Punk's Curse (Punkification/Demon Corruption)

Patron Commission for Kyoko who just told me to do whatever idea I liked from Poll 9. 

Speaking of polls, last call to $5+ patrons for ideas for poll 10! I'm putting it up on the 15th, whether I have all ideas or not.

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The antique shop was old. It smelled funny, and had the sort of dry dusty air of too many old things in one place. The wooden floorboards groaning with the strains of their age and dust swirled through the air in front of Zariah’s face. It was honestly kind of impressive that something could feel this old when Matsushita was only decades old - this place felt like it had been present for centuries despite the impossibility.

“Welcome, welcome. Looking for anything in particular?” The proprietor, an ancient Japanese man, asked in English as the bell tinkled above her. “I could help if you wish,” he said as he started to stand. She could practically hear the creaking of his bones.

“Ah, no, just looking around! You can sit down!” Zariah said hurriedly.

“Well, you know where to find me, then…”

The young woman hadn’t realized she looked like such an obvious tourist. She was of course, but she wondered what gave her away. Zariah’s father had come to Matsushita on a business trip, and elected to bring his daughter along with him since it was summer break and his company had offered to pay for the extra ticket. For most destinations like it, she might have refused - one city was much like another in the era of globalization, even if it happened to be on a floating island.

But Matsushita wasn’t just a city, not just a man-made island; it was the global capital of magic, only recently confirmed to exist and at its most common in the place where it had been revealed to the world. That made it a good bit above your average travel destination, and she hadn’t yet been disappointed - she’d seen people flying around above her head, remarked on with as much comment by the pedestrians around her as a relatively low-flying plane. Once, while she’d been having lunch, a young lady in armor had crashed through the window, apologized for the disruption, and dashed back outside to re-engage her foe while the waiters got to sweeping glass and the one manning the bar called into the back for the spare window.

You couldn’t come to a place like this and not get some kind of souvenir. And call her a hipster, but Zariah wasn’t going to be satisfied with an overpriced t-shirt and baseball cap (or whatever the usual tourist-bait of choice in the city-state was). She wanted something more personal. And where could you find more unique, weird, and esoteric things than a pawn shop or antique store?

Browsing the shelves, Zariah hummed a song to herself. There were a lot of weird-looking things, but most of them were out of her price range, or just weird-looking but boring in actual function.

Eventually, though, she found something very interesting… lifting the object, it felt somehow right in her arms. The black metallic finish and white skulls decorating it were a bit dramatic, but they looked cool, especially with all the softly glowing purple runes along it’s base - and somehow she knew those weren’t LEDs causing it. It was Matsushita - of course it would be some minor magic making it glow. And it was surprisingly in her price range!

“I’ll take this,” she said as she returned to the proprietor.

“Ah, that’s been here for a while…” he said. “Nice to find a new home for it. You know how to play?”

“I’m in a band back home! The other girls will be so jealous…”

The black guitar’s sigils glowed a bit brighter as money exchanged hands, unnoticed by either person. Zariah walked out of the store, already wondering if she could find somewhere fun to test it out…

“Are you sure this is the place, Natsuki?” Hikari asked.

“This is where Mom said it was. Look at all those punk-rockers!” Natsuki insisted. Her goggles compared the people to a database of people in the city, meant to be used to identify minions, and indeed, every punk was a match with someone - most of whom had not looked anything like they did now, and in a few cases had been male.

The group was rampaging through the blocks around the club, grabbing people and bringing them back to be turned into punks like them. It was pretty standard minion behavior, but oddly, Hikari and Natsuki couldn’t tell who was giving the orders - usually the big boss was right on the front lines, but this time they seemed likely to be inside of the club.

“...Yeah, I see your point…” Hikari said.

“I wonder how I’ll look all punk-y? Leather and spikes seem fun.” Natsuki noted.

“Hey, we’re not going in there to join them, we’re going in there to stop them!” Hikari complained.

“In all fairness to Natsuki,” Izanami said, “With you it seems the latter becomes the former a disproportionate amount of the time.”

“Well, no sense waiting around.” Hikari said, twirling her staff around and pointedly ignoring Izanami. “Let’s get going!”

The two heroines approached the club, ready for a fight, and a gaggle of the punk-rock women approached them in turn once they noticed. The six of them surrounded Hikari and Natsuki, circling like wolves. “Hey, girls! Look what we got here! Some more groupies just waltzing into our territory, huh?” One of them said.

“Hey, goodie two-shoes over there,” Another said, apparently to Hikari, “You here to get fucked up, or are we going to have to fuck you up first?”

“Just because you’re minions doesn’t mean you have to be so rude.” Hikari said.

Izanami sighed. “Priorities, Hikari.”

“You say that like you bitches deserve anything else!” The punk retorted, “Thanks for picking the hard way, guard duty was getting boring!”

“Right, right.” Hikari nodded. “Hard way it is. Sorry!”

“What are you apologizing for-” one of the punks started, but was cut off as a blast of magic sent them flying like a ragdoll.

“Nope! Nothing too strong here.” Natsuki said, using her gear to analyze the minions. “Just bog standard minions. Not even all that enchanted, just really aggressive. Kinda disappointing, actually, how are they going to transform us if they’re so weak?”

The six minions at the door were sent flying about like ragdolls in short order, and Hikari hummed to herself as she strolled on into the club. “It’s kinda nice to see a less deceptive villain for once,” she admitted, “So much easier when they don’t try and trick you, isn’t it?”

“Rather less likely to end with us minionized at least.” Izanami agreed.

“I think we can probably be done with this pretty quickly.” Natsuki said, stepping over an unconscious punk as she followed Hikari, “The minions probably can’t do transformations themselves and have to bring them to the boss, so there shouldn’t be too many hanging around. Their leader’s probably pretty tough though!”

“It’ll be nice if we can last a fight without you ending up as a brain-dead drone or sycophant slave.” Izanami said idly.

The club was pulsing with music when they entered, a white noise of popular punk rock befitting its occupants. Hikari got to work without delay or fanfare. The erratic beat was punctuated by the shouts of minions, and the answering booms of magical power blowing them away as Hikari made her way through the magically expanded club room by room. Indeed, while incredibly aggressive, the punks weren’t acting all that smart, just rushing in a straight line towards Hikari and making easy targets for the magical girl’s excessively powerful head-on blasts.

It wasn’t long before they found an important-looking room. It was quieter here than elsewhere, and the double doors had twin golden guitars embossed on their wood. “Boss room? I think it’s a boss room.” Natsuki said. “Locked though! Hikari, you know what to do!”

Hikari walked forward and knocked.

“You can’t seriously believe they’ll just-” Izanami started.

“Oh, sorry!” a voice said from inside. There was a click. “Door’s unlocked, come in!”

As Izanami went silent in her bafflement, Hikari and Natsuki did just that. Inside the room was a large stage and ample seating, like a concert venue. That much was expected. What wasn’t expected was that it’s occupant wasn’t some nutty punk rocker or other blatant villain. Instead, there was just a normal, even kinda cute, girl. Dark skin, silky black hair, and a modest figure, she hardly looked the image of a rampaging villainess. Hikari didn’t see her that way, at least. “Hello! I’m Hikari!” Hikari said cheerfully.

“Zariah.” The young lady said, offering a hand. “Are you a magical girl or something? I heard some loud sounds out there.”

“Yep! You’re being kept prisoner here, right? Do you know where the boss is? We can save you!” Hikari was ecstatic - she got to save someone before they got minionized!

“Uh… that’s… kinda complicated? Like, I’m sort of a prisoner, sort of… not?” Zariah said sheepishly. “I don’t think there is a boss here.”

“Huh? Then who’s making all those punks?” Natsuki asked, pouting a bit with disappointment.

“I don’t know!” Zariah said. “They just… appear! And they’re calling me mistress for some reason. Maybe they just really like my music?”

“Oh, music? Do you play something?” Hikari asked.

“Hikari, I think that’s not something you should ask-” Izanami started.

“Yeah! I got a new guitar just recently, it’s great, want a listen?” Zariah picked up a black guitar with skull designs on it, cris-crossed in purple.

“Sure, sounds fun!” Hikari said cheerfully. “I like all kinds of music!”

Zariah played a cord, and the wave of sound and energy hit both Hikari and Natsuki at the same time. The next hit just as hard, bouncing through their heads. As the song got going, the power of the guitar shook their bodies, seeped into their minds. Hikari hardly noticed how her skin began to get paler, or how she couldn’t take her eyes off of Zariah. The music drowned out her other thoughts.

“Hikari, it’s… I think the guitar’s-” Izanami tried to say. But as she spoke, Zariah began to sing, a full-throated punk-rock song that muffled Izanami’s words, and then her thoughts. She was going to say something about the guitar, right? What was it? She couldn’t think very well as the cords bounced through her mind, left her wanting more.

“You’re really great, Zariah!” Hikari shouted over the music. Unnoticed, and uncared for, the magic began to warp her clothes. The whites and greys darkened to black, contrasting starkly against her skin as it paled further to near-pure white.

“Don’t you dare stop now!” Natsuki agreed, as she went through similar changes. Every note pushed her deeper and deeper, while black makeup began to paint itself on her face and spiraling tattoos appeared on her skin. Her magical gear vanished, and the clothes beneath seemed to partially rip apart as she transformed. Her hair went black and started to turn spikey and wild.

Hikari’s own changes continued, only encouraged as she began to sing along with Zariah, Izanami doing just the same. The white streaks in Hikari’s hair multiplied as her hair got even longer and went from mostly cohesive curls to wild and untamed, and her clothes shifted further. Her skirt tightened and split as it became black leather shorts (ripped at the bottom, of course). Her hoodie fell away as her shirt followed suite, pushing up her breasts and constricting her waist as it became a black corset. Fishnet stockings and gloves criss-crossed her skin, and black skull symbols marked her body and black makeup coated her face around the eyes and lips.

Zariah was oblivious to the changes, too focused on the song to realize the effect it had on her audience. The magical guitar warped their forms into proper punks - but it’s effect was amplified on Hikari, as it interacted with her magic and the fact she had a second person riding around inside and singing along. Hikari had had her guard down completely, and didn’t bother to resist the changes, and that increased the effect exponentially - something most easily noticeable when black horns started to push their way out of her head.

While Natsuki was basically done, rendered a riotous punk indistinguishable from those blasted on the way in, Hikari’s change continued. She wasn’t just going to be a punk. She was going to be more. The horns grew further and further, until they added a good few inches to her height. Her nails blackened and expanded into near talons, while her shorts were further ripped by a leathery tail springing from her bottom. Her eyes turned red while it’s whites turned black.

Hikari knew instinctively what had happened to her. She’d been turned into some kind of punk-style demoness. And somehow, it was difficult to care. She was loving it. The music ripped out that nice girl personality she’d had before, tore away the morals and cares. Why should she give a rat’s ass about protecting the city? She would rather tear it all down! And more than anything, she’d stick with her icon and idol, her beloved…

“Mistress!” The newly minted demoness cried out as Zariah finished her song, leaping into an embrace with the girl. “You crushed that song! We’ll spread your music across the whole fucking city! The world!”

“H-Hikari? What happened-” Zariah stammered, opening her eyes and shocked to find the magical girl gone and replaced by a chalk-white skinned, leather clad demon.

Hikari straddled Zariah where she sat, causing the girl to blush fiercely as their breasts pressed together and she felt the heat of her body. “I heard your song, and it turned me into a real psycho bitch. But I’m your psycho bitch, mistress~ I’ll do whatever you tell me to~”

“That’s right mistress!” Natsuki added helpfully. “All the punks here are all yours! We practically exist to spread the party wherever you want it!”

Zariah felt like she should do… something. Tell them to stop. Maybe try and get them to turn back. But… she found she didn’t dislike the attention, the feeling of Hikari on top of her… a tentative hand reached out to cup one of her breasts, and Hikari pushed into it. “I… I think I could get used to this…”

The guitar slipped from her hand, but continued to glow as it’s influence spread...