Interlude – Royalty

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Stray Cat Strut (A cyberpunk system apocalypse!) - Ongoing

Fluff (A superheroic LitRPG about cute girls doing cute things!) - Ongoing

Love Crafted (Interactive story about an eldritch abomination tentacle-ing things!) - Completed!

Dreamer's Ten-Tea-Cle Café (An insane Crossover about cute people and tentacles) - Hiatus

Cinnamon Bun (A wholesome LitRPG!) - Ongoing

The Agartha Loop (A Magical-Girl drama!) - Volume Two Complete!

Lever Action (A fantasy western with mecha!) - Volume One Complete!

Heart of Dorkness (A wholesome progression fantasy) - Completed!

Dead Tired (A comedy about a Lich in a Wuxia world doing Science!) - Ongoing

Sporemageddon (A fantasy story about a mushroom lover exploding the industrial revolution!) - Ongoing

Past the Redline (A girl goes too fast, then she does it again) - Completed!

Magical Girl Crystal Genocide (Magical Girls accidentally the planet, and then try to fix it) - Completed!

Magical Girl Rending Nightmare (A sequel to Crystal Genocide! Cute girls in a soviet dystopia having a picnic on the roadside) - Volume Two Completed!

Noblebright (A shipcore AI works to avenge humanity) - Completed!

The Complicated Love Life of Ivil Antagonist (The Empress of Mars finds love) - Completed!

Pokebun (Broccoli Bunch in the world of Pokemon) - Hiatus

Queen Violence (An Assassin Reborn as a Kitten) - Completed!

No Strings Attached (An Elden Ring/Bloodborne inspired progression fantasy) - Ongoing

Save Scumming (A time-looping system apocalypse) - Ongoing

Interlude - Royalty

"Don't fuck up, don't fuck up," she said as she bounced to the side.

Her augs flashed, and like a wave, painted a dozen targets ahead of her with little orange triangles. No squares, which was good. That meant a higher-priority, more dangerous target.

She raised a hand, sighted, and fired. At the same time, the six mechanical tentacles hidden within her dress rose, each one picking a different target.

She could move them with her mind which was all sorts of badass. Minus the part where that involved brain surgery, but it had been quick and mostly painless and her big sister had held her hand through the entire process.

And now she had tentacle guns, so it was totally worth it! She was cool now!

"Targets left!"

She glanced back at her sister (green circle!) and then looked to where she was pointing with the hand not holding onto her kite shield. Ah, yup, those were targets all right!

"I've got them!" she called back. She moved two of her tentacles down, pushing them into the earth even as she hopped up. They were only barely able to hold her up, not because she had to lose weight, but more because the armour that her sister insisted she wear was pretty heavy. It didn't help that the armour was covered in about twenty pounds of petticoats and lace and ruffles.

Miss Emoscythe had taken her and her sister aside and explained in great detail why fashion was important, and Princess was totally onboard with the older woman's explanations. Fashion was important! So she wore her princess outfit proudly, even if it was sometimes a little inconvenient.

More targets were painted in orange triangles across her vision, and she opened fire again. A dozen precise shots, nailing the little dog aliens in the heads.

With her constant shots, Mister Hedgehogs, and Shy running interference ahead, there wasn't much for Knight to do, so her Big Sister had been relegated as spotter for now.

That was fine. Things were going to get a little more hairy once they made it up that final hill and tossed in the bomb.

Hedgehog and Crisis Mode were a bit behind her, carrying the bomb between them. She... well, she'd never tell it to his face, because she wasn't brave like that, but the shape Hedgehog chose for his bomb left a lot to be desired. It was far too spiky to be grabbed easily.

Like... would it have been that hard to make it come in a nice box, with handles?

She had tentacle arms and could probably be helping a little more by at least grabbing on end with them, but she wanted to let Mister Hedgehog suffer for his hubris a little.

She was petty like that.

Under different circumstances, she wouldn't ever allow herself to feel that pettiness. Her father needed all of his daughters, all two of them, to be good and perfect and sweet, to be like her big sister, who was.

To be clear, she didn't have any issues with her bigger, more capable sister. All of her issues were aimed squarely at herself.

She looked further back, to one of the two big stompy robots crushing alien bodies underfoot as they laid down fire that ripped the Antithesis apart. Miss Gomorrah had copied Miss Stray Cat and had her own mecha now.

Princess was looking forward to having her own. She'd be a tall knight, with a huge gun and a laser sword and a very pretty dress...

Ah, but that was for much later. Her attention turned and fixed onto Miss Stray Cat's new mecha. Her augs flicked and placed a targeting symbol over it. It was pink, and shaped like a heart.

"Hey? You good?" her sister asked.

She turned, refocusing on the moment. "Yup. Want to reach the edge of the hill with Miss Shy? We can shoot down into the hive for a bit."

"Sure," her sister said. She touched the soldier-like webbing she insisted on wearing. "I have a few grenades I picked up. Could come in handy."

"Sure! Race you up there?"

"It's irresponsible to take off running like that on a battlef--"

She laughed, then took off running irresponsibly. Well, not exactly. She just ran normally while bunching up her skirts a little. She was wearing proper combat boots beneath, so it wasn't like she'd slip and fall. The boots gave her aesthetic a more competent vibe, according to Miss Emocythe, and they were comfortable. Besides, she didn't know how to run in heels, even if she was sure she could probably get some very comfortable alien-supertech heels. Probably with a built-in jetpack or something.

Now she was tempting herself into the idea.

Shaking her head, she made it to the top, only slowing down a little to aim and shoot at a few dogs with the guns hovering over her head.

Miss Shy paused and looked at her. She was wearing some pretty neat armour under her hooded poncho, but that didn't hide her big expressive eyes any. Shy was a weird woman, but Miss Stray Cat liked her, so...

"We're here to help," Princess said. "Are there lots of them, still?"

Shy nodded. "Yes," she replied.

That was wordy, coming from her.

She moved up to the edge of the crevice that the hive was buried in and leaned forwards, two of her tentacles reaching back to grab onto the ground for balance. The hole was surprisingly deep, like someone had taken a giant's axe and cleaved it into the ground. It was a deep, missing wedge of earth, with multiple holes punched into the walls at different heights.

Huge roots ran from one side of the gap to the other, with smaller branching roots moving elsewhere. There were also several... trees? She wasn't sure if that was what they truly were, but they had the vague look of a tree. A taller trunk that split off into several branches, with something like leaves on the end, only the Antithesis' leaves were almost perfectly round and slightly cup-shaped.

"What are those?" she asked, pointing.

She expected an answer from her AI companion, but surprisingly it was Miss Shy that volunteered.

"They capture sunlight. Something like photosynthesis. But they have something like grass for that as well. Ah, those are both for capturing light, and for dispersing heat. Whatever chemical processes the Antithesis use sometimes create too much heat. They use those as radiators. There's a sap... it's got interesting thermal conductive properties and is very thin and can be made to move quickly through organic pumps from the source of heat to these radiators."

That... was the longest thing she'd ever heard the usually restrained woman say. Was Shy warming up to her, or had she just stumbled on one of her special interests?

Knight finished the climb next to her and winced. "Lots of targets."

Oh, right, the actual aliens.

The sides of the hive were filled with orange triangles.

"Grenade out!" her sister called out before underhanding a little ball of death over the edge.

She took a step back, then winced as it exploded somewhere below. It didn't seem to do all that much, however. "Maybe toss the lot in?" she asked.

"Good idea," Shy said. The woman shouldered her gun, a big chunky shotgun, then two more slid out from around her waist on little mechanical arms. The arms had small jet-pack things mounted to them. Princess had watched Shy literally bounce around the battlefield a few times, and while that looked incredibly fun, it also looked like a quick way to lose one's lunch.

She still wanted to try.

Maybe her giant skirt-wearing knight mecha would have jumpjets? That sounded awesome!

She moved up next to the others and added to the fire going down. The Antithesis were like a hornet's nest that someone had annoyed. Aliens were moving all over the place. Some of them were literally crawling up the sides while others rushed along sharp, ramp-like embankments to try and get to them.

That made them easy pickings. Even when her augs painted some of them with red squares, they still went down fast.

"Alright, move aside!"

She glanced over her shoulder at the familiar voice. It was Catherine, and she had obviously run out of patience with the two carrying up the spike bomb, because it was held firmly in the grip of her cat mecha.

The mech moved up to the edge of the pit, then shifted its head back to 'throw' the bomb down.

It crashed against the sides on the way down, but the big spiked did their job and eventually it caught on some roots.

"I suggest we start moving back," Hedgehog said. "I didn't cheap out."

"Are we talking next hill over, or next province?" Catherine asked.

"Minimum safe is three hundred metres."

That was... a lot.

They took off running, which meant a lot of firing over their shoulders while angry dogs nipped at their heels. She couldn't help but laugh. This was a blast!

***

A note from RavensDagger

Got our first completed cover for Black Apron...

I don't know if this is the one I'll go with in the end? We'll see! I'm pretty happy with it, though, Jegsuu did a good job! 

Free to read on my Patreon, by~ We're getting daily chapters for this one, since... well, it's my latest obsession? 

Oh, but I've been writing Save! I hope to move back up to 2x/week soon! Just need to build a sturdy enough backlog for it! 

Also, sorry I've only posted 1 chapter of SCS this week and the last, I'll post 2 next week, birbo promise! Just in a tough-to-write part of the story <3 Volume ends are often like that, 1000% more effort than the start!