Asterion's avatar evaporated into pixels, which blinked out of existence and scared the shroomans and yosauri. They asked what kind of magic he used, but Gamer wasn't too fond of explaining the entire process and implications of their digital dimension. He motioned Minnie over and said, "I need your help."
"Okay! How long do you need me to sit on you?" Minnie grabbed for Gamer's waistline.
"Not like that!" Gamer stopped her public indecency. Pop ups from Samira showed ( ≧ᗜ≦) Gamer specified, "I need help taking Asterion down. He's a veteran, so basic approaches aren't going to cut the mustard. We have all night and morning to get ready. Can I count on you?"
"Sure!" Minnie agreed with no hesitation. Her unrequited commitment nearly brought a tear to Gamer's eye. That's when Minnie said, "I already came up with a way to train while you were missing."
"You did?"
"Of course! It's been in the works ever since we encountered Marco. Follow me," Minnie hoofed it. The duo left the grand hall. Persica's hawk-like, dreary eyes watched them with high curiosity.
Minnie took Gamer up to their bedroom. Halfway down the battlements hallway, Gamer spotted the main shrooman and his yosaurus shifting around in the chambers. They walked in and surprised the shrooman.
"Ah! Super afternoon, Gamer! And hello, Minnie, I was just finishing up your request," the shrooman stepped aside. A green shellie shell laid against the bed.
"Excellent!" Minnie picked up the shell and faced the head hole. She pulled it over her head and arms. Like last time, her knockers became blockers. However, she wiggled just right and was able to slip through. Her whole body entered and the shell rocked on the floor. Soon thereafter, her arms and legs extended out of the shell. When Minnie stuck her head out, she spun around into a showman's pose, "Tada!"
"Hey, that's pretty good," Gamer approved with raised eyebrows.
"That's not all! Check the box beneath the bed. If you hadn't come up, I would've found a super hiding spot for that fun scavenger hunt feel. Oh well!" the shrooman chuckled.
Minnie popped out of her new shell and gave it to Gamer to keep watch over. It was like holding a barrel. When he accepted it, a notification on the side of his peripheral let him know that the shell was added to his inventory. He opened his inventory, and indeed, it was listed with the other items.
"This counts as an item?" he asked Samira.
She responded, "If it fits in your hands, it's an item."
Gamer found this very helpful, as it established more parameters he could play with. He unequipped the shell in his inventory, since he couldn't put it in his pocket, and it vanished out of his hands. At the same time, Minnie pulled out a present from under the bed. Opening it revealed two normal sized turtle shells.
"Oh wow! You found some?!" Minnie's eyes sparkled. The shrooman smiled proudly.
"What are they?" Gamer asked, needy for more power ups.
Minnie removed her top and flipped it inside out. The reverse side of the tank top was black. Minnie slipped it on again to go with her green trunks. She fit her hands into the smaller turtle shells, and started a boxer's pendulum step. Her brow furrowed, and her demeanor shifted.
The shrooman pulled out his own accessories; a thick moustache and a tiny towel. He equipped the moustache and hung the towel around his neck. He hopped next to Minnie, as she gave a demonstration of a one-two jab combo.
"I'm ready to train, doc!" Minnie said with a new fire in her voice.
"Oh yeah! We'll get ya ready for battle lickity split, Lil Min!" doc shrooman patted her back.
"Please tell me those aren't baby shellie shells..." the items perplexed Gamer.
"Shellies use smaller shells for a bunch of different things. Sports, containers, instruments, and even kitchen utensils. When you and the princess were talking things through in her island hut, doc and I discussed finding some for me," Lil Min explained. She...she didn't say no. It dawned on Gamer that both the shroomans and shellies lived very morbid lives.
Lil Min started her training regimen with doc shrooman by running around the bedroom. Her goal: three hundred laps.
Samira summoned forth a player's greatest enemy, a time trial clock, and began timing Lil Min. Gamer shrugged and joined in the ludicrously small lap jogging. However, after passing by the bedroom door, Samira sent an ominous warning, "In the hallway."
Gamer stopped his jog and turned to the chamber's broken entrance. Nobody was there. Samira turned on the minimap for Gamer's HUD. It showed four blips in the bedroom, and a fifth blip right outside the door. He decided to play it cool and say, "I know you're there. Come on out."
Persica rounded the frame, hidden behind the wall. She appeared like a caught child, "Very astute of you."
"I got them tinglies in the toes," Gamer joked about it, and Samira sent ദ്ദി(˵ •̀ ᴗ - ˵ ) ✧ Lil Min stopped with her laps when she saw Persica. She edged close to the corner of the bed, and tried to be as small as possible.
"Privacy, please," Persica asked of the shrooman. Doc and his yosaurus moved to the end of the hallway. Persica tried to close the door, but it fell free from its hinges and clattered to the ground. It startled the princess, "Oh, shit..."
"It doesn't matter. Nobody knocks. They just...sneak around," Gamer grinned.
Persica cleared her throat and tucked a bang behind an ear, "I wished to ascertain your plot against Asterion, but I see you are already in the midst of one with your shellie."
"Um...my name is Minnie. I'm not defective, and Gamer helped me realize that," Lil Min gave a big smile with her formal introduction to the princess.
"♪♫You have a girlfriend. You have a girlfriend♫♩" Samira sang. Gamer clicked the X of her window and closed her out.
"Are you helping Gamer prepare for tomorrow?" Persica asked. There was a hint of jealousy in her words.
"Yep!" Lil Min strafed side-to-side to keep 'em guessing, all the while throwing out jabs and hooks.
"Is she your girlfriend?" Persica asked Gamer. He gave a hard, exacerbated grunt – he couldn't X the princess.
"We're friends. She's been with me since the beginning. She's...invaluable," Gamer tried to resist sentimentality. When he glanced back at Lil Min, her eyes had widened to puppy dog adorableness levels. Gamer repeated his hard, exacerbated grunt.
"An invaluable companion...the moon to your earth..." Persica's jealousy started to turn venomous.
"Hey, you're the moneybags," Gamer remained frank. "You have the resources and means by which we can succeed. Don't sell yourself short. Instead, sell your drugs. And items. To me."
Persica tried to not smile, but she ended up looking bashful, "You have an odd approach to things. I suppose I end up uneasy when seeing you spend time and evening with the shellie. My soul aches and yearns."
"You sound jealous."
"Jealous?" Persica repeated it like an alien word. "I see. I've been coveted by all the most powerful in these lands. For me to come in second place, in your eyes, is a painful reality. I do not like this jealousy feeling."
"Don't look at it that way," Gamer scratched the back of his head. He realized these NPCs were becoming more to him, "I prefer cooperative play over competitive play."
"I can always sit on you to help with the pain!" Lil Min chirped at Persica.
Gamer nearly busted a gut at the out-of-pocket comment. Persica glared at the audacity, "Pardon me?"
"We found out this morning that I can heal those I lay on. Gamer always feels better after we have sex!"
Gamer choked on the held back laugh. He saw the glass shatter in Persica's mind. The jealousy transformed into a whole different disaster. She seethed at the audacity, "You have intercourse with this shellie?"
"Thanks for throwing me under the bus, Minnie," Gamer chastised.
"You're welcome?" Lil Min didn't understand his appreciation. She chalked it up to his foreign ways.
Persica's cheeks puffed while her brow furrowed. The princess abandoned nobility in favor of brattiness, "Th-That's not fair! I can resource tinctures and unblock your chakra! You can't have multiple partners!"
"You shared a plumber and a dragon," Gamer pointed out.
Persica blushed, "I know, but I thought I was special in that regard, too. It's not so cool if somebody else is doing it..."
"Your jealousy is getting way out of hand," her reasoning made his forehead twitch.
"I was with him first," Lil Min added.
"Why are you backing up the bus?!" Gamer cried.
"You said thanks earlier," so innocent.
"I was fuckin' kidding!" so flustered.
The princess straightened her back to press out her bikini-clad breasts. Gamer admired the delicious sight, but was unnerved by her sudden boldness. She stepped in closer, regardless of Lil Min's presence. A breath measured the distance between Gamer and Persica when she sunk alluring eyes into him, "I'm not defective."
Persica shoved Gamer backwards towards the bed. He 'accidentally' fell on it, and 'accidentally' kicked his shoes off, all the while 'accidentally' getting a boner.
The princess found her knees between Gamer's sprawled legs, and parted them with her body. She lounged forward and hovered her head near his groin. The whole time she stared daggers into Lil Min, who was taken aback by the scene. Persica made it clear, "I will not be outperformed by a shellie."
"But I think Gamer is right. We should cooperate," Lil Min pleaded. Her cheeks were flushed, and she squirmed a little.
"Who said Gamer knows best?" Persica's hand glided along the bump below her chin. It twitched in anticipation.
"Are you seri..." Gamer began to retort against the jealousy. However, Persica's eyes drilled through his heart.
"I have spoken," her cold tone sliced. Gamer became a round, fragile balloon, and blushed like a slut. Persica groomed his bulge under her firm regime.
Samira's textbox appeared, "Aye yo! Totes proud of you, bro, but I was checking something weird during the crash out. It'll make you wildin'!!"
Gamer nearly kicked Persica across the room, but resisted the sibling jumpscare. He struggled to talk straight as the princess's bombshell lips sank onto his battleship, "Could you not right now?!"
Lil Min and Persica did not respond to his words. As foretold, whenever he addressed Samira, he'd be a mindless husk. Samira didn't care, "This is really juicy. Your bedfellows here aren't even supposed to be here. Persica is a questgiver NPC, and Minnie isn't supposed to leave her patrol unless killed. EverythAng, with a capital A, that has happened with them so far is outside their programming. Like (◑‿◐) wat?!"
"I figured I – aye, aye, aye – just recruited them as, eh oh, party members," Gamer stuttered upon the breach of his castle walls.
"Nah nah! So I dove into the gyat princess and nudist turtle's coding and found some altered algorithms ( ╹ -╹)? you know how game patches work?"
Gamer barely registered anything while Persica did a swirly thing with her tongue, "Sure..."
"Things like their scripted behaviors and state machines are being organically altered to fit what you're bringing to the table ( •̯́ ₃ •̯̀)" Samira explained. She brought up diagrams and coding lines for Gamer to read, but his crossed eyes made it impossible. She rambled, "Bro, I'm shookth! OMG! NPCs are set by the Game Masters and can't be altered without an update. Yet here are two examples of NPCs you're rizzing with evolving code. I suspect it has to do with your consciousness still being intact. You're a legit anomaly that's patching the system in real-time. (⚈₋₍⚈) Like WTF?!"
Persica threw her arms across Gamer's stomach as she pressed a cheek into his manhood. Her expression was divine, "Tell me, Gamer, how much better am I compared to the shellie? Who is more valuable?"
"Sheeesh," Samira and Gamer (○□○). The sister decided to dip, "This is getting a bit too steamy for me. Have fun, bro! Byyye!"
"Not fair!" Minnie forced her way next to Persica. It widened Gamer's legs open, and Minnie used a booty bump to nudge the princess sideways. They rubbed shoulders while vying for Gamer's affection. He could practically see the lightning forming between their shared glares. Minnie no longer wore the boxing shells or her tank top, "I'm here to help, and I want to make amends. I make Gamer really happy, and he makes me feel better about myself! We shouldn't be fighting, but as his shell shield, I will protect him!"
Minnie shielded Gamer from the princess's invasion. She hid him inside her mouth. His head crashed on the blanket. Persica puffed her cheeks up in anger and shoulder bumped Minnie. She dislodged the shellie and Gamer's member flicked sideways like an inflatable tube man. Persica grasped it and waved it about as she scolded Minnie, "You dare challenge the princess of Chanterelle? You will not stand in my way, shellie. This means war!"
"Bye, bye, pacifism..." Gamer breathed, while his nether region felt the onslaught of the women's battering argument. He relaxed and focused on surviving.
"I'm a shellie! We only know war!" Minnie showed Gamer the rainbow. He tasted the rainbow.
"You're a second-rate helper! You could never match my glory!" Persica committed a scandal that stole all of Gamer's expectations.
"My touch heals him!" Minnie released a blockbuster summer hit.
"I grant him power!" Persica installed a 5G network, free of charge.
"I'm not defective!" Minnie shot down a shooting star.
"I'm traumatized!" Persica discovered the fountain of youth.
"Time out!" Gamer shouted and sat up. His outburst froze their frames, as if he actually had the power to pause the game. They breathed out, and awkwardly stared up at him as he composed himself. He declared, "Cooperation. Not competition. A house divided against itself cannot stand. No more of this stupid back and forth. If we're going to be a team henceforth, we gotta work like buttered mushrooms. Minnie, no more doubts. Persica, no more racism."
Persica pouted, her eyes lulled and upset, "Fine..."
Minnie was next, and she flashed a glistening smile, "Okay!"
"And now..." the corner of Gamer's eye twinkled. He took to his feet and posed with his fists on his hips. His silhouette cast over the ladies thanks to the sunlight in the backdrop. Gamer smirked, "It's time for some team building."
Gamer, Minnie, and Persica spent their late afternoon hour in the bedchambers. Doc shrooman waited patiently near the spiral staircase while belted moans and grunts increased in volume every so often. He nodded his head while petting his yosaurus, "Listen to that, my friend. Diplomacy at work. Not only that, but they are becoming closer, stronger, and super. Soon, our land will be rid of Lord Shellie and his menace! Hurrah!"