Waves splashed and crashed about, filling the air with vapor that tasted of salt and copper. Plasma bolts and spell-charges flew through the air, and were exchanged by a returning salvo of salt harpoons, and water-missiles. Creatures cried out and breathed their last as a metal monster tore through them, and the sea churned as its surface was rapidly dyed red beneath our feet.

The Missus and I were in a server by the name of Perdu-Ancien-Pecheur. Perdu-Ancien for short. It was a water-logged world where the sea levels had risen to the point where most of the land was underwater. The surviving population had either mutated to become amphibious and/or aquatic, or they lived on the few remaining islands and landmass, or they lived in floating cities. Jo and I weren’t sure if we wanted to do business here yet, but we “did” know that we definitely enjoyed wandering about in this server’s wilder areas.

Right now, Jo and I were exploring one of Perdu-Ancien’s ruins. Technically, we were out here looking for loot that I could either turn into ingredients, or sell directly, at my store. In actuality though, we were just messing around. I was having a good time, but Jo was having an absolute blast. She wore one of the escargot, or “snail-shell” powered, self-sufficient, exo-skeletal, environmental armors, that I’d made for her a while back.

She was wearing her Sun-Eater Suit. A sun-gold plated Escargot, meant for forward-assaults. Like all her other clothing, the escargot was built to accommodate Josephine’s “transformations”. A feature that meant that the helmets would shift from being humanoid to being canine-like when Jo tapped into her inner-beast, and bit the face off one of the feral-mermen that was trying to attack her. Crunching bone, skin, muscle, and a sizable portion of the creature’s brain in her elongated maw.

“Seafood...See food!” laughed Jo as she spat the wad of flesh and bone in her mouth into the horrified face of the crab-soldier that stood behind the feral-merman she just killed.

That moment of hesitation and fear proved costly for the crab-soldier as Jo brought out one of her favorite kinetic-energy cannons from her inventory and blew a nice wide hole through the crab-soldier's chest. The shotgun blast of psychic energy tearing through the crab-soldier shell like it was tissue-paper and blowing away the larger claw of the crab-soldier right behind the one that Jo had just killed.

Hunting dogs need an opportunity to run and play in the great outdoors, and house cats were some of nature’s most prolific killers. Creatures act according to their instincts and urges, and in Josephine’s case, she was built with an insatiable bloodthirst that would seem downright shocking, if one had only ever known her as a sweet, bright and cheerful, former-maid. Growing up I’d gotten the chance to see snippets of that side of her, as she defended me against some of my crueler bullies. I’m pretty sure she would have killed some of my siblings if I hadn’t stopped her. Once I came back, I quickly recognized within her, the same kind of tightly contained monstrousness that had frequently awoken within my former-selves.

Don’t get me wrong. My wife wasn’t unhinged, or mentally broken, on the contrary everything she did was a sign of generations of genetic-programming and prenatal hypnotic programming, working exactly as intended. I couldn’t help wondering whether Jo’s former-country knew what they’d so carelessly set loose. The point being, the super soldiers of Jo’s batch loved to fight, they loved to hunt, they loved to kill. It was something that was innate to who and what they were.

Which was why, I generally let Jo take the lead on these little hunts. She got to work out her build of aggression, and I got to watch her at her most natural. Ripping and tearing the world to shreds around her. I just trailed behind her, escorted by a small troop of figments that would help me clean up any small fry, and collect and/or mine the more passive loot in the area. Occasionally something would reach me, but it wasn’t too hard to swat them down with a wave of my hand and a pulse of kinetic energy.

Jo put her kinetic-cannon away and the sun-gold metal of her arm extended and sharpened itself like putty. A massive tentacle blade tore through the crowd of merman and crab-soldiers. Sending blood, flesh, and chitin flying into the air. I call my wife a dog-kin. The system calls my wife a dog-kin with a question mark at the end. However, in hindsight, there’s no way a nation as advanced as the one Jo was born in, would waste all that time and money making better dog-kin. Especially when the majority culture in that country was human.

Jo and her brethren were designed to be able to fight on land, in the mountains, at the depths of the oceans, amidst the clouds, in the cold void of space, and on the distant and uninhabitable worlds that had long ago fallen out of reach to us, after our world became a server of Horologia. Their anatomy possessed so many redundancies that only a complete decapitation or total incineration could serve as an instant-kill. That final generation of tank-born supersoldiers possessed superior physical abilities, intellects, and regeneration abilities to the average elite...Never mind, the average person.

In short, Josephine Jocelyne Holst nee Irvine was a monster. A proud and self-proclaimed, genetic abomination. The human and dog-kin genetics were just the framing from the grand tapestry that was the rest of her genetic code. The rest of her genetics were borrowed from mundane and monstrous variants of myriad fish, reptiles, birds, insects, and plant species. It would honestly be easier to name a species that the scientists that created Jo and her tank-siblings didn’t borrow something from.

To make matters worse, and/or better, the key feature of her genetics was a specific rapidly adapting, highly unstable, blight-variant that assured that Jo’s genes would continue adapting and evolve with each new experience, new foe, and new lifeform that she came into contact with. Thus the forms in which she fought were generally just as varied as the weapons and fighting styles she used. Jo had far exceeded the capabilities and resilience of her fellow “siblings”.

Thus, neither Jo or I had any clue what her ultimate form would look like. It’s entirely possible that Jo’s had greatly diverged from what her creators had intended, by this point in time. I am self-aware enough to know that I had exposed my wife to things that few mortals would ever witness or come into contact with in our journeys together. Her cultivation efforts, her experiences and battles, and a small bit of tinkering by yours truly to remove a few pesky control pins that her former-masters set in places, could easily result in Jo becoming something far more than her creators had intended. Regardless, I was simply pleased to see my wife enjoying herself and living her best life.

Turning my attention to the present, I was amused to find that Jo was currently shifting towards a roughly aquatic form as we progressed through the drowned city. By the time we reached the boss of this ruin, a thirty-foot tall squid-headed demon of some kind, Jo had transformed into an almost twenty-foot tall, semi-humanoid, sea-serpent. Quickly coiling around the squid-headed demon after throwing herself at it, and using the spikes on her armored chassis to essentially chainsaw the creature to death.

“Ah, it’s getting to be that time already?” said Jo. Suddenly all sunshine and bubbles again, as if she hadn’t just been gnawing her way through the neck of some forgotten failed-deity seconds ago. Her body still largely resembled a cross between a spiny-backed sea-serpent and a werewolf.

“Yeah, you all set to head back?” I said. Unphased by how quickly she could flip the switch that divided the bestial killing machine and the pollyanna woman.

“Okie, doke...Do you mind casting a cleaning spell on me? I’m all sticky and it’s not really fun anymore,” said Jo.

“Sure, love,” I said. Already casting a spell that would scrub away the glowing purple ichor from Jo’s fur and golden armor.

*************************************************************************************************************

Over in Veleno-Rana-Perfetta, a young woman entered the shop while dressed in the black, blue, and green of a school uniform. The young woman was petite and slender, with an unassuming feel about her. Her skin was pale. She had a long face with a rounded jaw, somewhat cheeks, a flat nose, and small rounded lips. Her light blue eyes were large and her eyebrows were smooth like an artist's brush strokes. Her straight red hair was shoulder-length, and neatly braided.

This young woman was Brenna “Brandy” Kane. A few weeks ago, her father Dalton sold her over to the store. At the time, she’d stood shell-shocked as she watched her father leave her without a single second look, but in hindsight, Brandy hadn’t been all that surprised. For weeks now, she’d been dreading the possibility of her father either just leaving her somewhere, or selling her off to one of the brothels, or taverns they passed through. In her heart of hearts, she’d secretly suspected that the only reasons he’d still kept her with him, was pride, and her potential utility as a bartering tool, or emergency collateral if the need arose. And to a greater extent, it seemed those suspicions were correct.

Brandy was filled with no small amount of trepidation when shortly after her father’s abandonment of her, the two shopkeepers' smiles fell and they turned to her. She was both surprised and relieved when the next words out of their mouths were.

“How horrible…”

“I know…”

“What do we do?”

“Tch, I don’t know, hold on let me figure this out…”

The male shopkeeper, the man she now knew as Ellis Holst, turned to her and informed her that if she wished, she was free to go.

“If there’s one thing we don’t traffic in here...It’s people. I don’t sell souls. I don’t truck in slavery. I’m not too cool with indenture either because it easily turns into slavery…” said Ellis.

“Do you have anywhere you’d like us to drop you off? Any trustworthy friends or relatives we can leave you with?” said the female shopkeeper, Josephine.

Brandy felt a muted sadness as she realized not for the first time, she didn’t. She had no one and nothing. Her father had been the only family she had. Her mother had run off ages ago, and heaven only knew where she was, or if she was even still alive. Dalton had no living siblings, and his parents had died when she was still a swaddling babe.

“Er, did you have any plans? Is there any way we can help you on your way?” said Ellis. Looking uncomfortable.

Again, Brandy was sad to say she didn’t. Her life had been even more upended than her father’s was, when Dalton lost his status. Where Dalton had been a psychic of the Psychic Union, Brandy had been raised as a house-flower. A living doll. Her life had been a dull malaise, or dancing, knitting, and bridal lessons, as Dalton’s sole intent for her, was for use in procuring a useful marriage contract. Meaning, her chances of surviving on her own, and her knowledge of the outside world outside of what she’d experienced in the last few months, were equally nil.

Fortunately, regardless of her father’s intentions, Brandy Kane was a girl with a good head on her shoulders. Thus with a mixture of tears, sincere begging, and a succinct explanation of the few useful talents and skills she had, Brandy was able to get herself a job. Becoming an employee of the strange dimension-hopping store, and its mysterious, yet kindly, proprietors. Oddly enough, their first real task for her was having her go to school here in the world named Veleno-Rana. According to Ellis, she needed to work on her foundations a bit, if she was going to be useful to the store.

Brandy guessed it made “some” sense, the only reason she wasn’t illiterate was that she’d needed to be able to read to memorize poetry and songs. Aside from that she sorely lacked the thing known as common knowledge. The cynical part of her mind that was influenced by Dalton, couldn’t help but note that educating her made it much easier for her to just leave though...and the two strange entities hadn’t done anything to bind her to the shop.

Nor had they made any indication that her continued presence in the shop was in any way mandatory. The Dalton in her head, alternated between calling them overly altruistic fools, and calling them overly sneaky ones. Sensing some kind of trick or trap. Yet if it was a trick, Brandy had yet to see what the point would be. They already had her in the palm of their hands and from what's she'd seen they were far too powerful for her to against them in any way. By the logic of her world and upbringing, they really shouldn't have been as nice as they were. She was essentially an ant to them. Who spends that much time being super courteous and kind to an insect, only weirdos, that's who.

Ultimately, learning an entirely different world's knowledge both through the “skill books” that the store held, and in the classroom of the other world, felt a bit overwhelming at times. Thus Brandy felt compelled to come back to the store often, because she felt safest there. The Holsts’ treated Brandy like family and offered her a warmth and security that her father had never given her. The feeling was unfamiliar, but she found it grew more comfortable and irresistible the longer she spent with them.