Stranded book 1, p.1
Making Monster Girls 5: For Science!, page 1
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Chapter One
My head spun as I stood in the drive and stared at the towering beast in front of me. The giant creature’s head brushed against the bars of the cage, and as it roared, its face came back into view. The Raiju looked like a wolf but ten times larger than any wild dog I’d ever seen. The lightning beast’s fur was as white as snow with a few swatches of electric blue through the tail, flank, and the tips at its pointed ears.
Its head was enormous, large enough for one of my monster-women to sit on comfortably with enough room. The Raiju snapped its head back and bit at the bars above its head, exposing the rows of pointed yellow teeth inside of its enormous maw. I didn’t want to imagine what it’d be like to be caught in between those teeth and what type of damage they could cause.
Edony had just revealed her trapper’s enormous find, and I reeled from the memory of the dream I’d once had. A slumped woman with snow-white hair held between Daisy and Valerie flashed through my mind. Wholly white pointed ears like a wolf’s poked out of her hair, and neon blue stripes worked their way through the fur and snowy white tail.
In my dream, the woman wanted to keep her name once she came out of my machine, and that name was… Edony.
“Isn’t it magnificent?” the Duchess sighed and placed her delicate hands on her hips. “Such a colossal beast, large enough to hold and maintain all of my powers. I’m so glad we waited, Charles. This is perfect.”
Edony’s colorless blonde hair shone in the light, and her hateful violet eyes sparkled with glee. I’d always thought she was beautiful with her angular features, sharp nose, and soft cheekbones, but out here in the bright sunlight, the Duchess was nothing more than absolutely terrifying.
I couldn’t deny that she looked overjoyed and invigorated with their find, but all of this meant that the transformation I’d worked hard to postpone would ultimately have to come to fruition. Thankfully, I’d gotten the Duchess’ will with the date and signature that would give everything of her earthly possession over to me. Still, I never imagined I’d be doing the transformation on her so soon afterwards.
“Charles...” Daisy murmured doubtfully. “What are we going to do?”
What could we do? The question resounded in my head like the melancholy chiming of bells, and I wasn’t exactly sure how to answer that. There was no way that we could avoid transforming the Duchess now, and as I stood there with my head leaned back, I had only a few words to say.
“It’s glorious,” I grinned. “I’ll make the improvements to my machine immediately.”
Everything was in place, and I had no more obstacles standing in my way. After we transformed Edony, all of Edenhart would be mine. There was no time for me to be afraid or pensive about my decisions. I was a different man, and I’d fought through everything put in my way and had come out on the other side unscathed. I was invincible, and even the Duchess couldn’t touch me. Edony thoroughly believed that she had me in her clutches, but that was far from the truth.
“You will?” Edony gasped. “Oh, Charles! The metamorphosis is so close that I can almost taste it! We’ll have to give this beast a lot of tranquilizers because my trappers said they shot it down with five capsules full, and it was still standing! My beast! What a gorgeous being it is! I’ve never seen anything so beautiful and horrifying in my life! Charles, I can physically feel my connection to it… As if I were meant to be joined with this particular being since the moment I was born… I can feel it, Charles, like this enormous electrical charge within my body… This was meant to be.”
I had to wonder if this were a natural reaction or if Edony felt this simply because she knew once she got a creature, I’d do the experiment. Then there was the dream I’d had long ago before I’d created Rian or Kleeia… A room filled with monster-women who loved and adored me with every fiber of their beings, and finally, Daisy and Valerie had brought Edony out. It wasn’t happening precisely like that, but it was pretty similar. There was no way in my mind that all of this could be purely coincidence.
This wasn’t science anymore. This was magic, plain and simple.
Had my connection to alchemy somehow given me the sense to foresee the future? I had no other proof than the dream, but it felt so bizarre that all of this would be happening in real life if there wasn’t any connection between the two. How could any of this be possible? How had I somehow predicted what type of beast Edony would be when I had no idea I would transform her in the past. Sure, I planned to kill her, but to make her a part of my family? That’d been utterly out of the question. Edony had been not only a threat to me but the little family I’d created, and here she was, securely in my clutches.
“A connection, you say?” I chuckled. “I believe it. All of the monster-women felt a connection to their beasts right before they were transformed. Isn’t that right, Daisy?”
The bear-girl turned and stared up, confused for a second, but quickly caught on to what I meant. The bear-girl nodded vehemently, swiveled her head back toward the Duchess, and grinned.
“Oh, yes!” the brunette giggled. “When Charles brought me the bear, I felt this tingling sensation deep in the pit of my stomach, and I knew that this was the beast that I was meant to merge with! I wish I could get that feeling back because it felt as if I’d found the being I was meant to be all of my life.”
“Well, mine isn’t exactly like that,” Edony breathed. “But I’m sure if I tried to explain it, none of you would understand. When I’m about to release my electricity, I feel the current moving throughout my entire body like a whip. It reaches the roots of my hair down to the soft bottoms of my heels. I feel so alive in those moments, so filled with energy that if I don’t release it, I’ll burst into yellow flames. When I finally do, and the electrical charge leaves my body… it’s almost orgasmic. Being near this beast, I feel that very same sensation, but on a much higher level.”
The bear-girl glanced at me out of the corner of her eye as Edony spoke and shrugged her shoulders. I wanted to know why the Duchess felt all of these things, but I knew if I asked, Edony would know that all of my other monster-women hadn’t felt the same way she had before her transformation.
“I can’t wait until the beast and I am finally merged into--” Edony’s soft whisper cut short as the Raiju reared back its head and roared up at the sky.
The enormous creature’s rippling fur tensed with large muscles, and its huge paws beat at the bars beneath it. Just as Edony said, I had to admit I’d never seen such a massive and glorious beast in my entire life. While Daisy and Valerie’s bear and cat were common, Rian and Kleeia’s imp and nix were quite rare, but this… this creature looked like something straight out of an ancient history book. It felt almost unreal to stand in the same space as it, and I could imagine the magnificent dire wolf racing up the sides of mountains with graceful ease.
The Raiju’s rageful blue eyes stared through the bars and took in all of its surroundings. The giant wolf-beast bared its yellow teeth, and for a second, I could’ve sworn I saw the yellow flash of electricity. The Raiju rocked it’s body back and forth for a second, and I thought it was going to topple the cage.
“Get it under control!” Edony barked at her soldiers. “We can’t have a repeat incident of what happened up in the mountains!”
Edony’s men rushed forward with what looked like tranquilizer rods filled with the clear liquid, and they positioned themselves carefully around the beast, so it wouldn’t reach through the bars and rip them to shreds. I remembered a moment like this long ago when Valerie and I captured the bear to use in Daisy’s experiment, but this seemed so much more dangerous than back then.
The Raiju’s roars split the air, and I felt the earth underneath my feet rumble and shake. Edony’s men moved in with their tranquilizers, but with each cautious step they took, the lightning-beast roared even louder.
“Stop moving so quickly!” Edony screamed. “You’re frightening her, and I will not stand to have my beast put through any type of anxiety! If any of you hurt or harm my creature in any way, I will slaughter you where you stand! All of you saw what happened to Lucien since you buried his mutilated corpse, do you really want that to happen to any of you?”
The soldiers shook their heads and crept forward with light feet, but the Raiju continued to rip at the cage’s bars in an uncontrollable fit of rage. One of the Duchess’ soldiers jabbed out, but the staff he held in his hands clanged against the bars of the cage and bent sideways as the beast rammed against it. The man didn’t have time to let go of the tranquilizer, and his arm twisted so hard that a loud crack resounded around the drive.
Edony’s lips curled into a snarl, and she screamed angrily at the fallen man. The soldier clutched at his broken arm and sobbed in agony, but the Duchess stormed over and loomed over him with a single-pointed finger.
“I thought I told you to be careful with my beast, you buffoon!” the blonde aristocrat shouted. “I would kill you right where you lay, but you’re too close to my precious beast, and I might strike it by accident. Scoot that way, and let me finish you off!”
My eyes swiveled toward the Raiju as its roaring paused for a second, and the wolf beast’s lips pushed out, and a low, sorrowful howl rose into the open air. Edony immediately turned, the downed s
“Edony,” I warned. “I don’t think that’s a good idea--”
The Raiju and Edony stared at each other for a few passing seconds, and it felt as if hours had passed. The Duchess and the lightning beast froze in their positions, and I physically felt the connection between them all around us. I’d questioned it before, but I couldn’t anymore… Edony and this beast were meant to be together, and there was no way I could tear them apart without getting myself killed.
“My pretty,” Edony murmured and lifted her right hand into the air toward the Raiju. “My lovely.”
I glanced over at Daisy to the left of me, and the bear-girl’s dark brown eyebrows furrowed into deep lines. She seemed just as confused as I was, and when the brunette’s eyes met mine, the corners of her lips pulled down into a frown.
“Are they…” the bear-girl trailed off and then turned back toward the Duchess and the wolf-beast.
“Yes,” I nodded. “I think… somehow the Duchess and the Raiju are communicating.”
“How?” Daisy asked. “How can that be possible? Is it because of her powers? Or maybe because the Raiju has abilities that are compatible with the Duchess’?”
“I have no idea,” I uttered. “I have no way to know and… I think I’ve stopped asking questions at this point. This has gone way beyond the realm of science and stepped into a territory that I’m not quite familiar with.”
“And that is?” the bear-girl probed.
“The realm of magic,” I grunted. “This goes well beyond my scope of expertise.”
“But what about your experience with alchemy?” the bear-girl asked. “Isn’t that part of the magical world?”
“Only partly,” I explained as I kept a close eye on Edony and the Raiju. “Think of alchemy as the lowest tier of the magical world. We made small things for people. Potions, ointments, charms, and on the rare occasion, special spells for protection, but never anything like this. This is more the realm of white magic and black magic… which I know nothing about.”
“I know we’ve talked about the connection women have with the forest animals,” Daisy murmured. “But is this like that? I don’t feel anything while looking at the Raiju… Do you feel the same way, Josephine?”
The aristocratic heiress has been utterly silent behind us this entire time, and she jumped when we turned our attention over to her. The honey-blonde clutched at her chest, pressed her hands to her chest, and glanced warily over at the Raiju. Josephine shook her head and took a tentative step backward as if she were about to turn and run back inside.
“What’s the matter?” I asked.
“Is something wrong?” Daisy cocked her head.
“I don’t… I don’t know,” the heiress shook her head. “I feel as if all of us are in great danger.”
“What do you mean?” I probed. “It seems that Edony’s finally calmed the Raiju down.”
“I-I don’t know how to explain it,” the heiress gasped. “I… I think I should get Rian, Valerie, and Kleeia just in case…”
“What about the soldiers?” Daisy asked. “Won’t they be suspicious when they see all these monster-women running around?”
“I think they’ve caught onto what’s clearly happening here,” I chuckled. “Not only that, but they’re Edony’s soldiers. Do you really think they’d cross her? Even if they did manage to tell someone with power, that aristocrat and the soldier would be dead once Edony found out.”
“But…” Josephine gasped. “I-I…”
“I don’t think there’s anything to be scared of,” I soothed. “Edony and the beast both seemed to have calmed down.”
Right as I spoke, a flash in the corner of my eye caught my attention, and I whipped my head in that direction. One of the Duchess’ soldiers crept forward with his knees bent and aimed his tranquilizer at the enormous beast’s back leg. Before I could step forward and call out to him, the man jabbed forward with his staff and connected with the Raiju’s thick, meaty thigh. The trance between the lightning beast and Edony immediately broke, and the Duchess stumbled backward with an explosive gasp.
“Oh, no,” Josephine gasped. “C-Charles?”
The Raiju beat against the bars as more of the Duchess’ soldiers rushed in with their tranquilizers raised. Each man jabbed out at the beast’s body, but only a few connected.
“Get away from her!” Edony screamed. “Stand down this instant!”
All of the soldiers dropped their weapons and hastily moved away from the cage, but their actions had already enraged the Raiju. The lightning beast roared at the top of its lungs, rose on its back feet, and a zapping yellow discharge surrounded its entire body. The cage it was held in was far too small, and the Raiju’s head reached out, and its teeth crunched down on the meta.
“Oh, science,” I shouted. “It’s going to rip right through!”
The struggling Raiju got a good grip on the bars, braced its legs against the ground, and ripped it’s massive head downwards. The cage buckled under the lightning-beast’s strength, and in one swift movement, the Raiju ripped the cage’s roof free, tossed it aside, and came snarling out.
“By the science!” I shouted as I moved to stand in front of my women.
The colossal beast ripped forward with unbelievable speed, grabbed one of the soldiers in one of its giant paws, and threw him into the air. I wanted to turn away, but I stood frozen in the gravel as the Raiju stood on its back feet, jumped, and snapped its yellow teeth closed onto the soldier. Blood dripped from it’s pointed teeth and fell in rivulets down onto the powdery gravel.
The lightning-beast chewed slowly, swallowed the corpse whole, and then threw back its head with a long, angry howl. The moment it’d had with Edony just a few seconds ago seemed utterly forgotten, and the beast swiveled its head as it looked for its next victim. The soldiers had fallen back quite a bit and reached for the swords at their waists. I was sure that the small, sharp blades would be no match against the powerful lightning beast. The enormous creature stalked forward while Edony stood directly in its path, and the Duchess stared up at it in shocked horror.
I didn’t think, only moved, and I raced forward toward Edony. I gripped the Duchess’ shoulders and hastily pulled her backward. I wasn’t entirely sure why I did it, but even though I had conflicted feelings about the Duchess, I still had the duty to protect her.
“Charles!” Edony protested. “No! Let me calm her down! She’s afraid and in pain! I can calm her!”
I’d never seen the Duchess in a state such as this. Whenever I encountered her, even in hectic or chaotic situations, she was calm and collected. Still, her violet eyes were wide with fear, and worry lines crossed her usually smooth forehead. I had to act, but what could I do? I was a mere man with no supernatural powers like Edony or any of my other women…
I knew all of these things, and yet, I had to try.
“Stay here,” I commanded. “Call off your men. The monster-women and I will subdue her. We won’t hurt her, I promise. Edony, trust me. I know how much you love her, and I would never do anything to harm her. Just trust me.”
From her position in my arms, Edony glanced over my shoulder as the Raiju barreled down the drive, headed toward the sea of green tents, and then veered off toward the forest beyond the manor.
“You’ll protect her?” Edony gasped and tightened her grasp. “Charles, promise me that you’ll protect her.”
“Of course, I will,” I nodded. “We won’t hurt her in any way.”
“Go,” the Duchess murmured. “Take the monster-women with you and bring my beast safely back to me.”
I let my arms drop from around her and turned toward the manor right as all of my monster-women except for Kleeia rushed out. I nodded toward them and then pointed into the forest where the Raiju had just escaped.
“Let’s go,” I boomed. “We’re not to hurt the Raiju, but we need to subdue it and bring it back to the laboratory. Is that understood?”
“How are we going to do that?” Rian asked. “All of our powers are… pretty damaging.”
