at least, it seemed that way, until she ran into Eris, whose profoundly erotic oversized bottom was jiggling in the breeze, her modesty protected only by some strange black goo of unknown origin. Others might be happy that said origin remain unknown, but Phero found herself instantly curious, being full of mysterious chemical substances herself. "What's that?" she asked, pointing down. "Oh, but um, maybe more importantly, we received our payment. We can jack out whenever you feel like," she explained, although she glanced curiously over at the machine room behind Eris. "What happened to Owner?" she asked, then spared a look at Eris' tail. She tried to gauge whether or not it seemed like the unusual appendage had recently had a meal...

Eris's search didn't take too long, as she stumbled upon her two comrades that had just exited Pass's room. "Oh! There you are! Yay!" cheered Eris, as she met up with Phero, who was more dressed than she (obliviously) was. Phero seemed to be more curious about some of the black goo that had been dripping off of her exposed midsection, however, which made her pause and look down at it. Just then, the tear in her body that had bisected her through and exposed the substance repaired itself, as well as absorbing all of it back into her body. Phero would be able to see a small glimpse of bone white underneath the black residue, before it seamlessly smoothed itself out.

Eris herself blinked twice, and looked back up, cheerfully replying, "I don't know!"

As soon as Phero mentioned jacking out, however, her cheery expression turned into a bit of a pout. "Oh, right, yeah, Master's probably worried about me. I should head back. This was pretty fun, though! Let's do it again sometime," she said, jumping forward to embrace her newfound friend in a tight, squishy hug. When she pulled back, Phero asked what had happened to Owner. "Oh, him?" she said, turning back towards the room where she had just come from to look at it. At that moment, her tail perked up, and rose to her height, looming over Phero like a snake about to strike, judging its prey. Its tip split open just barely to reveal a maw dripping with the black ooze from earlier, and she could hear a subtle breathy exhale from it. It inched forward slowly, and--spat out a piece of paper onto the floor.

Eris then turned back, and the tail whipped back into place, while she replied all too cheerfully, "Oh, he didn't manage to finish his inspection. I couldn't finish things up since I got the reward message thingy from Pass." Suddenly, a small voice came into her ear, with a voice she was familiar with. "... Hm? Where'd she go? Eris?" the voice said, audible only to herself. Eris clapped her hands suddenly in response.

"Oh! Master's looking for me. I gotta go now! I'll see you later, okay? Bye!" she said, vanishing in the requisite stream of light that preceded a jack-out without the foresight to at least leave her friend a way to contact her. Or so it seemed, as the piece of paper on the floor, as covered in black ooze as it was, seemed to have an email address printed onto it.

[Jack Out.]
[ >> Alternator Heights - Electown.]

"Ah, o-okay," Phero tried to respond casually, wearing an awkward smile as she tried to make sense of what she had just seen Eris' body do. "I'm also filled with liquid that I can't say what is, so I guess we aren't so different, in that way..."

Dharma gave her a cutting look with her eyes, saying "now isn't the time to bring that up."

After that unpleasant aside, Phero was treated to a hug, the universal expression of friendship. She pondered whether she ought to also grab Eris' butt like Cheshire would, or if that was a piece of ettiquite best forgotten. Before she had a chance to make up her mind, the hug was broken. "It was fun! N-next time I'll grab... something... even more fun," she babbled, unable to end up with a sentence that quite made a logical flow.

"You two have a strange idea of fun. You were practically someone else's test rat for this entire mission," Dharma pointed out.

"Yeah, well, I'm used to making the best of that scenario," Phero muttered under her breath, wishing her operator would quit ruining her good time. She was then forced to decide whether to look at Eris' tail or her exposed butt; a difficult quandary to be sure, but the tail demanded attention. She began to reach out to try giving it a little pat, to see if she could make friends with it too, but it whipped away too quickly. "Maybe it's shy?" she thought to herself, with a small smile. When Eris vanished, Phero pocketed the piece of paper. "A new friend! I guess we'll be friends just like Boil and her new buddy."

The stupefying experience had wrapped up in a nice way, by Phero's judgment. She and Boil would jack out of the net, leaving odd memories and a few unsolved questions for another day.

((Jacking out))