Keeping Their Oaths (Purification/Twinning)

“...And I swear to serve the Order loyally in battle, and to obey the orders of the Sister Superior, in the name of the Divine.” The pair of young women repeated.

“Stand, Sisters.” The dress-armored Sister Superior said, in her quiet yet authoritative tone. “Your initiation is complete. Welcome to the Sisterhood of the Divine Knights, Sister Lotte, Sister Arete.”

The two warriors looked at each other, grinning widely before high fiving. “I told you we could make it in!” Arete said, putting an arm around her much shorter companion.

“The trials were easier than I expected…” Lotte confessed, ducking out but still smiling.

The pair were adventurers who had been trying to get their start for ages now - tall, olive-skinned and brown-haired Arete along with short, pale, blonde Lotte. They were skilled, to be certain, but they’d been unlucky as far as acquiring new gear had gone - even if they should have been roaming more dangerous dungeons and cursed lands, their equipment was simply not up to par and it seemed like the places more their speed had been long picked clean. The dream had seemed doomed, until the childhood friends learned of the Sisterhood.

The order was a rising player in local politics, rising to challenge the Adventurer’s Guild in influence with the argument that their freeform, request based structure left lower “level” regions under defended as adventurers moved on to lands more in line with their own strength. The Sisterhood in some ways acted more like a military force than a religious organization or even a guild, it’s adherents garbed in near-identical enchanted gear and difficult to tell apart from one another - only the Sisters Superior ever showed their faces.

But despite the oddity, they were nothing if not effective; monster attacks had dropped to near nothing in the region. And the gear they handed out was top notch, and they even taught powerful holy magic. Arete and Lotte had joined the Adventurer’s Guild to help people and to see the world, and without magical equipment they simply weren’t all that effective at it - but the Sisterhood offered a way forward. Get their stuff, training, maybe spend a couple of years adventuring from them to pay back, and then go on their way to greener pastures.

“So what now, uh, Sister Superior?” Arete asked, looking around. The ceremony had been held privately, the temple cleared out for the occasion but for the pair and their new boss.

“Come. There’s much to do - we must issue you equipment, and ensure you are properly trained in your new duties.” The Sister Superior turned on her heel and marched through a side door of the temple, into the wing that had been constructed as headquarters for the Sisterhood.

The two followed eagerly, looking forward to getting their new gear. They were led past an array of knights in their armor, some training, some simply patrolling, some with heads bowed in prayer. Lotte nudged her friend, whispering in her ear. “Do they… never take off their helmets? Even here?”

“I dunno. Must be part of their whole ‘ready for anything anytime’ thing?” Arete said with a shrug.

“Your induction is not yet complete; when you next see them, they will allow you to see their faces as Sisters.” The Sister Superior said, having either overheard them or just guessing correctly what they were wondering.

Soon they were alone again, in a quiet hall that led to a golden set of double-doors. “One of our most sacred places,” The Sister Superior explained, “None outside of our order have even seen it’s doors, let alone the interior. This is a privilege that we alone enjoy.”

The inside was so elaborate that Arete at first thought they’d walked into another temple. In some ways, maybe that was what it was; while the main temple was open to anyone, this was one where the Sisterhood alone could pray. Not that they seemed to have an issue doing that anywhere they were whenever they felt like, anyway, but it may have just been cleared out for the initiation. Elaborate mosaics and tapestries adorned the walls, depicting perhaps the founding of the order; a stained glass ceiling shone kaleidoscopic light down below.

“We have prepared equipment for you,” The Sister Superior said without stopping to look at the opulence, walking forward to a table laden with armor, weapons, and other items. “But first, a moment of prayer, to better align you with your Sisters and our precepts-”

“Uh, actually,” Arete said, rubbing the back of her head, “Could we… get to the gear and training? The cause is great and all, but we’re not here for the religious part, so much.”

Lotte elbowed Arete, fuming, but the Sister Superior didn’t seem mad. “Is that so? What could you be here for, then?”

“To learn how to protect people!” Lotte said quickly.

The Sister nodded. “A noble goal, to be certain.”

“Right. So after we pay you back with service for the gear, we’ll be heading onwards-”

The Sister Superior smiled. “Ah. You expect you’ll be leaving the order, in time. I see, this is not an unusual situation.”

Lotte breathed a sigh of relief - she wasn’t mad. Ok. “Yeah… I guess it is like that…”

“Then like those before, I shall have to correct you.” The Sister continued. “We shall pray together.” She snapped her fingers.

The pair of adventurers suddenly fell to their knees, a compulsion they could no more refuse than they could disobey gravity. “What the-” Arete gasped, as she found herself unable to resist, her head bowing in prayer.

“Your bodies understad the nature of your oath, your professed devotion. Your souls know to whom they belong now. Your minds have simply yet to catch up.” The Sister Superior said, kneeling with them and beginning a prayer to their Goddess.

The pair of adventurers found their lips moving without their consent, voices raised in chanted prayer in mirror of the Sister Superior. They felt strange, different - like something was being dragged out of them and replaced.

Arete couldn’t tell at first, with how she was kneeling - but it soon became quite apparent she was shrinking. She lost several inches of height in the space of seconds, her proportions shifting until she was a more normal height. Her boyish short hair grew out rapidly, falling to around her shoulders as it darkened from brown to black. What- what’s going on? She thought, unable to speak except to repeat the Sister Superior’s prayer. Why did she feel so peaceful all of a sudden?

Lotte, for her part, wasn’t having any better a time - she was changing as well, in her case growing taller inch by inch. Soon, she reached the same new height as Arete, if from the other direction. Her own hair, long and blonde as it was, shortened and darkened dramatically, until it only brushed her shoulders and was the same black shade as Arete’s. Don’t we look kind of like… sisters…? She thought. Of course we do, we are- wait, what?

The transformative prayer continued, the Sister Superior extolling the virtues of their Goddess, and praying for her aid in their holy task. It was somehow comforting to the pair, despite the situation. It reminded them of old times, training and praying… their eyes began to cloud over as their minds slipped under the Sister Superior’s influence, new memories flooding in and warring with the old ones. Their old lives falling away, replaced with growing up among the Sisterhood. Their physical transformation continued to match the mental one, with Arete’s skin getting paler while Lotte’s form gained significantly more muscle.

They could remember being something else, kind of. But… it felt so wrong. How could they have been anyone but who they were now? How could they have ever not been in their Goddess’ light? Their transformations continued, with some modest tweaks to their busts and bottoms, but the main change was the face - the pair had become stunningly beautiful… and completely identical. And that felt right. So, so right; the very concept of not being identical to all their Sisters wasn’t so much wrong, as completely incomprehensible. It was just not an idea that the two could process anymore.

The two remembered who they were, even as the names ‘Arete’ and ‘Lotte’ fell away. They were of the Sisterhood of Divine Knights. The loyal followers of the Sister Superior, her most devoted Knight-Sisters. The order was everything to them, and they pledged their everything in return; it was why their beauty was only for their Sisters to enjoy, why any sort of relaxation could only occur in the temple. Lives of tireless training, protection, and quiet prayer were all they needed.

The prayer concluded, and the Sister Superior rose. The two Sisters remained kneeling though. “And with that… your initiation is complete, Sisters.” The Sister Superior said.

“Thank you, Sister Superior,” the pair said in unison. It was impossible for an outside observer to tell which had been which. Just as well, since making such a distinction was irrelevant now. For all intents and purposes, they were the same person. Exactly the same as all of their Sisters.

The new Sisters took their armor with worshipful care, assisting each other in putting it on. They felt a sense of peace once the helmets were in place, shielding their faces from the outside world. They were ready to do whatever the Sisterhood asked of them.

The Sisterhood of Divine Knights would continue to grow over time, it’s adherents growing stronger and more numerous with each passing day. Two Sisters who used to be adventurers found themselves exactly where they’d hoped to be, fighting to protect people in the most dangerous places, if in a new form. They wouldn’t have it any other way, now.