Feeling the CyberHeat, Serenity?

Chapter 1

by Director_DZ

Tags: #cw:noncon #dom:female #dronification #fantasy #hypnosis #magical_girl #robots #sub:female #brainwashing #breast_expansion #comic_book #corruption #drones #exhibitionism #f/f #hypnotic_visor #magic #mind_control #monstergirl #Nanites #personality_change #robokink #superhero #transformation #urban_fantasy

Disclaimer: All characters in this story are adults, and if you're not likewise, please stop reading here. The writer strongly recommends not trying to duplicate anything you see here in real life. Magical powers are best left to the professionals.

This is another tale in my Serenity series - check out Serenity Vs the RingMistress and Serenity, Be My Valentine if you'd like to see more of the world and characters, but it shouldn't be necessary to understand Magical Girls vs Monsters of the Week!

Sometimes life really wasn’t fair.

What had she done that was so wrong, exactly? What had she done to deserve this? Sure, she’d pilfered a few funds from some wealthy bank accounts, but it wasn’t like they’d miss it. She’d pranked a few people with traffic lights and train timetables when she’d hacked the city network, but who cared about that? And hey, maybe some people hadn’t liked the time she locked down all of those hospital networks until they paid her ransom, but quite frankly they’d been asking for it with cyber security like that. Who could possibly hold that against a person?

Besides, none of that had really been her. She was a new woman now! She had been ever since they’d tried to take her in. No, all she had actually done was turn the Sapphire City Cyber Crime Squad into a horde of obedient fembots, where was the harm in that?

People were really over reacting, in her opinion.

“Thousand Unison!”

“Gallant Siege!”

“Shit!”

CyberHeat, the wired Desire, dove for cover as twin blasts of Serenity magic in gold and white tore through the roof of the security booth she’d been hiding in. As the smoke started to clear, she was already running – but she could feel the gaze of the city’s protectors glaring at her back.

It helped that she was fast, even for a Desire – her transformation had gifted her a mechanical silver body far stronger than any human’s, complete with a face concealing visor that let her hack so many things just by looking at them. And it had given her amazing boobs too; these things were killer. Kinda tough, but surprisingly soft…

“Piercing Crescendo!”

“Gah!” She ducked down an alleyway between two buildings, just in time to dodge the golden beam of light that scythed down behind her. Damnit damnit damnit. They weren’t holding back at all!

Maybe she shouldn’t have chosen the abandoned warehouse district to lay low in. These guys always hesitated to use the big blast attack when bystanders might get hurt. Tch, she should’ve thought of that before.

Unfortunately, while her transformation into a Desire had granted her an amazing body and incredible powers, she was actually really bad in a direct fight. Like, really bad. Like, clutching the smoking metal stump where her left hand used to be bad.

She really hadn’t expected them to find her so quickly. But it was okay – she could still escape! All she needed to do was find a wired connection to the net and she could beam her consciousness out to somewhere else… probably? She hadn’t actually tried it before, but it was better than waiting for-

“Hold it!”

A yell rang out, and CyberHeat found herself skidding to a stop despite herself, right in the middle of one of the warehouse’s empty parking lots. Lights snapped on, shining down from the heavens and pinning her directly in the spotlight. And there, floating above her, the Serenity Saviours! The magical guardians of Sapphire City! They were all here!

“Protectors of justice and honour!” called the Serenity with silver hair floating on the left. A knight’s visor hung over her bright blue eyes. It fit well with the top she was wearing that looked more like piece of plate mail armour. Serenity Knight.

“Guardians of hope love and light!” That was the Serenity on the right. Purple hair, long and wavy, glittering like it was full of stars. Her uniform was closer to the standard white dress of a Serenity, but gold trim shaped like musical notes at every fringe said it was anything but. Serenity Chorus.

“You already know you're a goner!” And there, in the middle, long red hair floating around her like a flame, her uniform a bold red bodysuit that marked an advanced Serenity, Serenity Hero herself, the leader of the team. You could tell from her cape.

“Now time to face Serenity's might!” All three of them hit the line together, fireworks erupting behind them in the empty night sky above. If there had been an audience present, it would have looked really impressive.

All CyberHeat could think was that she was in real trouble here…

Serenity Hero dropped to the floor, landing lightly on her feet, her famous burning blade appearing in her hand as she gestured towards her opponent. “I’ll give you one chance to surrender, Desire! We don’t need to wreck this place any more than you already have.”

“What do you mean one chance to surrender?!” CyberHeat couldn’t help but burst out, gesturing to the wreckage behind her. “You’ve already been trying to kill me!”

“Hey, I said I’d give you one chance.” The redhead patted a hand against her chest, then half-shrugged towards her teammates. “These two are doing their own thing.”

The helmet wearing monster folded her arms, pouting. “How’s that supposed to be fair? What’d I do that was so wrong?”

“You turned the Sapphire City Police Department into a robotic orgy.” Knight said from above.

“You converted that church into a battle-bot factory and tried to use it to conquer the city…” Chorus chimed in as well, looking unimpressed.

“And you were working on that whole nanite plague thing to turn everyone in the world into your obedient drones.” Hero finished; eyebrow raised. “Had to use a lot of firepower to destroy all that. Yeah, no, you definitely deserve whatever we throw at you, lady.”

Oh, they knew about all that? Dang. “Okay, when you say it like that it sounds bad, sure, but have you considered that you didn’t destroy all of my nanites?”

The redhead blinked. “Huh?” And in that instant, the Desire struck.

She swung out her hand, pointing at the surprised Hero – and in that instant, the swarm of nanites that she’d been commanding remotely underground burst up through the parking space behind the Serenity, lunging straight for her. It was her most potent attack, one she’d poured everything into, and she knew it would be enough. One touch from that cloud, and even the strongest Serenity would be converted into her obedient battle-bot!

Ha! She’d been preparing for this one since she’d realised the Serenities were coming, but she hadn’t expected them to give her such a massive opening! Once she converted Hero to her side, she’d have an actual chance! There was no way the redhead could react in ti-

“Ice Nova!”

“Void Echo.”

A bolt of ice smashed into the nanite swarm from the side, freezing it in place – just in time for a blast of pure darkness to crash into the resulting sculpture, destroying the whole thing. Her last-ditch attack had been annihilated.

Hidden eyes wide, the Desire turned to see where the two shots had come from. There, standing at the side of the parking lot, looking rather nervous now that attention was suddenly on them, were a pair of Serenities.

Unlike the three who had been chasing after CyberHeat, these two wore the most basic uniform the Serenities had on offer, white with coloured gloves and trim. One, the one who’d fired the ice attack, had long blue hair and her uniform was light blue wherever it allowed colour. The other, the ‘void’ attacker, had black hair almost as long as her companion’s, and indeed, much like said companion, her uniform matched her hair.

“Who?”

“Um. Hi?” The blue haired Serenity waved nervously, while the black-haired one just smirked, and mimed blowing on her fingers like she was puffing the smoke from a gun.

“Oh, those two?” Hero had regained her composure quickly. “Those are our two trainees. Say hi to Serenity Night Guard and Serenity Snow Angel. We’re still kind of workshopping the names…” The blue one had gone beet red at the words ‘snow angel’. “But they have potential! What do you think?”

“I, um. I think… Uh.” CyberHeat was starting to sweat, and she didn’t even have sweat glands anymore. “I think… What was that you were saying about surrender…?”

The redheaded heroine smiled the least friendly smile the Desire had ever seen. “I was saying that I’d give you one chance to do it.” Her sword rose, flames around it burning so hot they turned blue. “You blew it. Prepare yourself!”

“Wai-!” CyberHeat tried to raise her hands to shield herself, but she didn’t stand a chance. Before she’d even managed to lift them an inch, Serenity Hero flashed past her, moving so quickly that even the wind took a few seconds to follow after her.

Then the impact came a few seconds after that.

“SERENITY SEAL!”

“GYAAAAAAHHHH!!!” White light flashed as the Desire was struck head on by the ultimate move of the Serenities – the power that allowed them to contain or outright banish the desire in any Desire. It was every Serenity’s finishing move, and Hero was an expert in its use.

In an instant, the mechanical woman was stripped of her powers – including even the power to manifest. With a scream, she found herself shrinking down to her unpowered form – a simple silver helmet with a stylish visor that would cover its wearer’s eyes. Her mind went dark as she was sent clattering along the ground…

She didn’t even feel the splash.

“Hero!” Serenity Chorus landed next to her friend, her voice already scolding. “Watch your aim! You sent her straight into the river!”

“Oops…” The redhead blushed, rubbing the back of her neck. “Sorry. Wasn’t thinking. She threw me off with that surprise attack.”

“Which she wouldn’t have been able to pull off at all if you hadn’t been trying to show off for the rookies.” The purple haired Serenity sighed, looking over towards the two team members still in their basic Serenity uniform. “Please don’t learn from her example, girls. Proper leaders think before they act.”

“Chorrusssssss…”

“That aside, girls…” The silver haired Serenity also landed, smiling at the rookies. “Great job saving the idiot from her own grandstanding. If she’d let herself get corrupted that would have been a much more difficult fight.”

“Kniiiiiight…”

“You did what any Serenity would be proud to have done in your place,” she continued, ignoring her friend. “You held back, you studied the situation, and when the time came to act, you acted. I’m very proud of you both.”

It seemed impossible that ‘Snow Angel’s face could get any redder. ‘Night Guard’ looked a little flustered herself, but acted cooler under pressure. “I’m just glad we were able to help, and that no one got hurt,” she said.

“Well that’s thanks to you,” Knight nodded.

“And no thanks to the show-off,” Chorus added.

“So mean to me…” The redheaded Serenity was sulking behind them with a pout on her face.

“Enough whining, Hero.” Knight rolled her eyes. “You’ve got a Desire to fish up.”

“What? But I-!”

“You knocked her into the water, so you go down and get her,” the purple haired Serenity told her, arms crossed. “That’s only fair. Imagine what’ll happen if someone finds-”

There was a high-pitched beep from five different sources. Blinking, all five Serenities pulled out their communicators – surprised to see the flashing light that indicated a message from the Serenity Foundation Command.

“Um.” ‘Snow Angel’ bit her lip. “Does this happen often?”

“It’s not that rare…” Knight hedged, but her tone said otherwise. Angel and Guard looked at each other, uncertain.

Chorus sighed. “Let’s just hear what they have to say,” she muttered, pressing the play button.

Instantly, an automated female voice began to play out. “This is a High Priority Delirium Alert for all Serenities in the Shoya region. We are issuing an immediate Recall of all Serenities of Rank 5 or above to Foundation Headquarters to prepare for the oncoming operation. Repeat, this is a-”

The message fell silent as Chorus’ thumb slammed the stop button. Silence fell over the small group of heroes. Three of their number looked at each other with serious looks on their faces, while the other two looked on with only confusion.

“Del… Delirium?” The dark-haired Serenity looked up at her mentors, uncertainty starting to blossom into fear. “What does Delirium mean…?”

But Chorus shook her head. “You don’t need to know that yet, girls. You’re only Rank 1.”

“Yeah.” Knight nodded, lifting into the air. “You’re going to be staying here while we go to check this out.”

“Wait.” Snow’s eyes widened. “You’re leaving?”

“And you’re leaving us behind?” Night looked just as upset.

“We’ll be back before you know it,” Hero assured them both, all signs of her immature attitude gone like they’d never been. Her hands set on their shoulders, her blue eyes looking between them with fond wisdom. “And in the meantime, I can’t think of anyone I’d rather trust my city to than you two. Promise you’ll keep it safe for me, okay?”

That was the thing about Hero. When she wanted to, she really could make you feel like everything was going to be alright.

“Okay… Okay. I promise.” Night Guard nodded, puffing up her chest. “We’ll keep it safe for sure. Right Snow?”

“Right!” The blue haired Serenity nodded with her furiously. “No Desires are getting anywhere on our watch.”

“That’s my girls.” Hero grinned, lifting up into the air, drifting after her teammates, even though she kept facing her trainees. “We’ll probably be back tomorrow, or the day after at the latest. And I’m going to want to hear everything you two got up to while I was gone, got it?”

“Got it!” The two waved. “Don’t worry – I’ll keep a record of every embarrassing thing Snow does!” Night Guard called after them.

“Night!”

Hero laughed, nodding, and then spun around as she fell into formation with Knight and Chorus. The three nodded to one another, something passing between them unspoken. Then, in a flash, they were gone, leaving just a short-lived trail of purple, silver, and red streaking across the night sky.

The two rookies slowly lowered their arms, realising, for the first time since they donned their uniforms, that they were alone. Alone, with a whole city to defend. They looked at one another, blue eyes meeting purple.

Night Guard was the one who spoke up first. “I say the first thing we do is change these team names.”

Snow nodded. “Deal.”

And at the bottom of the river, carried away by the current’s flow, a forgotten silver helmet glittered in the darkness…

Sophia squinted as her eyes slid open, staring at her bedroom ceiling. She’d had a dream overnight, something nostalgic and warm and… heartbreaking. A deep sadness had been left rattling in her soul. But the details of whatever had caused it, whatever the dream had been, were already evaporating like ice under the warm summer sun. By the time she’d rubbed the sleep from her eyes, it was all gone.

Not a great start to the day, to be honest.

Groaning, she sat up, brushing her long blue hair back neatly over her shoulders. Great start or no, she had to get up. What kind of example would she set to her teammates if she, Serenity Winter, the longest currently serving Serenity of Sapphire City, showed up late to the training day she herself scheduled?

A bad one, obviously.

The blunette slid out of bed and stretched, checking herself over in the mirror for any signs of corruption. No, everything looked good. Which was good! She’d had a decent week – no transformations or anything embarrassing like that. She’d promised to protect this city until-

Well. For as long as she could. And despite some setbacks… A lot of setbacks… She was still capable of fighting. Sapphire was still here, and so were its people.

Groaning, Sophia slapped her cheeks, trying to banish the last dregs of tiredness from her system. She was being gloomy. Stop it. That kind of thinking was for people like Serenity Midnight. The leader of the Serenity Seasons needed to project cool, calm confidence.

She’d get that down one of these days.

But no. Serenity Winter wasn’t a tired, weary warrior waiting to get permanently corrupted. She was bright and hopeful and surrounded by the best friends she could ever ask for. She was just feeling morose for some reason this morning. Weird dreams. And there hadn’t even been a nightmare star in the sky. Weird. What could have caused it then?

Eh. Probably something she ate. The blunette shrugged, moving to go and get dressed – but as she went, she found herself pausing. For some reason, she couldn’t help the feeling that she was forgetting something important…

“Huh.” Connie Green, blonde lawyer who was really hoping that the pickup truck driver wasn’t going to leave her and her broken down car stranded out here in the sticks, looked down over the side of the bridge at the river bank down below. “Cool helmet.”

Lexi Locks was a slacker.

That wasn’t what her family would say about her. It absolutely wasn’t what her friends would say about her (unless Rosa was in a really bad mood). But it was something she knew to be true. In some ways, she was kind of proud of the title.

And, y’know, she didn’t really see a problem with that? She was willing to do the work that had to be done, she just didn’t see a point in doing more than that. Anything more than the bare minimum for most things was just wasted effort, wasn’t it? No one had infinite energy, you had to make what you did with yours count!

There were some things she was absolutely willing to get fired up about though…

“It’s been six months since Sapphire City’s protectors officially changed over from the Serenity Saviours to the Serenity Seasons,” the podcast bared over her desktop’s speakers. “What do we think?”

“I’ll tell you what I think, John. I think our girls in white are heroes, all, but some heroes are more heroic than others – know what I mean?”

“Y’know, Jack, I think I do, but why don’t you enlighten our audience?”

“Haha, well, look at Serenity Winter there! She knows how to cut a silhouette – you can tell she was trained by the very best. The girl’s a born leader. She knows how the fight works. If a Desire shows up and finds her on the scene, they might as well give up there and then. And whenever she’s not on the scene, well, I mean that’s when things turn ugly.”

Her keyboard clattered against her desk as she typed furiously on it – glancing, occasionally, towards the podcast player on the right-hand side of her screen. Okay, it sounded like they were giving Winter a fair shake, good, good…

“Ugly, John?”

“Ugly, Jack. I mean, let’s face it, Serenity Summer means well, but that girl is all bark, no bite. And I can’t for the life of me work out what Serenity Spring is supposed to bring to the picture… Flowers and sunshine are nice, but they’re not going to do anything when you’ve got a monster bearing down on you, know what I mean?”

Ugh. They did so well with Winter, and then got Summer completely wrong! How could they possibly think that about Rosa? The girl was one of the hardest workers that Lexi had ever met! Call her all bark to her face and you were going to get yours bitten off.

The comment about Serenity Spring was ignored with a shrug. Hey, they could think what they wanted about her, she didn’t care. It was her friends whose PR she was here to manage.

“I’m surprised to hear you say all that, Jack, because let me tell you, my thoughts couldn’t be more different.”

“Well of course they are, John, we all know what a hack you are!” Laughter crackled through the speakers as both hosts chuckled. “But for serious, what are you smoking?”

“Now Jack you know I only smoke the finest of cuts from Reggie’s down the block, but his place was closed this morning so I come at you stone cold sober, for all of our sins.”

“Mother of god.”

“Mother indeed, Jack. But what I think is you’re completely misreading the power dynamics.”

“Always with the power dynamics.”

“Always with the power dynamics, man, I’m telling you! And when we’re talking power, we’re talking no question which Season is strongest.”

Lexi sighed, leaning back after hitting enter on her latest forum post. Serenity PR was hard work. There was a lot of stuff to monitor, a lot of fan forums to keep an eye on, a lot of hype you needed to manage. From what she’d heard, the Foundation normally handled this kind of thing for the Serenities, but they’d been kind of busy lately apparently. So, she was here to step in! Someone needed to look after these girls.

“You’re going to say it’s Summer.”

“You know I’m going to say it’s Summer, because it’s Summer! Like, you and I are in agreement right away, because even you know you can’t deny the pure feats behind our girl with literally burning passion.”

“Look, that-that-that’s just pure tortoise and the hare talk, isn’t it though. It’s all power power power, until the time comes to put it to use. Saving the city isn’t the work of a champion sprinter, John, it’s the work of a marathon runner. Winter’s graceful and precise. Summer always expects her heat to do all the work for her, and that leaves her in heat nine times out of ten.”

“That’s a clever reference he’s sliding in there, don’t think we don’t see it man.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Tch. Well they were finally giving Summer a compliment, but they couldn’t help but backhand it with a comment on one or two of her past corruptions. Rosa had ended up kind of animalistic in a couple of Desire encounters now, and it looked like she was starting to get a rep. Hm, she’d have to see about blunting that…

‘’Renity Review’ was one of the snarkiest – and therefore, most popular, sadly – podcasts that focused on Serenities. People just loved negativity for some reason. And they’d been using the chance of the Foundation being distracted to really amp up their unpleasantness. If no one listened to them then it wouldn’t have mattered, but unfortunately people did, so Lexi had to as well.

Honestly, she preferred MagiWatch to these jerks. At least Mary got some actual Serenities on the show from time to time to speak for themselves…

These jokers just commented on various Serenity groups around the country, ‘reviewing’ and ‘critiquing’ the ladies who put themselves in harms way every day to protect them. And unfortunately, their words, along with their stupid stat system that they insisted was based on real combat expertise that Lexi knew neither of them possessed, meant a lot to people.

At least they were acknowledging how powerful Summer was (though honestly, Winter was the better fighter, she won their spars nine times out of ten).

“I’m sure you don’t. Heaven save us from a committed Winter Stan, am I right folks? Now, I like Winter, she’s cute, but those of us who live in reality know cute don’t cut it. She’s too timid, there, I said it, she’s too timid and it costs her. The girl needs to borrow some of Summer’s pure aggression stat!”

“You’re crazy, he’s crazy folks, I am sorry for bringing in a crazy man on my show.”

“Your show?!”

“Yeah, I bought microphone, it’s my damn show.”

“I’d like to see you use it without sound shield I bought in!”

“Man, you know, I’m glad there’s at least one thing we can agree on in the midst of all this turmoil.”

“My brother, you’re correct, the common ground that binds us and tells us that we’re not all bad.”

“Hell yeah, and that truth – you ready?”

“I’m ready, let’s hit it together!”

“That truth is simple – Serenity Spring sucks!”

That got a roll of the eyes as Lexi shut the podcast player off. Fortunately, she didn’t care what they said about her – it was her friends that she was worried about. And okay, that was enough PR work for now. It was time to get a move on. She didn’t want to be late for training…

Lauren was bored. The pickup truck had finally shown up, and the driver had been very apologetic for the wait. He’d even let her ride up front as her car was towed to the nearest mechanic. But now, here she was, waiting in the waiting room, with no idea how long it would be before anyone would even look at her vehicle, let alone repair it… And meanwhile she was trying to ignore her phone, which was just lighting up with people messaging her about work that she couldn’t do right now!

So maybe it wasn’t surprising that she was distracting herself with this helmet that she’d found. It had cleaned up surprisingly nicely once she pulled it out of the river bank. Though, really, she wasn’t sure why she’d grabbed it. Sure, it was cool, and she’d been bored – she’d been waiting for hooours… But it still wasn’t really her kind of thing, was it? Well, did anyone have a thing for random helmets they found lying around?

Still, there was something about it. Something that kept drawing her curiosity, kept pulling her attention back to it. So weird.

But it really wasn’t all that much of a surprise when, after an hour of sitting around, she finally decided to try the thing on. It couldn’t be that gross, right?

Actually, it wasn’t gross at all…

“Oh!” She blinked as she looked through the visor and saw that it was actually far more advanced than she realised. She’d expected maybe some coloured plastic and some stickers at best. What she got was a fully lit up screen with boxes highlighting points of interest in her line of sight, text and numbers scrolling past all over the place. Wow, she hadn’t even seen any battery slots on this thing, but it looked like it was fully powered! Kinda cool.

And… Interesting. It was asking her if she wanted it to connect with the device in her hand – her phone. She wondered what, exactly, the helmet could do if she allowed it to – and as if in response, the screen instantly changed, zooming in on the phone screen. Text lit up in front of her eyes, displaying call logs, texts, appointments in her calendar…

Then her phone began to ring. The visor said that the call was from her boss. One option asked if she wanted it to answer it.

Another asked if she’d like to access the phone that was calling her instead.

Access her boss’s phone? All of their contacts would be on there, all of his texts, his confidential data, access to private reports and personal reviews, maybe even his banking info…

Absently, Lauren couldn’t help but wonder what would happen if she asked the helmet to-

The screen immediately displayed a view that was very similar to the data on her own phone, but from someone one promotion ahead of her. Texts. Profiles. Reviews (the jackass had put a note about her being ‘unreliable’ in here!). And full access to his bank account.

Huh.

Holy crap.

“Rupture Caldera!” Red light slammed into the Desire’s guard hard enough to knock her backwards, her arms cartwheeling as she tried to maintain her balance. But her efforts were pointless, because even as she managed to stay on her feet, she was left wide open for another threat – Serenity Spring, charging in from behind, ribbon already lashing out!

“Serenity seal!”

“Nooooo!” RingMistress cried out, her voice buzzing and crackling as white light finally punched through her guard and consumed her body. The might of the Serenities triumphed, banishing her power and reducing her down to her most basic form…

A silver ring tinked against the floor and rolled a little ways, before falling on its side with a clatter.

Victory music played, a catchy little jingle filling the air as the world gently dissolved into bright pixels, and then faded to reveal the empty white walls of a standard holo-chamber.

“Okay,” Sophia panted as the digital projection of Serenity Winter dissolved around her, leaving a seemingly ordinary human in the holo-chamber. “That’s… That was way better.”

“Oh yeah.” Rosa cracked her neck as the guise of Serenity Summer likewise melted off her. “That felt so good. Get wrecked, clown girl.”

“I actually landed it!” Lexi, revealed beneath the holographic form of Serenity Spring, was already dancing on the spot. “I landed the finisher!”

Sophia smiled, happy to see her friend so excited. “Of course you did! I mean, you’ve been practicing that move more than any of us. You’re good at it!”

The blonde blushed at the compliment, her excitement immediately swapping to embarrassment. “I mean, it was only a holo-recreation… And the difficulty of Serenity Blitz 12’s super nerfed compared to 11…”

The blunette had to laugh at that. “Don’t be ridiculous. You did a good job, Lexi.”

“Yeah.” Rosa stepped in, patting the smaller blonde on the back. “Seriously, you right in place to score when I passed you the ball. That takes skill.”

Lexi squinted up at her suspiciously. “Is that a sports metaphor thing you’re doing there? Because I don’t do sports.”

The brunette chuckled. “Something like that.”

“Okay, I think that’s enough for today,” Sophia sighed, glancing at the timer over by the door. “I only paid for 2 hours of holotime, so I don’t think we can fit another round in. You both did great – you’re leaps and bounds above where you were even just a month ago.”

“I think she’s pleased we managed to avenge her this time,” Rosa whispered to a nodding Lexi.

The blunette blushed, absently toying with her hair as she pushed the button to open the holochamber door. “I admit, it was satisfying seeing that Desire get what she deserved head on…”

She’dve liked it even more if the real one had gone down so easily, but oh well. Serenity Blitz had done a decent job at modelling the Desire’s abilities, so using the holographic combat simulator was a way of training actual Serenities was both practical and affordable. And both were important right now, with the Foundation was currently too busy to supply proper training materials out. Maybe it wasn’t a perfect arrangement, but it was something.

The trio stepped out of the booth, back out into the mall proper. One of the game supervisors took the simulator gear off them – a collection of sticky tags placed against their clothes so that the holochamber had been able to track their movements – and absently complimented them on their high score, something that pleased Sophia no end. They’d had a rough start when the team had formed – she’d barely been more experienced than a rookie herself when the other two had joined, and she’d been expected to teach them alone?! – but now they were really starting to click.

“Who’s up for some BurnerBurger?” She asked, jabbing her thumb towards the fast-food joint across the mall court. “My treat for the good job!”

The other two grinned and nodded, and Sophia felt her heart swell. Yeah, the Serenity Seasons were going to be okay. Sapphire City was in good hands.

Whatever Desire came for them next, they’d be ready.

She shouldn’t be doing this.

Lauren knew she shouldn’t be doing this. She knew she shouldn’t be hacking all of her friends’ phones, she knew she shouldn’t be reading through her ex-boyfriend’s texts with his whore of a replacement, she knew she shouldn’t be draining the bank accounts of her enemies, or just anyone who had annoyed her…

But the power this helmet had given her was so seductive. She’d tried to put it down, tried to throw it away, but every time she’d grabbed it back in seconds. It was just too much fun to use.

She knew shouldn’t be doing this, and she didn’t care! It felt far, far, far too good. So much fun!

No, more than fun. This was incredible. Information was filtering into her head so fast that she wasn’t sure how to keep up – but she was keeping up! She had two Inkflow videos up, playing one for her left eye, and one for her right, and somehow she was keeping complete track of both! How was she doing it? Who cared?!

- There was some flickering and static in each feed, sure, but that was fine. She couldn’t expect perfect playback even if everything else was running better than any PC she’d ever seen. It was weird, sometimes when she crossed her eyes, it was like the two videos merged, and the static seemed to form this deep, endless spiral…-

But Lauren was enjoying herself far too much to worry about any of that. Or worry about how dizzy she was starting to feel, or how stiff her arms and legs were getting, or why random forum posts were starting to pop up at the bottom of her view...

BurnerBurger was a great choice for a post-training cooldown. The food was mostly grease, just what you needed after a proper work out! The Serenities had grabbed their own table just outside the serving area, and were enjoying just hanging out without a disaster looming over their heads.

It was a little tradition that Sophia insisted on. Something to build their bonds of friendship, rather than just their teamwork. Which was why it was doubly ironic that Sophia was currently hiding under her hands and looking like she wanted to be anywhere else.

“She can’t be that mad about it, can she…?” The blunette whimpered, peering through her fingers up at her friends imploringly. “I said I was sorry!”

“Girl, you broke her streak,” Lexi was laughing outright. “Her perfect, 100% uncorrupted streak. She will never forgive you. Not ever.”

“Nooooo…”

“Don’t worry about it, leader,” Rosa was grinning too. “Dawn needed taking down a peg or five. You did her a favour. Really!”

“… Really?”

“For sure.” The brunette nodded. “Of course, she probably won’t see it that way…”

Sophia looked like she wanted the tiled walkway underneath her to open up and swallow her whole. Her teammates, being the graceful beacons of light and love that they were, delighted in their chance to tease her.

“Look, it’s fine,” Lexi continued. “I’ll bet she’s getting corrupted every mission now. She’ll never remember it was all your-“

Her phone beeped. She glanced at it, eyebrow raised, but shrugged and kept on. “I mean, look-”

Beep! Beep! Beep!

Huh? She blinked. The other girls were looking over now too. Why were her alerts going off so much? Had something happened? No one else was getting these alarms…

Brow furrowing, she pulled her phone over and pulled open the alerts tab.

[Hey, so any of you guys notice how much of a joke the Sapphire City Serenities are?]

[Can’t believe they let girls like this defend our city.]

[Whatever happened to that redheaded bitch anyway?]

Comments. Dozens of comments. Even as she started to read through them, more were flooding in. It was an absolute deluge of Serenity hate – open season on the Seasons! What the hell was all this?

“Everything okay, Lexi?” Sophia asked, noticing the blonde’s expression.

“Uh. It’s. Um. It’s fine,” she answered, biting her lip. She didn’t want her friends to deal with nonsense like this. It was her job. “But it looks like I, uh. I’ve gotta go handle something…” She rose up from the table.

The other two Serenities blinked at one another, before both shrugged. “Sure. Anything you need help with?”

“Oh, no no, I can handle it, don’t worry.” She was already paying more attention to her phone than to them. “I’ll catch up with you later. Thanks for the training, guys.” Her chair slid under the table as she all but sprinted away.

They let her get maybe five steps out before they started speculating, because they were generous like that.

“What’cha think?” Rosa asked, staring after the retreating blonde’s back. “Boyfriend? Girlfriend?”

“Probably just family stuff,” Sophie said, taking a chomp out of her burger. “Nothing to-Hey, Rosa, those are my fries!”

“The portions are so small here…”

“So you can buy two, leave mine alone…!”

Their voices faded into the background hubbub as Lexi hurried away through the mall, eyes still glued to her phone screen.

[Ugh, these Serenities suck so much.]

[Can’t even protect us from Desires smh]

[Does anyone buy her being a natural blunette?]

The blonde frowned. What the- where were all of these posts coming from? They were everywhere! Every forum, every comments section – all of them dedicated to insulting and mocking the Seasons.

There was no mistaking it. This was a coordinated effort. Someone had set up a bot farm or something for the explicit purpose of mocking the Serenity Seasons. How petty could you get?

Ugh. Something like this… Well, it might be harmless. People tended to notice sudden extreme spouts of unreasonable hostility. But she still needed to go into damage control mode – figure out where all this hate as coming from, and how to stop it.

Actually, how to stop it was easy enough. The Foundation had ways of dealing with crap like this. They were too busy to run regular PR, but obvious hate campaigns were another story. The blonde quickly got to work on her phone, isolating the comments and getting a list of their details, compiling a quick report that she sent through her Serenity App. She had her own backdoors into a few of these sites that might help them out… There. That would get things started. Now what?

There wasn’t much more she could do. She’d already reported this to the Foundation. They were the ones with resources, they were the ones who could actually do something about this. The reasonable thing to do was just leave it there. Move on, and hope this whole thing blew over quickly.

… But the Foundation was so busy these days. They might not even notice her message for weeks.

Was there really nothing more she could do?

Her eyes flicked to the screen. She’d gathered a lot of information, and there it was, listed out for her to sort through. Why not do an investigation of her own? Track down where these IPs were coming from…

It only took her as long as it took to walk to the end of the street. Then she had it cracked. All of these comments were coming from a single location – just like she’d suspected. Pulling up a map revealed that it wasn’t even that far away. Some garage or something? She could walk that in like 10, 20 minutes. Faster, even, maybe. Becoming a Serenity had really boosted her physical stats, even untransformed.

For a moment, she paused, looking over her shoulder. She’d left the mall by now, but it wasn’t far behind her. She could go back. She could tell her friends what was happening, what she suspected. But that meant that she’d have to tell them what people were saying about them online. Even beyond the hate spam right now, stuff like what ‘Renity Review and their horde of fans said was going to come up.

Why tell them, when this was something she could deal with herself?

Lexi hesitated, and then turned back around, pulling her jacket tight around her shoulders as she began to walk. She was a slacker, through and through, and proud of it. But some things were hers alone to deal with.

“Excuse me, Miss?”

The mechanic stepped into the waiting room, rubbing his hands clean with a piece of cloth. “Sorry for the wait – we’ve been having a few issues with out system, it’s been bugging out, holding things up. Shouldn’t be much longer, then we can- Uh.” He paused, finally looking up at his customer. “Miss?”

The blonde woman that he’d left in here a few hours ago had vanished. Instead, in her place sat a lady wearing a face covering helmet, complete with a strangely shaped visor that glowed with odd yellow light. Her body looked like it was made of silver, with long, smooth, shining legs and mechanical looking joints, all sculpted to look incredibly human.

And not sculpted with any clothing in mind. Good lord, those boobs were huge…

He almost didn’t think she was human when he spotted her. Hell, if he didn’t know better, he’dve thought a robot had somehow snuck into his business while he was distracted. Or a statue, maybe.

But statues didn’t look up when you spoke to them.

The silver woman slid gracefully to her feet, stalking towards him. The way she moved… He felt the briefest flicker of danger, primal instincts from a much less civilized time warning him that he was in the presence of a predator.

But it was far too late to run. Before he could even blink, she was right up in front of him. Even with no face, he could swear she was smirking.

Then her hand pressed against his chest, and a cold wave shot through him, spreading outwards from her fingers at neat instant pace. In under a second, the balding, slightly overweight mechanic had been replaced by a silver bot – slim, with efficient, graceful design, a blue glass visor over a passively smiling feminine face, and tits almost as big as the metal creature who had created her.

[Unit R00001 Online And Ready To Serve.] She saluted as her transformation finished.

“Excellent,” the silver woman sighed, snapping her fingers as if to test that they worked. “I think I’m just about back up and running then! Thanks so much for the help, Lauren~”

Of course, Lauren didn’t answer her. She was much too busy drooling mindlessly inside the helmet. Her brain had long stopped producing thoughts, simply absorbing the ones being beamed in through her visor. Soon her own conversion would complete, and she’d be nothing more than a metal host body…

“Ahhh, it’s good to be back.” CyberHeat smiled. “Now what have I missed~?”

Lexi knew something was wrong as soon as she arrived at the garage. Things were quiet. Much, much too quiet. The place looked open for business, but there was no sign of anyone at the entrance or through any of the windows, nor were the sounds of machinery and exertion that you’d expect from a mechanic’s place.

For a moment, the blonde considered turning around there and then. But she couldn’t leave without doing something about these attacks on her friends. And she couldn’t tell them what was happening, either. So, steeling herself for unpleasantness, instead she crept inside, peering around.

This was a mistake. She could feel it in her gut. Every instinct she had was telling her to grab her earring and transform into a Serenity, right this second. But it was against the rules to transform without confirmation of a Desire in the area…

Were Lexi an older, more experienced magical girl, she would have shrugged the rules off and transformed there and then, understanding that sometimes you had to obey the spirit of the law rather than the letter… But right now, the blonde had only been a Serenity for six months, and lacked any of that kind of confidence. She’d investigate as an ordinary human instead.

And at first, that didn’t seem like such a bad idea. Walking into the open garage, everything looked normal. Cars with their hoods open, tools lying around on the floor, the occasional oil stain on the floor… Normal as normal could be. It was easy to convince herself that she was being paranoid if she just ignored the silence and the complete lack of people…

But that didn’t last long.

As soon as she stepped through the door from the garage to the offices, everything changed. Instead of walking into a tatty, yellowed room with a water cooler and an ocean of paperwork suspended on filing cabinets and desks, she found herself emerging at the top of a long metal stair case that circled around into a recently bored tunnel leading deep underground.

That was less normal. But not totally unprecedented. Maybe their offices were just underground.

Gently creeping down the stairs was hard. Lexi’s heart was pounding harder with every step. The darkness was growing deeper, and the lower she went, the more likely it was that she wouldn’t make it out again. Why was she doing this?

… Because if she called in what she suspected, her friends would have to come, and then they might get in trouble. She didn’t have many people like Sophia and Rosa. People she genuinely cared about outside of her family. She wanted them to be safe. Even if both of them had chosen to put themselves into a life of danger for others.

At the same time, she couldn’t ignore what she’d found. If this was a Desire, then she needed to warn people. She needed to Serenity up and protect the innocent. And she needed to call in her team.

It was a hard square to circle, and every second she spent diving deeper into this pit, hoping that the whole thing was just a misunderstanding, was another second she could put that moment of decision off. She knew it made her weak and cowardly, but Lexi Locks was nothing if not a slacker when it came to dealing with her own emotions.

Unfortunately, no reckoning could be postponed indefinitely. And at the bottom of the stairs, the moment of truth came. Lexi found herself stepping out onto a walkway overlooking a massive underground workshop, a large metal room filled with conveyer belts and incomprehensible machines, all being operated by visor wearing silver drones.

Oh yeah. This was Desire territory. No question about it. But what were they doing in here? These machines… The blonde fancied herself as a pretty knowledgeable tech-head, but she’d never seen anything like this.

“Keep it up, Drones!” A voice called from the far end of the room. “I want these nanites ready to swarm the city in the next hour, tops! The next time a Serenity comes for me, there’s going to be an army of bots between us!”

Eep. Oh, that was horrifying. Biting her lip, Lexi pulled out her phone. No signal down here, like she thought, so if she transformed, she’d be on her own. But maybe…

[Halt!]

She squealed in shock as a metal hand came out of nowhere to grab her arm, locking her tight in an unbreakable grip. Spinning around, she found herself face to abs with a drone – a different kind from the ones working down on the conveyer belts.

This kind was big. Perhaps twice her size (Lexi knew she was a little on the small side, but this was ridiculous) and three times her width, this model had clearly been designed to intimidate. Its arms were big and bulky, its muscles obvious and well defined, purpose built (what kind of robots even had abs, anyway), all capped off by a head in a white metal helmet with a menacing purple visor glaring down at her.

It also had massive boobs, complete with police badge-like nipples, because Desires were just kind of like that. Being powered by the supressed wants of humanity apparently made them all stupidly horny, like, all the time.

[Intruder. Submit To Processing.] The Security bot’s robotic monotone barked at her.

She just snarled in response. “Get fragged!”

With a surge of adrenaline, the blonde pulled away, her slender arm managing to slide through the bot’s grip. Big and powerful might look impressive, but it kind of made it hard to hold on to someone when your fingers were too large to properly tighten around them! And it made the bot slow, too. By the time it had turned around, she was already gone, sprinting away up the stairs.

“Did I hear something over here?” CyberHeat dropped down onto the walkway next to the Security drone, looking around. “You were being all distracting, bot, better have been for a good reason!”

[There Was An Intruder.] The bot dutifully reported. [Requesting Permission To Pursue.]

The Desire tilted her head in surprise and then turned to look towards the stairs out. “Was it a Serenity?”

[Negative.]

“Hm. Then did you touch her?” she asked, voice surprisingly calm.

[Affirmative.]

“Then there’s no need.” The bot-maker shrugged, turning back to her machines. “She’ll make her own way back soon enough. For now, just focus on keeping the nanite production facility protected.”

The drone saluted, turning and marching back to its patrol point. CyberHeat watched it go, appreciating its delightfully big form for a moment, before jumping away to oversee another part of the process. One human girl wasn’t going to cause problems. It was the Serenities she needed to prepare for.

This time, she wasn’t going to let anything stop her.

Lexi burst out of the garage at top speed already gasping for breath, only stopping when she realised that she wasn’t being followed. She’d never run faster in her life! Serenity or no, charging up stairs like that was going to take it out of you.

But somehow, unbelievably, it seemed like she’d gotten away…?

No, that couldn’t be right. But it didn’t matter – she had to take this chance to warn people what was happening here!

Checking her phone, she saw that not only did she have a signal now, she’d also accidentally taken a photo of the Desire herself when the security bot grabbed her. Huh. Unexpected bonus! Okay, she could send that to the Foundation, and then… And… Then…

Her wrist felt cold.

Face going pale, she looked down at where the security bot had grabbed her – and had to fight the urge to scream. There, from a set of silver fingerprints pressed into her skin, was a growing wave of metal spreading up over her hand. She’d been infected.

“Damnit!” The corruption was going slow, spreading down her wrist at what felt like a snail’s pace, but it was going all the same. Without a purifier on hand to cure it in the next ten seconds, her future was looking shiny and metallic.

Her free hand reached for her earring. If she could transform, maybe that would slow it more…

But then she stopped, and reached for her phone instead.

No. It was too late. If she transformed now, it might buy a minute, at best – and then she would have just provided the Desire with an even more powerful minion. She’d screwed up, just like she knew she would, and now she was going to have to pay the price. But she’d make sure that no one else would pay it with her!

Silver climbing down her elbow, she thumbed open the Serenity App and slammed the button for sending out an emergency alert.

“I’ve found a Desire! Vizier class,” she barked, cutting right to the chase, “and she’s turning everyone into robotic drones!” Her shoulder was getting cold. “I’ve attached a picture and- and my location. You should see her signal if you look close! Come quickly, I don’t know how long she’ll… ah…” She felt woozy as her heart started to pump something other than blood, silver spreading through her veins. “I got infected… I’m sorry… T-tell the girls I… I didn’t…”

Her eyes rolled up in her head as they turned pure silver, phone tumbling from her now metallic hand and cracking on the concrete ground. She fell silent as the wave swept over her head, her desperate warning over.

But her transformation was just getting started.

Warmth blossomed in her heart as her internal organs painlessly reshaped themselves into mechanical parts, pumping pure pleasure into her brain. Her skin shimmered as it became totally metallic, shining silver for a moment, before darkening to a more intimidating black.

The casual clothing that she’d worn to her training session at the mall made an uncomfortable stretching sound, just on the verge of tearing, before it all disintegrated to dust around her, leaving the blonde standing naked on the street, staring at nothingness as her mind was bombarded with pleasure and computer code.

But her clothes hadn’t been stretched for no reason. Lexi was growing. Her spine lengthening, her legs growing stocky and thick, her arms pumping up with metallic muscles – and, of course, her breasts swelling out in front of her, big and firm.

Soon, she towered over her previous size, practically double her own height, and with the swell of her arms and legs, a good three times as thick. Her chest, of course, was even larger, each breast a good three or four times the size of her head, her nipples merging down into golden little badge-like symbols…

And speaking of her head, that was solidifying too. Her hair flattened into her head, turning into a white helmet with only the slightest hints of its previous yellow left as coloured trim. Her face developed a stern, frowning expression, frozen like cast metal, and made all the more intimidating by the purple glass visor that slid out from the front of her new helmet, down over her eyes.

Her body settled, armoured joints sliding together. Small dashes of green crept into her design, little bits of colour on her helmet, her elbows and knees, unknowing signs of her connection to Spring.

Finally, her transformation was complete. All that remained was her programming. Her visor lit up, ones and zeros streaming past her eyes as she wirelessly connected to CyberHeat’s network, alerting the Mistress to her new drone. Instantly, new orders filtered into Lexi’s robotized brain, deleting or overwriting the unnecessary data that had filled it before. Memories of her friends, the faces of her families, her identity as Serenity Spring… All of it purged away into static.

In its place, new directives, new loyalties, and a new identity printed themselves into place. The drone was Security Unity R00012. It was programmed to love, serve, and obey Mistress CyberHeat in all ways. Its current objective was to guard Nanite Factory R01. To do so, it had been programmed with patrol routes and combat subroutines that would make it a potent deterrent to all threats.

The visor dimmed. The unit that had been Lexi Locks stood out on the street for a moment, its new existence settling into place.

Then security Unit R00012 turned, and stomped back down the stairs, heading to its new guard post. It would stand there, unmoving and unthinking, until either an intruder was detected, or new orders downloaded themselves into its digitized brain.

If you want to see art of this story, check out my patreon - you can find the whole sequence right Here (viewable for free!) And if you're interested in seeing the Next Chapter of CyberHeat, or the already completed Next Story in the Serenity Saga, then check out my patreon - www.patreon.com/DirectorDZ - I post new stories every week, along with art, and Choose-your-own-adventure type stuff!

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