Momo and Company Vs Minion Maker (MHA Drones) (Patreon)

Hey folks!

Good news! I got sick! ... Right, that's not good news, but it's good news that it happened while I was on my month off, so it shouldn't disrupt next month's writing, yay!

Really have to figure out why this keeps happening though.

Oh well. In the meantime, here, enjoy this MHA story! (With a bonus surprise!)

---

“Creati? Are you awake?”

“Mmn.” Momo cracked a single eye open, looking up to find Kyoka Jiro – the heroine Earphone Jack, and an old friend - standing over her bed. It took a few moments to remember why that might be so – and why her old classmate from back in their UA days would be referring to her by her hero name. Then reality rolled back into her head – reality of a sort, anyway. Right, it hadn’t all just been a dream.

“What’s up, Jack?” She asked, rising up to stretch and suppress a yawn as best she could. “How long was I asleep?”

“Couple of hours, I think,” the soundwave superheroine said, her fingers fiddling together nervously. “It’s hard to tell in here. Sorry, I know you need your rest, but, uh, I think you need to see this.”

Momo slid out of bed in her nightgown, all signs of sleep banished as she noticed how concerned her friend looked. “What is it? What happened?”

“It’s Uravity.” Kyoka bit her lip. “She’s…”

The genius’s heart dropped. “Show me.”

With a swift nod, Kyoka led her through the dorm area. Lights out had been an hour before Momo went to bed, so it was pitch black, but the two had spent enough time locked in here by now that they could navigate by memory when they needed to. For a moment, she considered pulling out a torch with her quirk, but that would probably be detected right away. If there was any chance that they could do this without being noticed, she wanted to capitalize on it.

It wasn’t far to go, anyway. Uravity’s – Ochaco’s - bed was a bunk she shared with Kyoka, her on the bottom, Kyoka on top. Around them, everyone else was asleep – not that anyone ever seemed to pay attention to what they did here anyway. The only other person who’d notice was Tsuyu – Froppy – had vanished over a day ago...

When they arrived, Momo could already tell it was worse than she’d thought. She didn’t need to see what had happened. She could hear Ochaco’s voice, quiet but firm, chanting in the darkness.

“Blank. Serve. Obey. Blank. Serve. Obey. Blank. Serve. Obey.”

With a quick glance around, she decided to throw caution to the wind and summoned a torch, setting it to dim light. Now she could see the brown haired heroine laying in bed, her arms at her sides, staring upwards at the roof of her bed, not moving save to utter her monotone chant. She didn’t even seem to register the other two’s presence.

“How long has she been like this?”

“I don’t know.” Kyoka shook her head. “She was sleeping when I got back after my tasks. I figured she was just tired – you know she works harder than anyone here. But just as I was nodding off, I heard her start whispering under her breath, and it’s just been getting louder ever since…”

Breath hissed between Momo’s teeth, and ran the torch over the bunk again, studying her friend carefully. Ochaco’s body had changed since they’d first arrived here. It had been subtle at first, but now it was unmistakable. The woman had always had a ‘girl next door’ vibe to her, but it was hard to describe her as anything like that now. These days she had more of a ‘femme fatal’ feel. By Momo’s reckoning, Ochaco had gained almost a foot in height, and her cup size had almost doubled, among other, more minute changes. Even her hair was starting to turn darker at the roots, going from warm brown to slick black.

Frowning, the hero swung her torch light out, scanning the other beds around them. In each one, an identical woman slept, all in the same blank pose as Ochaco, all of them with chests bigger than their heads… This was bad.

“What do we do?” Kyoka was asking. She wished she had answers to give her.

Instead, all she could do was shake her head. “Nothing we cando, for now. We don’t have the resources we need to help her – and anything we try will just get us caught. Hopefully she’ll be back to normal in the morning. If not…”

The sonic blasting heroine winced, but nodded. “Was this what happened to Froppy? … We should have been more careful.”

“We should have. Now we need to focus on getting out of here to find someone who can cure them.” There was no time to dwell on what had happened. They had to speed up. Kyoka had grown quite a lot over the past few days. Momo herself had felt her top getting tighter every morning.

They really had to find a way out of this place, and soon.

-

It had all started so simply. Someone robbing a tech store? That was bread and butter for an experienced squad of superheroines! Honestly, having all four of them present and ready for action felt like complete overkill. Uravity, Froppy, Earphone Jack, and Creati all responding to the same crime in progress meant only one thing was certain – the villain responsible was going to be regretting this day in the slammer for years to come.

But something had been wrong when they arrived. The store had been quiet. Much, much too quiet. Where were the staff, the customers, the hostages? The villain had struck during the middle of the day, that was why their response had been so fast. There should have been people – civilians fleeing, security responding, something.

Instead, all that greeted them was silence.

Alright. All of them were experienced heroines – their days at UA were years behind them – so they knew a trap when they saw one. Something was absolutely wrong here. But that didn’t change their job: Get in, find the villain, take him down. It just meant they had to be extra cautious about this.

Uravity went in first, flying up to the ceiling and establishing overwatch. She’d increased her mastery of her quirk over the years – now she could project an entire field of gravity warping energy around herself, halting any projectiles headed her way, and increasing her speed by an order of magnitude. It made her an incredible frontline unit, able to dodge almost any attack, and then respond with devastating effect, with every blow hitting far harder than her slender frame implied.

Next was Froppy. Her quirk gave her the powers of a frog – which, when scaled up to human level, and then enhanced even further beyond, made her outright terrifying in a fight. Faster, stronger, and more unpredictable than anyone else in the group, she was the team’s blitzer. While Uravity drew fire, she used her skills to tear the enemy apart – you know, as gently as she could.

Earphone Jack went third, establishing control of the zone. With her sharp senses, she could locate the presence of any living person on the premises just by listening to their heartbeats, and she could pick out the sounds of weapons even in the loudest environments. Then, with her vibration generation, she could knock any enemies down, or even demolish buildings if the need arose. She was their area control.

And finally, Creati, walking in last – both to protect them from any attacks from behind, and to assess the full situation from the best vantage point. Her quirk let her create any item she could think of, respond to any threat imaginable, and even a few that weren’t, but it was her genius mind that made her the most dangerous member of the team. Able to identify plots at a glance and counter strategies with a whisper, there was a reason she was one of the top heroes in Japan.

But even so, here, she wasn’t getting anything. “Jack?”

“Not sure.” The heroine shook her head. “I hear a heartbeat up ahead, but just the one. Not sensing anyone else in here.”

“Alright. Let’s get in there. I’m not seeing any signs of violence in here, so let’s hope it’s not a worst case scenario. Uravity, take point, Froppy on backup.”

The two nodded, and the team moved in. The store remained dark and empty, and it wasn’t long before they were infiltrating into the storeroom at the back. That was where they finally found something.

Specifically, the Villain.

He wasn’t an impressive specimen. A wispy, lanky man, dressed in a black cloak with a clearly homemade mask (it looked like some dark cardboard stuck onto a pair of novelty googly eye sunglasses. It wasn’t that, but it sure looked like it) was rooting around in one of the storage crates.

The four exchanged a silent look, and then split into two groups – Uravity and Froppy to confront the criminal, Jack and Creati to get behind him just in case he had any tricks. It was completely textbook – and it really should have worked.

“Hold it!” Uravity yelled, presenting herself as an easy target, just in case the guy started shooting. “Who are you, and what have you done with the people in this store?”

“Huh? Oh, ack!” The Villain straightened up nervously, shocked to find himself confronted by two famed heroes. “Oh hell. Uh, d-don’t shoot! I surrender!”

It was bad luck that undermined them, really.

Creati, standing behind the villain, caught a flash of movement as the villain subtly reached for something in his pocket. His… phone? Weird choice, but it didn’t matter. He’d tried to hide it as part of him straightening up, but that was exactly what she was looking for.

“Froppy!”

“On it!” The frog woman’s tongue lashed out, shooting across the room and snatching the villain’s device right from his hand.

Or, that was what was supposed to happen…

Instead, Froppy’s tongue sank straight into the screen, disappearing into the black void. The heroine had half a second to mumble “Wah d’fuah?” before suddenly she was yanked off her feet, and dragged into the screen as well. In a green flash, she was gone.

“Froppy!” Uravity shot straight at the guy. “Let her go, you- Waah!!!”

Alas, before she could complete her battle cry, the phone had turned in her direction – and despite her mastery over gravity, the brown haired heroine had found herself getting sucked straight in, just like her friend. Before she could react to do more than scream, she’d vanished, pulled into the tiny palm-sized device.

And then the Villain turned around.

Naturally, Creati had reacted quickly, summoning up a five-ton weight to hold on to, trying to keep herself rooted against the powerful suction that suddenly assaulted her. And it worked, for a moment. But then she’d made the mistake of reaching out to anchor Jack as well, who hadn’t been able to hold on to the storage shelf she’d grabbed on to – and before she could regain her grip, the suction intensified.

Helpless to do anything but scream in shocked confusion, the pair of heroes had followed their teammates – sucked down a twisting tunnel of wind and light, until they vanished straight into the phone’s screen, and everything went black.

“Gah, there were more of them?” Momo thought she heard, a distant, booming voice as everything else faded away. “Damn, that was lucky. Better hold them in the right game until I know how to deal with them properly. Oh, hey, I haven’t finished this one yet…”

-

[Minion Maker]

Those were the words that had been flashing over the hero’s heads when they finally woke up. Only for a few seconds, just before winking out of existence, but Momo hadn’t forgotten. They were related to their current predicament somehow, she was sure of it.

But what their current predicament was… remained a matter of some debate.

The four of them had awoken inside a strange, hi-tech looking facility. The walls, floors, and ceilings were all made of rivet plated metal, arranged in hexagonal corridors or sprawling rooms, and the doors slid open and shut as you approached them, unless you weren’t supposed to go through them, in which case no force on earth seemed to be able to budge them. The lighting was white, spread around by round fixtures in the ceilings placed every five feet or so… All in all, it seemed perfect for some kind of Villainous mad scientist lair.

Except for the fact that there didn’t seem to be any Villains here, at least. Not a one. The figure who had somehow captured them was completely absent, with no sign of his presence to be found at all. The only thing that stood out as unusual – besides, well, everything, but that didn’t count – was the four visors that they found lying next to them when they woke.

Which wasn’t to say that they were alone, no. They quickly discovered that that wasn’t the case at all.

In almost every room, they found identical women engaged in seemingly pointless tasks – carrying boxes, tapping senselessly on keyboard terminals, or firing blasters at a target range, as examples. All of them were dressed the same way, in black leather boots that stretched up to the top of their thighs, and black topless sleeves – which is to say, sleeves with no tops attached, merely covering the women’s arms and shoulders, nothing else – along with glowing visor helmets. All of them had the same face, the same smooth black hair, the same blank expressions. All of them were also incredibly curvy, unrealistically so, with breasts and asses easily bigger than their heads. That was quite obvious, as anything not covered by their boots or sleeves was left fully exposed, which none of them seemed to notice or mind.

Obliviousness seemed to be their reaction to everything, in fact, even when the heroes tried to attract their attention by calling out or waving a hand in front of their faces. Their glazed eyes didn’t so much as twitch, and they continued their tasks as normal. Busty, and apparently brainless.

It was all incredibly disturbing, and endlessly bizarre. Nor did it help when, after some exploration and some clever exploitation of these naked drones to get past locked doors, the four of them found that there didn’t seem to be an exit to the facility. All of the doors seemed to lead to dead ends, or curved back around on themselves.

None of it made sense. Not until Momo put the pieces together.

“It’s a game,” she’d said, after they’d finished their third search of the complex. “That’s why there’s no exits. A game doesn’t need them – we’re limited to the bounds of play.”

“A game?” Tsuyu had quirked her head. “You think so?”

The spiky haired heroine nodded, frowning. “I heard that villain say something to that effect – and we were drawn inside his phone. It’s the only conclusion that makes sense to me.”

The other three exchanged a look. It sounded outlandish… But none of them had any better ideas.

“How do we get out of here then?” Ochaco was first to get on board and ask the important question.

“If it’s a game, then there are rules,” Momo had stated. “If there are rules, then we can exploit them. We just have to work out how to win – then I’m sure we’ll be able to escape.”

That was the natural conclusion, even if she had to admit it was based on speculation. If they’d been trapped inside a game, it was obvious that the way to escape was to end the game by winning. Now, they just had to work out what their victory condition was.

… Which proved to be harder than anticipated. Nothing seemed to happen in this game. They’d searched the entire facility by this point, and all they’d found was obedient curvy drones.

Time had stretched on, and no answers had presented themselves. Fortunately – as much as fortune was on their side at all – survival wasn’t an issue. There was a mess hall that provided seemingly endless bowls of food (basic nutrient past – nothing fancy, but enough to live off) and a sleeping quarters – a shared dorm with enough beds to allow for every woman in the complex. Which had been a worrying realisation, when the heroines noticed that there were beds for them as well.

Eventually, sleep had been required. The first night they had established a watch pattern, with two girls sleeping, while the other two kept an eye out for trouble, and then switching, but nothing had happened, save for it leaving them all tired. By the time morning rolled around, and all the drones jumped out of their beds marching off to their tasks in complete sync, the four were willing to start considering desperate options.

Their attention turned back to the visors that had been next to them when they first arrived.

“Maybe they can tell us something? All of these, um… women, are wearing them…” Ochaco had said, turning her visor over in her hands. “Not like they’re wearing anything else…”

“I could try plugging into one, see if I can hear anything.” Kyoka toyed with her ear jacks contemplatively. “I’d trust that more than putting one of them on my head.”

“They’ve gotta be part of how this game works, right?” Tsuyu looked around at the others. “We haven’t found anything else. At least they could tell us what we’re supposed to do.”

“Maybe. I hope so.” Ochaco shook her head, uncertain. “What do you think, Creati?”

Momo hadn’t been sure. She’d been feeling strangely fuzzy for a while now, ever since she’d woken up, and now it was making her thoughts annoyingly sluggish. Surely it was just because she was tired, but… still, it was making things more difficult than they should have been.

“We have to try it,” she’d eventually admitted. “But carefully. Limited exposure. Here, I should be the one to try it first.”

And before the others could stop her, she’d slid her visor on, and watched it activate before her eyes. Images appeared, outlined in glowing blue light, as a voice crackled to life by her ears.

“Welcome to Minion Maker! The Minion Management Mastery game! Design your minions! Train them up! Guide them through tasks! Solve tough puzzles and projects and win the respect of your villainous peers!”

As the voice spoke, the images resolved into non-descript images of human shapes performing minion tasks – standing at attention, working on keyboards, or puzzling over a jigsaw. It left little to no doubt about what the words meant.

Momo had twitched. “Oh,” she muttered. “So it’s that kind of game.”

Peering into her own visor, Kyoka gritted her teeth. “Was the answer really next to us this whole time?”

“I dunno,” Tsuyu had shaken her head. “I don’t think this has told us what we’ve got to do, exactly.”

“No, I think it has,” the genius muttered, scowling as she watched text form in front of her face. Text that read:

Objectives:

Recruit 60 Minions: 62/60 - Complete!

Construct 5 Storage Rooms: 1/5

Build 3 Trap Rooms: 0/3

Obtain 5 Million Credits Through Hacking: 1.3/5

“These tasks have to be it. The game loop.” She frowned. “I think this must be one of those simulation games where a player commands a group to achieve specific goals.”

“Oh, like Pretendis.” The group blinked and stared at Kyoka. “You know? The super popular game where you create entire neighbourhoods of people, and you boss them around like god? Super popular? … Wow you guys need to get lives outside of heroing.”

“We’ll take your word for it,” Momo had shrugged. “Something like that, anyway. But this game isn’t simulating a neighbourhood – this is a villain lair. So the tasks we have to achieve will be in line with that…”

“It’s just a game, right? So we don’t have to worry about it having effects on the real world… right?”

“I’m pretty sure, yes.” The black haired heroine thought for a moment. “Though we should be careful. This quirk might have consequences we’ve not yet seen. For now, though, I believe our best route forwards is accomplishing these tasks. If we do that, we might be able to end the game and escape.”

“How?” The others looked between themselves, all looking to see if the others had noticed something they hadn’t. “Storage rooms, traps, spies… I haven’t see anything like this here…”

“I believe…” And here Momo had to admit, she was taking a wild guess. “I believe that is what the women here are trying to accomplish.”

As one, the group’s heads turned to stare at the line of strange identical women marching down one of the corridors in lockstep. “Those guys?”

“Yes.” She nodded uncomfortably. “Their nonsensical tasks must be towards these ends. It’s only a game after all – can’t expect it to be too realistic.”

“Yeah, feels like a pretty cheap knockoff, honestly,” Kyoka had sighed. “But I guess you’re making sense. Let’s try it.”

The group had all agreed, and so they’d headed straight to the nearest task their visors indicated. One of the keyboard terminals that the drone-women were often using was free, and lit up in front of Momo’s eyes. Cautiously, she’d activated it, and then followed the steps her visor indicated for her, pressing a series of random keys in sequence.

“Psh. Cheap Mini-game,” Kyoka had rolled her eyes. The others had ignored her, not having even the slightest clue what she meant.

Either way, it worked. The visor flashed as Momo completed the task –

[Good Drone]

- And then displayed an update to their objectives.

Obtain 5 Million Credits Through Hacking: 1.4/5

“That confirms that then. Alright, let’s get these tasks done. The quicker we finish this list, the faster we get out of here.”

There had been a chorus of agreements, and then the group split, each going to sort out their own task. Tsuyu would handle constructing storage rooms, Kyoka and Ochaco would handle the trap rooms (pairing up, because that sounded dangerous), and Momo sticking to this stupid ‘hacking’ challenge. With all of them working together, they’d be out of this prison in no time!

-

It had proven to be somewhat harder than that, unfortunately. The tasks grew more complicated and took more effort the more of them that they completed. Difficulty climbed in a quadratic fashion, with each dot of progress taking more than twice the time of the last. It was a pain, but they persevered.

Of all of them, Tsuyu figured she had it the easiest. Momo had lumped herself with hacking, which was quickly turning into something you might see in the Boogie Boogie Civil War rhythm game series (how the hero was managing to type on three keyboards at once, she had no idea), while Ochaco and Kyoka had quickly discovered that, yep, the ‘trap rooms’ were the kind of traps that supervillains loved to install in their lairs, and nope, they were not safe from said traps while building them. Construction over there was a very careful, cautious process.

Tsuyu, by contrast, just had to build some empty storage rooms. It was easy! Highlight the area you were knocking down, spend a bit of time hammering in walls and floors and stuff, then build furniture for a while, and you were done! The visor told her everything she had to do, and all of the tools and materials appeared in her hands when she needed them. It was easy.

Easy enough, in fact, that she was shooting ahead of her teammates, progress-wise. Ochaco and Kyoka had finished their first trap room after two days, while she was nearly done with her third. At this rate, she’d have all five of her rooms finished before they’d finished their second.

And that was her goal at the moment, actually. The faster she finished, the faster she could help them, after all. Though, there was another reason. One she couldn’t quite put her finger on. It was just that, every time she finished one of her objectives, she felt this sudden rush of happiness…

[Good Drone]

A warm thrill rushing through her. The joy of a job well done, right? This was – dare she even say it – fun. Maybe she ought to look into these kinds of games once they escaped!

A pleasant haze settled over her thoughts as she worked, completing objective after objective. She’d gotten really good at this now. Just putting everything else out of her head and focusing on her work.

Even her body was getting in on it, growing taller, stronger, faster, bustier. Her long hair was smoothing out, losing its wild, unkempt look for uniform locks. And her clothes were starting to change too, growing tighter and losing a lot of their fabric. Actually, they were starting to look a lot like the uniforms all those weird NPC women were wearing around the place. She saw one of them around occasionally, whenever she passed a mirror. All in the name of efficiency.

Maybe that should have worried her, but…

[Good Drone Good Drone Good Drone Good Drone Good Drone Good Drone Good Drone…]

She couldn’t find it in her to care. Not when she had tasks to do!

-

It was only that night that the others realised that Tsuyu was missing.

“Where is she?!”

“She has to be here somewhere!”

“We’ll search the complex top to bottom.”

But despite their search, there was no sign of their friend. Just another identical drone working away in the room where she’d last been seen. Somehow, she’d disappeared, and the other three had no idea where she could have gone.

They’d all stayed together after that, feeling that they’d dropped their guard too much in separating. Surely if they stayed together, working on finishing the last rooms, all would be fine. They just had to keep an eye on each other, that was all.

That idea had lasted until Kyoka found Uravity in her bed the next night, mindlessly repeating a droning mantra…

-

Uravity wasn’t back to normal by morning. In fact, by morning there wasn’t an Uravity anywhere to be found in the facility. Just another drone in her bed, identical to all of the others. Her body, her clothes, even her face had completely transformed to be just like theirs. There was no flash of recognition in her eyes, no trace of the heroine to be found.

Just like all the others, she rose from her bed, and mindlessly walked off to fulfil pointless commands, strutting about the base among a sea of drones just like her. The others couldn’t stop her. All they could do was put a marker on her so they could tell which one had been their friend and recover her later.

They never saw that marker again.

By this point, desperation was starting to set in. The remaining heroines had been trapped in the game for who knew how long, and their numbers were dwindling. Worse, now that they knew what to look for, they could tell that they hadn’t been spared the strange transformations taking place. Their figures were bigger, curvier, than they were used to, and it was only getting worse.

“It has to be the visors,” Kyoka swore. “This started when we started using them!”

Momo was cursing herself for missing this. “It seems so. But they’re still our only way out…”

“Then we have to be careful using them.” The jackphone heroine glared at the device in her hands – the ticket to both her freedom, and her enslavement. “Limited exposure.”

“Agreed. And we stick together.”

“Absolutely.” At this point there was no way they could afford to split up. “We use these devices as little as possible, we get out, and we find a way to cure our friends.”

The pair clasped hands, nodding. They’d do it. They had to.

But it was going to be difficult. Time was passing slower than ever, and their progress on their objectives seemed to be slower still. Each task was complex, all of them taking increasingly longer periods to get them done, and even though they tried to limit their usage of the visors, they still needed to put them on to see what to do next. But worse was that they couldn’t enjoy their progress. Now that they were aware of it, each task they completed

[Good Drone]

Was coming with another change, another transformation that inched them closer and closer to being another pair of blank, brainless, busty minions wandering the facility.

By the time they’d finished the last trap room, Kyoka, who’d always been one of the shortest girls in class back in UA, was now finding herself at eye level with Momo, who’d been the tallest by a significant margin. And Momo was finding that she’d grown a fair few inches herself as well.

Chests were another obvious one. Both of them had outgrown their old outfits by now, and were keeping their tops – and their modesty – intact by only the slimmest of threads. Both of them were carrying bowling balls around on their fronts now, and found themselves strutting every time they moved from room to room.

Worst was that unless they focused, it was getting harder and harder to notice how unusual it all was…

But bit by bit, they were making progress. Their list of goals was slowly filling up.

Objectives:

Recruit 60 Minions: 62/60 - Complete!

Construct 5 Storage Rooms: 5/5

Build 3 Trap Rooms: 3/3

Obtain 5 Million Credits Through Hacking: 3.7/5

The worst parts were over. Now it was just a matter of the hacking task. It was one Momo had made a lot of progress on when she’d been working solo, but she hadn’t touched since they’d started working together. That left it alone as the final mountain to climb. Surely…

[Good Drone]

… This one…

[Good Drone]

… Couldn’t be so bad?

[Good Drone]

At this point, both heroines were desperate to get this stupid game done. Determination gave them wings, and their speed was truly impressive. By this point they were shooting through the sequences, accomplishing the ‘hack’ with ease.

But that speed came with its own dangers…

[Good Drone Good Drone Good Drone Good-]

“Wait. Stop.” Kyoka’s voice cut through the drone, her hand seizing Momo’s wrist. The other heroine blinked at her, confused.

“What’s wrong?”

“Look.” She gestured downwards. Momo followed her gaze, and swallowed.

The two of them were damn near identical. The same height, the same figures, the same clothes… Aside from their faces and hairstyles, they were practically the same woman. The same woman as every other person in this facility.

Almost without noticing, even with all of their care, their dronification had almost become complete. She’d been careless again. Despite her caution, she’d been lulled into complacency by the constant pleasurable feedback. It was insidious. Even now she could feel it ringing in her head, compelling her to continue, to finish her task. And if Kyoka hadn’t stopped her, it would have consumed her whole.

But the bad news didn’t stop there. Glancing at her visor before she ripped it off her face, she could see the truth as plain as day – their objective still wasn’t complete.

Obtain 5 Million Credits Through Hacking: 4.5/5

“We… We have to keep going,” she stammered, trying to focus her swirling thoughts and to ignore how different her voice sounded, having dropped several octaves for a low, throaty purr. “We’re not finished.”

“No.” Kyoka sounded exactly the same. “If we both keep doing this then we’ll go down together. Let me do this alone.”

“What?” Momo’s eyes widened. “Jack, I can’t let you-”

“Yes,” the other hero insisted, staring her dead in the eyes. “You can. You’re our best chance for getting out of here and fixing everyone. I’m going to give you the best shot you’re going to get.”

“…” What the hell was she supposed to say to that? Damnit, they were both heroes, they knew that there was always a chance today would be the day you had to take a hit for someone else, but… Damnit.

Kyoka didn’t give her a chance to come to terms, either. Shoving her away, the jackphone hero pulled her visor back on and went to work, fingers slamming into the controls as only a woman with perfect rhythm could. The objective counter flickered, and then began shooting upwards, hack after hack accomplished in a shocking flow.

And before Momo’s eyes, her tits began to inflate once more, rapidly swelling out to fill her jacket completely, firm and round…

[GoodDroneGoodDroneGoodDroneGoodDroneGoodDroneGoodDroneGoodDroneGoodDrone]

… As the last traces of Kyoka Jiro vanished from her own face, her eyes turning blank and glassy. Before her friend’s stunned eyes, her hairstyle smoothed into straight waterfall locks, and her outfit solidified as the uniform of a minion drone.

She didn’t stop, though. She remained resolutely dedicated to her task, continuing to hack at incredible speed, even though her transformation was complete. She only stopped when her visor dinged.

Obtain 5 Million Credits Through Hacking: 5/5

Objectives Fulfilled

At that, she stiffened, straightening up, before marching off to some random location in the base, mindlessly joining the hordes in their thoughtless tasks.

Then there was one.

All alone, Momo took a breath. Her hands were shaking, clenched tight into fists. Her friends had been lost or sacrificed themselves for her sake. She had to see this through.

But how? All of their objectives were complete, and nothing had happened. What was supposed to come next?

… There was only one way to know.

Taking a deep breath and steeling her mind, she raised the visor to her eyes. The glare on her face would have killed anyone who wandered in front of it – she was practically daring the machine to try to brainwash her there and then.

But instead, it opted to simply give her a rather helpful message.

Objectives Fulfilled

Activate Command Module to Complete the Level

Just a glimpse was all she needed. With that done she ripped the stupid headset away and threw it on the ground, already running. The Command Module could only mean one thing – the room at the centre of the complex with all the screens on the walls. They hadn’t been in there much – none of the place was active, and there were no tasks in it. The only thing of note was a big red button on the main console, which hadn’t done anything when pushed before. Now, she had the feeling that had changed.

She flew down the corridors, darting left and right around marching drones, trying to ignore how difficult it was to sprint when your hips insisted on swaying back and forth like a tennis ball. She knew the layout of this facility like the back of her (original) hand now, and thus exactly where to go.

None of the drones around her made a move to stop her. It was like they didn’t need to.

Nothing had changed in the ‘Command Module’ when she reached it. The screens were still dark, the buttons unlit. But she rushed in and slammed the red button anyway, hoping against hope that it’d have the right effect.

It did. But it wasn’t the one she wanted.

[GOOD DRONE]

The words echoed through her head, dropping her to her knees, louder than anything she’d ever heard before. But how? She… She wasn’t wearing the visor! This shouldn’t be happening! Not unless… Not unless it had never been the visor in the first place?

Could it be… It had been the tasks all along? Transforming them as they sank deeper into the game itself?

No… No, wait-!

[GOOD DRONE]

She… She had to…

[GOOD DRONE]

She couldn’t…

[GOOD DRONE]

Nn… She… Who… Who was… She…?

[GOOD DRONE]

Glazing eyes blinked and peered out of a transforming face, as hair smoothed, as boobs bulged, as thoughts fell into silent static nothingness. In front of her, she could just make out words flashing on the screens around the room.

[Congratulations on beating Level 1! Now loading Level 2]

Level… 2? They… still weren’t…?

[GOOD DRONE]

The last of her willpower fractured and shattered.

A moment later, another mindless, will-less, and completely standard drone rose to her feet, staring blankly forwards at the screens. No expression crossed her face. No thought crossed her mind. She simply stood at attention, waiting for an order to obey, like the Good Drone that she was.

A moment later, her non-wish was granted. Her visor flashed. New commands filtered into her head. Without thought or complaint, she turned and marched away, her hips swaying in a sexy swagger, off to complete her task – and then the one after that – and then the one after that – and then the one after that – and then…

Just another drone – number 62 out of 75.

-

“Oh hey, I levelled up!” The villain – he still hadn’t decided on a name, but he had definitely decided on being a villain – grinned as he finally checked his phone, laying back on his couch. It was a full day after that confrontation at the mall - he’d been meaning to play the game ever since, but he’d never gotten around to it until now. “Guess that means my minions are stronger now! Let’s try a few out.”

He raised his phone and activated his quirk. Instantly, three identical minion drones materialised in front of him, appearing out of a haze of pixels. They looked perfect – just like he’d designed them when he’d first booted up the game.

“Greetings, Master,” the all spoke as one, their voice husky and submissive. “How may we serve you today?”

“Perfect…” The villain laughed, tossing his phone to the side as he sat up. “Okay, great! Right, one of you, get me a sandwich. I’m planning my insidious schemes, and that always makes me hungry. One of you, come over here and give me a massage, my shoulders have been tense all day. And the last one… Hey, let’s have some fun. Get on your knees and let’s test out your sexbot subroutines…”

As one, the three nodded, not showing any objections of issues with their orders. Then one drone marched off to the kitchen, strutting the entire way, one moved around behind him, her hands settling on his shoulders, his head snugly nestled between her boobs, and one stepped up in front of him, sinking to her knees. Just as ordered.

Any of them might have been the four heroines that had challenged him the day before. Or perhaps none of them were. He’d put quite a few people into this game. His girlfriend. Some rival villains. A bunch of mall goers… Honestly, he’d forgotten most of them.

It didn’t really matter. Before, they might have come from all walks of life, but now they were all the same. Any one of them might as well have been any of the others.

That was the great thing about having so many Minions! You never had to tell them apart. They were all completely identical – completely interchangeable.

And they always would be~

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(And here's the bonus, by Xxxx52!)