My Sister The Villainess - Chapter 75

Dolly propped her legs up on her new ebony desk with a satisfied sigh. All around her were fat stacks of cash and jewels. The large tent erected overhead blocked the sun but from the center of the tent hun several bright lamps which illuminated the entire room. And littered all over the place were soft rugs and pillows of every size and shape.

The giant metal box behind her, the size of a wagon, was where she stored her now considerable profits.

Business had been good. Real good. So good, in fact, that she was now in the process of buying a building from the nearby city in order to convert it into a full-blown bakery.

She already had a whole marketing plan worked out. She’d just gotten done placing all sorts of posters around the city, for example.

“Dolly’s Sweet Spot. Now in a city near you!” She loved the name. It was so simple. Elegant.

“Dahlia D Claybrook, the only Sugar Mama you’ll ever need.” She wasn’t quite sure was a Sugar Mama was, but it sounded nice and just perfect for the occasion.

“Recipes from the creator of Cinnabon Delights, the Confection King himself, Damien Claybrook Come see Lord Sticky Bun live and in person! For a limited time only!”

Day had become really popular as a young culinary genius when he and father launched a chain of restaurants some time back with the Cinnabon Delight as their flagship pastry. This was a very lucrative venture and Dolly wanted to do that same. Day very rarely ran out of money if there was a bank nearby to withdraw some of the immense funds under his name as a co-owner of their business.

But he wasn’t thinking big! Unlike Dolly who was plotting world domination via baked goods.

First, you dominate their stomachs. Then you dominate their souls. Just look at Baz. He’d long since become a slave to Day’s cookies and now couldn’t live without them. He broke out in hives if he went for longer than a week without at least one, which is why he kept some on hand at all times.

But how would she create her Empire just from a few bakeries, you may ask? Of course, by striking at the heart of society. Day and father were simple men so they didn’t realize the potential of Day’s ungodly, addictive culinary skills. Dolly, however, did.

She wasn’t going to make a giant chain of bakeries, either. She may later, but the important step was to create a small and exclusive clientele. A select group of people with power and influence.

Who else but the Nobles and Royalty of the world? That’s right. Dolly planned to get them all hooked on her pastries!

Through Day’s drug-like baked goods, Dolly would rule the world!

She’d make thralls out of the world’s Royalty and command from the shadows. Slowly building up her resources before finally revealing herself.

Dolly snickered while imagining wealth and grandeur of the highest orders. Day would look at her in five to ten years wearing a fancy crown inside a magnificent palace with all the forces on the planet bowing at her feet.

Their wedding will take place in front of millions, under a bright sun and thunderous applause.

“Dolly, I love you. You’re my favorite sister! Let’s be together forever and ever!”

People will cheer with tears in their eyes. “LONG LIVE THE EMPRESS! LONG LIVE THE WI.N.C.E.S.T EMPIRE! SISTER LOVE FOREVER!”

“Oh-ho-ho.” Dolly chuckled maniacally. She stopped. Wait, what was with that weird high-pitched laugh? Somehow it just came from the depths of her being. Strange….

… Eh, whatever!

She cleared her throat and left the tent. She walked for ten minutes and found Day at the back of the high school division’s training ground. They’d set their business in front of the highschool’s gates and Dolly skipped class to count their earnings. Not like those boring teachers would be teaching her much Day hadn’t covered years ago anyway.

She set up the bake sale there because more students attended the high school and they were often even richer.

These day’s business was booming even harder since people needed the pick-me-up Day’s baked goods brought. The students of the high school and a majority of the University division were now being trained for combat, for whatever reason.

This meant they practiced hard and even had to go on expeditions within the “Dungeon” in the city close by.

Also thanks to the strange holes that had suddenly appeared in a great many “floors” of the dungeon somehow, well, a few flying monsters or ones with the ability to jump high or walk on walls began to invade the upper floors.

So the areas normally deemed easier to traverse were now a little more dangerous overall since more powerful creatures would sometimes pop up on floors they shouldn’t be in.

This is why the teachers started to organize and chaperone groups of students. They would accompany these groups who would delve into the dungeon to gain experience, protecting them from possible dangers too great for their current skills.

Anyway, right now Day was holding a cooking class! Because Dolly planned to expand her business and Day couldn’t be cooking for her all the time, he decided to teach others to work for her.

These people were debt slaves Dolly acquired from the local gambling dens. Dolly wasn’t allowed in these dens anymore. People accused her of cheating. How rude!

How is it her fault Day’s lover in a previous life was Lady Luck, and the woman now showered Dolly with favor in the hope of gaining the approval of Day’s most beloved sister? Or at least that’s what Day sometimes said, jokingly. Though Dolly sorta believed it, actually.

Hehe. Little did Lady Luck know that she was actually helping Dolly with her plan of World I.n.c.e.s.tification! She was helping to push Day further into Dolly’s arms! Muwahahahah~!

“Oh-ho-ho-ho-ho~!” Dolly instinctively raised the back of her hand to her lips, put the other on her hip, and tilted slightly backward with her head held high. One sharp canine was exposed and the sky seemed to darken just a bit.

She had no idea why this felt so right.

Ahem.

Dolly put it out of her mind and watched Day. He brought out several long tables carrying many batches of ingredients and tools. From a few feet to the side he’d made simple but large ovens.

“Remember,” He instructed seriously. “You gotta embrace the dough!” He took the ball of dough on the table and gripped it. “You’ve gotta sniff the dough!” He picked up and brought it to his nose. ” You’ve gotta lick the dough!” He ran a pink tongue along it’s surface. “You’ve gotta wash the dough! Date the dough! You’ve got to BE the marble!” He shouted. “Ahem, I mean, the dough.”

Everyone was dead silent as they stared at him.

He threw the dough in a trash can to his side. “Relax, I’m just f.u.c.k.i.n.g with you. ” He poured milk into a prepared batch of flour and other ingredients. “You actually need to make love to the dough.” He suddenly chucked a wooden spoon at some burly man near the back, a debt slave who actually had the nerve to try and cheat when Dolly was busy taking his name. The chicken.

“Dammit, Karl, I meant figuratively!”

Dolly didn’t see what happened from her angle but Day seemed pretty mad. He looked to be in control of things, though.

“There. Kneading it nice and slow. Gentle, but firm. Like handling a woman’s ass. Be bold. Be confident! Don’t worry, it’s just a ball of flour, sugar and stuff, it doesn’t need consent! Heh. But no seriously don’t be too rough. You need to strengthen that gluten, not over-work it.”

“What’s gluten?”

“Flavor, that’s what. Anyone tells you any different, shank ’em, because they’re a cancer that needs to be cut out. F.u.c.k.i.n.g stuck-up pricks, telling us how to live our lives. Don’t even got any digestive illnesses. Just a bunch of vegan soy boy assholes tryna act all holier-than-thou. F.u.c.k. If I ever get back to Earth…Hmph. Let’s see, they can be third on the list? After raiding the Area 51 and getting the Pope high.”

Dolly’s ears were quite good lately. She heard Day’s mumbles pretty easily but didn’t know what he was getting at. But it sounded fun!

She walked over excitedly. “You son of a bitch, I’m in.”

When she was younger and his friend WIll used to invite him out, Dolly had heard him say that often.

Her cheek was pinched. “Little rascal, it’s too early for you to clapping alien cheeks and smoking pot with religious leaders.”

“What does clapping mean?” Dolly fixed her eyes on Day, eager to learn.

“…F.u.c.k.”

***

Dolly got nowhere with her question even after pestering Day for a solid five minutes. Sadly, Day didn’t want to teach her things anymore. She decided to ask Vee later, as she always did. Vee normally knew many of the things Day said, oddly enough.

Discouraged and not wanting to take up any more of his class time, she left.

She decided to go visit her friends, Serina, Tammy, LIly, and Janette had been disappearing more and more lately. Dolly didn’t know what they were up to but sources say they’d been holed up in the University division’s library for a full three weeks now and it was time to see what they were doing.

So, with that in mind, she took a carriage and headed over! Taking Milly with her at Day’s urging.

The campus of the University a little small than the highschool but the buildings were even more beautiful and sophisticated. But at this time of day, there were very few people outside. There was a class or two holding outdoor exercises in accordance with the military training some were receiving, but from the way the older boys and girls were still looking so full of optimism and hope for life, unlike the ones Day taught, she could tell they didn’t have a very effective teacher.

Dolly ignored them and looked around a while, asked someone for directions, and then finally found what she was looking for.

Two tall, ornate doors leading to the library opened slowly after using both hands to push.. They let out creaks and groans and sounded ominous. Dolly’s hair stood on end and she felt as if she were walking into something bad.

“Great atrocities have been done here,” Milly spoke up.

Dolly agreed. “It feels….strange.”

Not only the air was stale, but there was also a quiet darkness and gloom that encroached upon the entire room, vast as it is. There were candles and lamps, yet the dark felt like it was trying to swallow their light. That’s how eerie the place seemed.

Dolly entered fearlessly, and even almost cheerfully. This place…it set her heart afire!

Isn’t this the “Boss fight” kind of place Day taught her about?! Are her newfound skills finally going to get their time to shine?! A spring came to her step. Hehe. She’s become Goddess of Ten Thousand Bum Pokes!

Well, in her mind. She shadow-boxed but hadn’t actually done any real fighting yet. But still! She still had her fast rolls. So as long as she nailed her rolls landed her kicks she’d I-frame her way to victory! Whatever that meant. Day never really explained.

For the past several weeks Day had been showing her a few moves alongside Charlotte.

How Charlotte escaped the life of an exile baffled Dolly, but here she was. It was fine though, Dolly isn’t one to hold grudges even against ex-cons like Charlotte.

She’s the one who exiled her, after all.

The remembrance of her short stint as a judge reminded Dolly of something important: Her mid-morning cuddles! She’d forgotten all about them!

She’d have to remind Day of her rights to the mid-morning cuddle later after she kicked the butt of whatever boss was hiding in this place.

Wait! Oh-no! What if the boss already got to her friends?! Dolly quickened her pace.

“Serina? Tammy? Are you here?” She called. “Janette, Lily?”

“Maybe they aren’t here?” Milly suggested.

“….Maybe.”

Dolly looked around cautiously. At first, she thought there was nothing. Just dim lights and musty old books in an immense and spooky citadel. Yet the aura of wrongness pervaded her whole body.

Then she heard it. A groan. Her heart leaped into her throat. That sounded like Janette!

“Guys, hold on, I’ll save you from the boss!”

Dolly ran deeper inside the darkness at breakneck speed, holding Milly tight in hand. Through the long hallway of bookcases and up a flight of stairs did Dolly sprint. Faster and faster, chasing the ever-growing sounds of misery.

And what she found at the end?

Her friends. Three of them, to be exact, two hunched over tables. Still. Silent. Stacks of books lay everywhere.

Science and biology books chief among them.

“No…” Dolly rushed to them. She got to Serina first, the only one of the bunch who had been lying prone on the ground. “Rina? Rina, wake up…”

She brushed strands of hair from the girl’s face and almost cried. But before a tear could be shed, Serina stirred. Her eyelids slowly opened, unfocused. She was gaunt like she hadn’t been eating.

“Dolly….” She rasped.

“Rina! W-What happened here? Where’s Lily? ”

The girl cleared her throat and rubbed her face. “Huh? Oh…she’ll be fine. We’ll be able to change her back before the week is done, don’t worry.”

“Change her back?”

Serina pointed to the left. Dolly followed her finger and found a source of blue light. This light came from a glass tank full of water. And within this take was Lily. Her once lovely, heart-shaped face had now become half of a giant rabbit’s head. She looked sickening with veins invading her better half, while her rabbit side had only a few bits of hair. Skin sagging, large beady black eye nearly too horrifying to look at.

At her back were connected thick tendrils of what may have been vine. Vines that glowed a faint blue.

“Kill it, kill it with fire!” Milly screamed. “Such corrupt magics, the darkest evils of humanity dwell in her heart! It must be… cleansed!” The sword flew up and burst with red lighting.

“Bad Milly! No cleansing, that’s my friend!” Dolly threw a book at the sword. Then turned back to Serina. “What the heck is going on!”

A yawn came from the girl’s mouth. “Ah. Yeah. The gene modification didn’t quite go as planned.”

“Mod…ification?”

Serina nodded. “Uh-huh. Sadly we don’t have anywhere near the level of technology needed. We had to improvise.” She explained. “The vines helped a lot. They’re our greatest creation so far.”

” After spending a whole week pouring over all the textbooks on the subject we could find, and combining our work with magic, we were able to slightly manipulate the genetic makeup of certain animals by introducing the cells of other creatures via the vines. They inject the genetic material we want into the subject.”

“Magic? I-Inject….What? I don’t get it at all!”

“Mn. An airhead like you wouldn’t understand. Suffice it to say that a group reached out to us about a month ago and helped fund our research. They also provided us with mages well-versed in alchemy and transfiguration, which greatly helped us. The latter of which for example is close to what we want, but not quite, as it’s a full transformation. We did try to forcefully halt their transfiguration halfway but it turned them into even worse monstrosities than Lily is now. Oh, but it’s okay. We fixed them. Reversing a spell is surprisingly easy. The mage nearly died, however.”

“Died!”

Tammy had apparently woken up and heard the conversation. “Yeah. Applying transfiguration ended up being too violet a method. It’s also wildly inaccurate. There’s not a way for the transformation to target specific areas and even if it could it wouldn’t be perfect. The ears would try to move the entire ear canal around the brain. This poses several dangerous problems. We haven’t figured out how to fix that. It seems very complex magic allows a beastkin mutant to get away with that without a very misshapen skull, but we have no clue how to replicate that magic yet. Not to mention the spell can only be used by the one performing it, not used on others. One of the mages nearly died after we tried seeing what happens if we slowed but not halted the change. We discovered it’s painful. Shocks the nerves, inducing coma with the possibility of brain death. ” Tammy

Tammy rose from her seat and crooked a finger. “Come.” She walked away. Dolly grew uneasy yet again as Serina pulled her hand and led her after the girl.

She stepped carefully over the vines she now saw all over the floor and walls.

“Did you know humans have a growth hormone?” Serina asked. “Excess of this hormone causes a condition called giganticism. This means you get really, really big. Cats also have this hormone, or something similar. All mammals will, at least, to one degree or another.”

“Milly doesn’t like where this is going.” The sword shone faintly, vibrating out of fear or anger or probably both.

Tammy glanced back and continued where Serina left off. “We, through the vines, managed to isolate this hormone and reproduce it. Then we injected this hormone into animals we captured. Well, their babies.”

“They also displayed giganticism.” A new voice joined in. Janette. “They grew rapid, thanks to our and our mage friends’ help. Matured faster. With the hormone, they became…different. The effect wasn’t always balanced, you could say. The dosage was off as well. Look.”

Janette pushed up her glasses. They flashed in the blue light that had now come upon them. The very act alone seemed somehow disturbing.

Dolly turned her focus up ahead. What she saw was simply bone-chilling. Inside tanks of glass and water exactly like the ones she saw Lily in, were animals. Cats. Rabbits. Foxes. Except….except they were twisted. Enormous and malformed.

Their bones in some areas were either too large or too small for their bodies. Skin hung loosely on one spot and tightly in others. Eyes closed, but their sockets’ sizes not matching.

“….Again….” Milly whispered. “It’s happening again.” Her entire being seemed to dim.

“As I said. Imbalanced. They didn’t feel pain. She shut off that system. More human that way.” Janette folded her arms. “But these are just the early subjects. The later subjects fared much better as we fine-turned the vines’ capabilities. The hormone spread more evenly and created better results.”

Serina’s doe-like eyes, once filled with so much purity, innocence and empathy, were now only showing excitement and calm disregard for the horrific things being shown and explained. She held a zealousness in her. An obsession.

“For those subjects, we performed a simple surgery. Their ears and tails had to be removed and then transplanted onto…well, I think you understand. We had a few volunteers among some human test subjects sent our way. This was thought to be a viable if imperfect, solution. Yet it was a bit TOO imperfect.” Serina sighed regretfully. “Subject C-A-12 was especially cooperative. Unfortunately, while the ears were successfully placed they were, of course, merely cosmetic in nature. We would be able to accept that if this were the only problem. Thing is, she’ll have to take immunosuppressants for the rest of her life now if she wishes to keep the extra appendages from being rejected and kept alive. Long-term? Too many potential side effects.”

Dolly walked hesitantly past the tanks until she found the one labeled C-A-12. She gasped. “Cory!” Her voice broke. “No!”

It was none other than her long-time friend, Lady Corianna Alcott. A girl of born of slight Elvish descent, or so it’s said, and therefore bearing dark hair that would glimmer with a purple hue in the sun’s rays. They would often play together but had lost contact for nearly a year already.

And right now she rested in a tank just like the others, n.a.k.e.d, two fox ears upon her head and a tail wrapped around her waist.

“The tail was easier. It can likely even move. Connecting it to the backbone wasn’t hard. We expect her to learn how to control it’s movement eventually.” Tammy’s red-haired beauty became marred by a scowl. “We did something different with Lily. As was said, we learned how to use slight gene modification. Inserting DNA into was simple enough, it was bonding it to her genetic makeup that was hard. And, as you can tell, not what we imagined. The vines are keeping her stable while we work to repair what’s been done. With what we’ve learned thus far it won’t take long. Appearance-wise, at least. We aren’t certain there won’t be a few urges or degradation in intelligence or motor response. Shouldn’t be, but we don’t know.”

“You’ve only been at this for a month or two at most!” Dolly shook her head. “You guys can’t just become top scientists! Y-You’d need years of study!”

An arrogant laugh came from the three young girls. “””Don’t underestimate the strength of our passion!”””

“You…that’s not how this works. That’s now how any of this works.” Dolly pinched the bridge of her nose. She couldn’t be more shocked. “How could you guys do something like this?” Dolly gulped, feeling as if she didn’t know them anymore at all.

Janette stilled. Her glasses reflected a cold, harsh light. “What we do, we do in the name of science…”

“…Equality…” Tammy’s smile serene. Pearly white teeth shone sickeningly bright.

Serina’s eyes blazed, her tone hot, fierce.

“….And head pats!”

Dolly was silent for a long time. She looked at Milly and a silent agreement passed between them.

“”We’re telling Day/Papa on you!””

And couldn’t they get the last thing easy anyway?!