Originally I'd just intended for it to show a day in her life, but it spiraled out of control pretty quickly. Eventually I decided that by the end of this story, I want to see if I can turn Bahija into a legitimately decent being. The fun, as always, is in the getting there.
Both Circe and Raleigh are mentioned, but neither of them make actual appearances. Ditto with Applepills; I guess the argument could be made that I can freely use her, given that she's not technically the same species as her source character, but I didn't want to take the chance and I didn't want to ask her creator for permission.
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Zero Context: Woolgathering
Chapter One
Approximate Date and Time: July of 2020, just before dawn
Location: Brotherhood HQ
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The expansive room was dark. A blue suit jacket and tie hung on a rack in one corner. A detailed map of Muffinville proper decorated all of one wall, and a smaller map showing points of interest outside the city was pinned to another. An empty wooden desk sat forlornly beneath it. A closet door was ajar close by, from which a dizzying array of child-sized suits could be seen hanging inside; another door next to it led to a private bathroom. The bay window on the south side was completely blocked by heavy curtains.
The center of attention was the bed in the middle. Queen-sized, adorned with a star-speckled purple comforter and arrayed with no less than six pillows that seemed to glow, it was a practical nightlight without having any actual light of its own. It was in this bed that Missy Coco Shanelle softly snored away, dead to the world amidst a veritable cocoon of blankets with only her nose and mouth visible. A metallic staff larger than she was, tipped with a magic orb of unknown origin, rested against the bedpost.
A door off to the left opened to admit a shivering Bahija. The sheep-girl secretary was dressed more warmly than she would've liked for the summer, a heavy bathrobe over a full set of pajamas and a pair of slippers. She double-checked a thermostat next to the door before nodding in resigned acceptance. 53 degrees Fahrenheit, she thought as she closed the door behind her. And here I was thinking that the temperature was too cold for summer. Why does she have it down so low? And why was I thinking that stealing those industrial-grade air conditioners was a good idea?
Bahija's eyes focused on her boss. I hate this part. "Boss?" she called as she stepped near the bed. "Boss? Missy Coco, time to wake up."
As expected, Missy's snores kept going. Seriously, I hate this. "Missy?" she called again, this time a bit louder. "You said you had something big planned for today. Come on. Would you please get up? We can't get started until you do. You've had almost 10 hours of sleep by now. You can't seriously still be tired."
Still nothing. Bahija huffed and folded her arms. She's being more stubborn than usual. "Missy, get up. I've got Reese's Puffs in the kitchen. I thought you liked Reese's Puffs! You don't want any, I'm sure someone in the East wing would be proud to have them! I'll even take it over there myself and risk getting blown up with people. You love seeing me get blown up, don't you?"
Nada. Bahija rested a hand on her hip, lost as to how to proceed. Thought for sure that would do it. Oh, well... She covered her mouth to suppress a yawn. Maybe I can get me an extra hour. Maker knows I need it. She turned away and headed for the exit---
"YOU KNOW WHAT I'M GONNA DO?"
The complete unexpectedness of the noise, which Bahija would later learn clocked in at 140 decibels, sent her skyrocketing with a scream. The humanoid blur cleared the seven meters between the floor and the ceiling, plowing straight through it.
"I'M GONNA GET MYSELF A 1967---"
The bundle of blankets came to life at last as Missy stirred, yawning.
"---CADILLAC ELDORADO CONVERTIBLE."
With a bit of struggling she pulled herself free of her cocoon, revealing the oversized headphones that adorned her cranium and protected her ears from the horrendous racket.
"HOT PINK, WITH WHALE SKIN HUBCAPS---"
She reached over, grabbed her staff...
"---AND ALL LEATHER COW INTERIOR---"
...and used it to shut off her alarm clock from a distance. "I love how that was made just for me," she chortled, rolling off the bed and getting to her feet. She removed her headphones and set them aside as she switched on a lamp, aiming to get ready for the day.
The floor shook as something crashed through the foyer's glass ceiling. What sounded like a screaming sheep kept up her racket until she smashed into the ground around a hundred feet below.
"Huh," Missy mused. "I had something big planned for today, and she goes and does it herself without my say-so. My secretary is awesome!"
"No, she isn't," one of the plushies guarding her door outside said. "You're just a jerk."
A cackle. "And don't you forget it!"
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Bahija was nothing if not durable. After landing, she was able to crawl into the kitchens and grab some hot water to restore her dragon-girl form. From there, her magic healed her wounds and allowed her to stand straight once more.
Twenty minutes later she was at a dining room table back in sheep-girl form, nibbling at a few cream cheese-layered bagels and some iced tea. Missy entered the room, fully dressed in her usual navy blue suit and dress tie, and claimed a box of Reese's Puffs for herself while humming something obnoxious under her breath. Bahija didn't react, long used to her morning behavior by now.
Olympia Andromeda, the Brotherhood's current financial advisor and financier, entered shortly thereafter to get her own breakfast. If the name sounded ostentatious, that's because it was meant to be. Olympia wasn't just a princess due to her Indigo-ness: she was legitimate royalty who had claim to a fiefdom somewhere outside Muffinville proper, with a few extra holdings both within and without the city limits that made her wealthy. She was already clothed in her armored dress and regalia, though her sword was nowhere to be seen. She glanced cautiously at Bahija before grabbing some bacon and eggs from the fridge, setting to work at the nearest stove.
Bahija clamped down on her urge to dunk herself in tea water, abduct Olympia, fly off somewhere, and wait for someone to rescue her captive. Now wasn't the time for that. "We're still missing one," she said. "Where's Missy's bodyguard?"
"She's keeping herself out of sight today," Olympia answered, occupied. "She said something about 'lacking permission', artistic creators, and elements of insanity. Then she stole my Advil and locked herself in her quarters with it. Sweet Xia, that crazed little giggle she does creeps me out..."
"You're on point today, then," Missy ordered, her tone discouraging any arguments. "Tell the Chibi Ninjas that they're tasked with looking after the Ovalisks from now until evening, and make sure they grab their protective gear to prevent transformations. You're on bodyguard duty." She jammed her head into the cereal box and happily munched away at its contents.
Olympia sighed, her head sinking, and for an instant Bahija actually felt a bit of pity for her. The advisor was a halfway decent combatant; no one capable of gracefully swinging a crystal-bladed zweihänder as big and wide as she was one-handed could be called anything otherwise. However, the sad truth of the matter was that of the four of them, her list of abilities was the shortest. "Boss?" the secretary piped up. "Mind if I try my hand as a bodyguard? You know I'd be much better able to defend you compared to her."
This caused the advisor to look up hopefully, but Missy shook her boxed-in head. The cereal within rattled a bit in response. "No, I'd like you to tackle something for me today."
Bahija put down the bagel she was working through, trepidation rising as she awaited her orders. "What do you want me to do?"
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Time: Three hours later
Creeeaak.
"AAAGH! I give, I give!"
Zapana Zquor released Bahija from the leglock she had her in and stood up, dusting off her hands. "I could have told you that was going to turn out poorly," she chastised her, making no move to help her defeated opponent to her feet.
"Missy told me she wanted me to tackle something today," Bahija whined, wincing as she stood up using a shelf for support. "I didn't think she meant it literally!"
A raised eyebrow as Zapana gestured at the small crowd that had gathered around them in the department store. "And her telling you to dress up as a wrestler didn't set off any warning sirens? ...That's an ugly uniform you chose, by the way. Just putting that out there."
Bahija 'hmphed', glaring off to the side. "I don't watch pro wrestling. Sue me."
"Alive for over two thousand years, and you've never watched pro wrestling? At all?" Zapana asked, not sure whether to believe her.
"Not that I haven't watched it. I just think it's a silly way for a grown person to make a living."
"Heh."
Bahija turned her glare on Zapana. "What's so funny?"
"You are. You show up on the Muffin Continent as a dragon-girl warlock who thinks that bracers, sort-of-skirts and greaves are the height of fashion, and you're saying that grandstanding and beating each other senseless in boots and tights are both ridiculous."
The sheepgirl huffed, choosing to ignore the subtle sign that Zapana wasn't a fashion expert herself. She wasn't in the mood to argue semantics. "Well, they are! And the worst part is, they actually get paid for all of that! How desperate can you get? Did they take too many hits to the brain as a kid?"
Zapana smirked. "Maybe they are and maybe they aren't, but it still makes you a massive hypocrite. And you know what I do to massive hypocrites?"
Bahija panicked, taking a few backwards steps but finding her movement blocked by a clothes rack as the wolf marched towards her. "No no no no no no no---!"
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SMASH!
"Ouch!"
SLAM!
"Hey---!"
SNAP!
"Agh! My horns! She snapped off both my horns!"
Kaoru whistled as the crowd cheered. --"Flowing DDT,"-- she said admirably. --"Nice."--
"Thank goodness I'm a little hypocrite and not a massive one," Callista murmured, not looking up from the jewelry she was browsing through nearby. She pulled a bottle of Dr. Pepper from her shopping bag and a $50 bill from her purse, handing them off to the store employee tending to her. "Pay you to give that soda pop to the sheep. Put the damages on my bill, and don't skimp on the estimate."
The man took both and hustled off.
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Bahija grimaced a few minutes later as she walked down the street next to a happy Zapana, her horns fully restored and her wrestling gear swapped for a modified Japanese schoolgirl's uniform that the store had in stock. "You realize that if I had access to hot water in there, I'd have left your mangled skeleton to rot."
"True," Zapana countered, not losing her smile, "but you'd have to weigh that against the fact that if you opened your mouth even once, you'd risk having a Dark Fire Bullet shot straight down your gullet. Your normal form might withstand star-level flames, but your insides sure can't. But hey; at least you'd have that warm and fuzzy feeling, right?"
Bahija's hand said 'hello' to her face, and her face reciprocated. "Today's just not my day..."
"You've got about eleven hours before nightfall. It's only going to get worse from here," Zapana warned, laughing. "How's your alcohol tolerance?"
"Poor."
"Great. C'mon. I know a good bar that's open 24/7. There's no better way to beat the stupid out of you than to get yourself well and truly smashed."
Bahija's grimace remained, this time for an entirely different reason. I can't shake the feeling that there's a double meaning in that sentence. Not seeing any other alternative, she kept up the pace.
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The "Brain Bender" was a bit off the beaten path. Zapana led Bahija into an alley, down a short flight of stairs, and left down another alley. Along the way she felt a tingle pass through her as the air and environment subtly shifted, Muffinville's way of telling her that she had passed into one of the city's many sub-dimensional areas. She suspected that it was of the type she wouldn't have been able to find if someone hadn't guided her in. Without saying anything, she made a note of the place for future surveillance.
The building's stone facade and pseudo-torches made her feel like she was entering a castle dungeon at first, though the neon sign advertising the bar blew that impression out of the water. The interior wasn't as drab and dirty as an actual dungeon, or even one of the old taverns: the floor and walls were stone, sure, but the place was clean, and there was adequate seating and a few paintings for decoration here and there. There was even a radio somewhere playing a country tune at low volume. The entire bar was well-lit, so she could see everything clearly. She counted eight customers scattered around, with three of them sitting in a corner engaged in quiet conversation.
Bahija looked at the bartender as she sat down at the counter, Zapana taking the stool to her right. He seemed humanoid from the neck down, but his bald head was reminiscent of an octopus. He even had a set of tentacles guarding his mouth from view. It was hardly the most disturbing thing she'd seen in her life---that honor went to the time she was forced to watch The Garbage Pail Kids Movie after losing a bet---but it was still off-putting. "So if you don't mind me asking..." she spoke quietly, deciding that offending him probably wasn't a smart move.
"That's Steve," Zapana said, making no attempt to lower her voice. A few of the customers looked up at the disturbance, then settled when they saw who it was. "Guy's half mind flayer. They're telepathic, they can do damage from afar if they sense others using telepathy, and if their tentacles get in contact with you they can eat your brain. Which means if they tried it on you, they could probably get arrested for sexual harassment."
"That joke wasn't funny when Ambush's kid first said it," Bahija snarled, traces of her true self heard around the edges. "It's not funny now."
"And yet it's still where a lot of your thoughts tend to gravitate. Am I wrong?"
"...Not really," Bahija admitted.
"Didn't think so. Hey, Steve? A Dark 'n' Stormy with extra lime for me, please. Give the lightweight here a bit of cider. She's new here."
The bartender grunted and got to work. Bahija ignored him in favor of a question that had been lurking around in the back of her mind since they had been kicked out of the store. "Zapana, I have to wonder. That Circe friend of yours is Blue, right?"
"Yeah. What about her?"
"So, why don't I ever hear about you insulting her the same way you insult me?"
Zapana snorted back a laugh. "I used to, for a year or two after I met her. I was forced to stop after people started getting on my case about it, then I had to leave for a while to grow up some after a prank gone wrong. Character development happened, we agreed to be friends, and here we are."
Huh... "So, what you're saying is that all this mockery I get from you whenever we meet isn't due to discrimination?" Bahija asked.
"Not in the fullest sense, anyway," Zapana answered cheerfully. "Kittenoans don't have mammaries like most humanoids think of them as, so when I first met female humans I thought those things on their chests were ridiculous." A shrug. "Most of my interactions with humans were limited until the 90's, so I never got much flak for my opinions until after I started bothering Circe."
Bahija started to say something, but Zapana held up her hand to stop her. "Let me finish. Strange as it may sound, it isn't due to Blue's romantic inclinations either. Aldonza-chan, Calli and I all hate that aspect of the Color, but it's not like Circe gushes over it in daily conversation, or talks our ears off about her love life or anything like that. She's content with having an all-female staff and a modest status quo, and that makes her situation easier to ignore. Like yourself, it's so firmly ingrained in her due to the Color's influence that simply talking her out of it wouldn't have been enough anyway."
That's nice and everything, but I'm not seeing what she's getting at. "Then level with me, Zapana," Bahija requested, unconsciously clasping her hands together on her lap. She barely acknowledged Steve when he placed their drinks before them. "Why do you persist in being an $^&@%& to me? What did I ever do to you specifically?"
"Me? Nothing," Zapana said without hesitation. "But considering that you've never shown any remorse for wanting to ruin Callista's life by ripping her away from home and adding her to your collection, you didn't have to. That's good enough for me."
Ch... so she wants to play that game? "That's rich coming from you. Your past as a super-soldier is a matter of public record, Zapana. Who knows how much damage you did to people's lives before you turned yourself in? How many hopes did you dash before you were forced into your parole?" She smiled victoriously. "Face it: you're just as guilty as I am. I wonder if I could call my phone while it's jammed between your ears?"
"Actually, there's a pretty clear difference between you and I."
Bahija gave a confused bleat, wincing ever so slightly at the noise before clearing her throat and translating it into English. "...Huh?"
Zapana raised her glass to her lips and drained her drink dry in one go before continuing. "I was yanked out of my own house against my will by a power-hungry madman; I was genuinely sorry for the crimes I committed, which I should point out included straight-up murder; I was willing to fulfill the conditions of my parole, and I wanted wholeheartedly to do whatever it took---short of death, of course---to redeem myself in others' eyes before moving on with my life. I was even able to gain the forgiveness of those whose relatives I'd killed, and you can bet that took some major heart on their end." She chuckled softly in disbelief. "Seriously, who even does that..."
Zapana's jovial tone was dropped entirely in favor of animosity. "You, on the other hand, are as follows: #1, an unrepentant mass murderer and galactic conqueror who's never shown the slightest remorse for the skulls you've crushed beneath your feet; #2, guilty of almost every crime in existence, and proud of it; #3, you're so much of a nymphomaniac that you'd gladly violate any parole just to fulfill your worst desires one more time; and #4, you willingly joined a group that are antagonists for antagonism's sake just because you thought it would give you a shot at getting on Callista's good side. You're trying to put Ali Al-Saachez on the same level as Heero Yuy, for the lack of a better comparison."
Her irises went dark, and she leaned forward to look Bahija in the eyes so quickly that the secretary had to scramble not to fall off the stool. "Simply put: if you were an actual sheep right now and not a humanoid with assorted sheep characteristics, I'd reduce you to a 'Futurama' head-in-a-jar, turn the rest of you into a roasted double-decker mutton sandwich (hold the relish), flavor it with the hottest sauces I can find, and eat it slowly over the course of thirty-five minutes while sitting in front of you. Then I'd re-humanize your head and stick your jar in some morally-deficient medic's refrigerator just for the inevitable 'Team Fortress 2' reference. And you know what the best part is? No one in the multiverse would care."
As Zapana turned away to stare into her empty glass, picking the slice of lime off the brim and eating it, Bahija straightened and regarded her own untouched drink. For a few seconds she was aware of the other customers watching curiously, which she dismissed. "Yeah, but... Callista's still beautiful," she murmured with a dreamy smile, an image of said girl in mid-shopping spree frozen in her mind.
Zapana faceplanted straight down, shattering her glass and cracking the counter. The eight patrons echoed the sentiment, though not with as much force.
"$285 for the replacement glass and the repairs," the bartender rumbled without looking up from the drink he was working on.
"Hai, hai," Zapana groused, brushing glass out of her fur; Bahija noticed that none of the shards had actually penetrated her skin. "You might as well up that to $350, because I need to see what's going on in the mind of this grass-chewer. This is beyond ridiculous."
Bahija's nostrils flared. "Do you take me for a fool? I've never touched pot in my life!"
"And of course that has to be your sole redeeming quality," Zapana growled, officially fed up. She lifted her left arm, raising it behind Bahija's head and causing her to freeze up. "Make that $705, Steve. For the bonus repair charge."
Bahija didn't have enough time to react before she felt a sharp impact on the back of her skull. A dark blur yanked her drink out of the way just before her head crashed off the counter with enough force to split the wood in two. She blacked out and slid off the stool, tumbling to the floor.
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