[Punk TF]
“You know, when I caught the smell of mushrooms from down the hall, I’m not sure I should’ve expected you to be behind it..”
The voice of Jougasaki Mika, the pink-haired Passion Idol, resounded through one of the rooms that were privately assigned to the idols of 346 Production. Though it had trouble reaching everywhere in that room, thanks to a slight fog that had built up inside the room.
“Sssh, Mika. I’m in the middle of my latest and greatest experiment, ehehehe…” The voice that emerged from the fog belonged to Ichinose Shiki, a fellow member of LiPPS and a certified Cute idol, who was busy doing chemistry. Like she always did whenever her and the other idols weren’t busy with practice and auditions.
Mika shook her head as she waved the fog out of her face and closed the door behind her. “I would’ve thought you stopped all that stuff the last time it went wrong. You grabbed a tuft of Kirari’s hair and fed the mixture to Futaba, and the next thing I see is the girl sticking through the ceiling.” She muttered incredulously. To think that somebody this… excessive, could be one of her fellow idols.
“Yeah, and you know who ended up the happiest? Kirari did, since she finally got a friend who was as tall as her!” Shiki giggled as she spun around in front of her latest concoction, which seemed to be kept within a normal pot meant for stews. “Now, since that experiment was a wonderful success, I wonder what other kind of elements from ourselves that I can impart on us…”
The pink-haired idol took a deep breath, trying not to bring in too much of the fog, as she lightly bumped the girl on the head. “You have to quit doing this stuff, Shiki. You don’t know what’s going to happen if things screw up.” She said, peering into the pot below, wincing a little at the way it bubbled. Thick and slow ones growing on the surface of the water…
“But it’s boring if I don’t!” The dark-red-haired idol cried out, huffing and puffing from the little hit. “Besides, the Producer gave me explicit permission to have all the fun I can have. And if that means I get to steal a couple of mushrooms from Syoko, then that’s perfectly fine in his book.”
Mika’s expression didn’t change for the better as she listened to her fellow idol. “You really have a couple of screws loose up there, huh.” She muttered under her breath. When she was done here, she’d have to buy a couple of seeds for Syoko just to make sure that she wasn’t out of them. Or, like, whatever it actually took to raise mushrooms. She didn’t know that kinda stuff off hand, that wasn’t in her interests.
Still, she had to admit that she was more than a little curious. “So what’s the stuff supposed to actually do? You didn’t just make a mushroom stew bubble like it’s made of tar because you wanted an exotic meal, yeah?” She asked, hand on her hip as she tried not to look down at it for too long. Just so she didn’t get the shivers.
“Of course not, I’m not a cook, I’m a scientist!” Shiki chimed as she grabbed a stack of papers off her desk, with several pictures interspersed between. “According to my observations, Syoko’s appeal skyrockets whenever she’s on stage and she breaks out into that other persona of hers. However, nobody, not even the Producer, understands what caused her to change that dramatically. Even she doesn’t know, and I’ve grilled her enough to make her change right in front of me.”
She quickly flipped through the papers as she detailed everything she had found, before pulling out a picture from the collection of notes as she turned it around to show her friend. A picture that she had snapped while Syoko swapped from her normal and shy state of mind to the one who could only communicate through screams of pure passion. “I used this as the basis for my theory, and considering she’s the only one who actually likes mushrooms, I decided to try and make something out of her personal little vegetables!”
All of that went straight over Mika’s head. “So, long story short, you pillaged her private garden and stole her mushies, just so you could take her spot in the spotlight? You’re a real piece of work, Shiki.” Her words were dripping with sarcasm, and her eyes couldn’t look more condescending if they tried.
“Take? More like, improve it. If she can do such a great job by screaming like she’s mad in the head, I could do it ten times better. Especially when I add in my favorite pheromones into the mix and start luring them in with my siren-like song!” The ‘Cute’ Idol chimed and giggled like the mad scientist that she was…
A sigh left the pink-haired idol’s lips. “You seriously don’t understand a thing about other girls’ appeal, Shiki. You think it’s just because she screams that she’s popular?” She said, the girl having managed to trigger a little nerve inside her head. After all, she was very in touch with Gal culture, and if the redheaded girl was about to call that simple with her incredibly weak understanding of these types of cultures, then she’d get much angrier…
“Yeah, screams. That’s like all she does, isn’t it? Sure, she dresses up to make herself stand out more, but that doesn’t change that the only thing she actually does is scream.” Shiki shot back, not realizing the point of properly dressing one’s self to conform to an aesthetic. Especially since she was far too experienced in skipping over the visual aspect through the use of her pheromones.
Mika shook her head. “It’s because of that outfit, that makeup, that entire way of acting when she does scream, that she attracts an audience that feels neglected. How many idols can you count that even try to experiment like that? Sure, she’s not exactly herself when she does any of that, but that doesn’t change that she’s managed to find a market that none of us can tap into.” She tried to explain, pointing towards the pot in the process. “And you think just drinking her mushrooms is gonna let you figure out the thing that makes her special, when you don’t even respect what she’s trying to be? You’re destined to fail another experiment, Shiki.”
“Bla, bla, lecture, try that again another time, Mika.” The experiment-obsessed idol made hand gestures to illustrate how much she cared about everything that came out of her friend’s mouth. “Now, if you excuse me, I’m about to demonstrate why you’re dumb and wrong, if you’d be so kind to step away from the mixture.” She giggled, peering straight into the pot…
Only for sweat to drop down her face as she stared straight into an enormous bubble that peeked up over the edge of the pot. “E-Ehehe… I think I might’ve been a little too distracted…” She muttered.
Neither Mika nor Shiki got a second to defend themselves from the explosive bubble, the soup-like concoction smearing all over them. Despite how hot it was, it didn’t leave any burn marks or anything. But it did more than enough to rile them both up, as they screamed in unison.
“CAN YOU JUST STOP MIXING THIS SHIT FOR TWO MINUTES, SHIKI!? THIS IS WHY YOU DON’T GET FRIENDS TO VISIT, BECAUSE YOU KEEP DOING THIS!” The pink-haired idol shouted from the depths of her soul, unaware that her usual ribbon had managed to untie itself from the impact of the ‘explosion’, leaving her with much wilder hair than she ever had.
Her friend laughed like mad as she ran her hands through her hair, spreading it out and making it just as wild as the one screaming at her. “IT’S PERFECT! I FEEL IT! THIS IS WHAT I WAS TRYING TO GET OUT OF HER! THIS KIND OF SCREAMING SENSATION! I DON’T KNOW WHAT THE HELL TO CALL IT, BUT I DAMN WELL LOVE IT!” Her voice, despite being utterly strained by the words that left her lips, was resounding all across the room and dispelling the fog that had been filling it during the little experiment.
Once they could see each other again, there seemed to be something strange about them. For one, they looked damn well near identical thanks to the way that their hair was now hanging down in such an unkempt manner. But that wasn’t the only thing that was similar about them. The places where they had been struck by the soup-like mixture had been discolored in a strange fashion, to the point where they looked like different kinds of tattoos…
Mika let out a scream to the heavens as she stomped towards one of the mirrors, throwing her hands into the air. “SHIKI, YOU HARLOT! YOU’VE MADE ME LOOK LIKE A CANVAS OF CHAOS!” The normally charming idol with a sweet voice was screaming her heart out, not realizing that her words were turning more than a little… excessive.
But what she did notice was her new look. It wasn’t just that she now had a heart over her eye, or a couple of scar-like marks all across her body, but even her clothes had managed to change a little. They were now lined with spikes, just like the punk-style clothes that Syoko wore whenever she showed up on stage. She even had a cute yet menacing heart printed right on her exposed belly, one with terrifying eyes and a pair of devilish wings hanging off its sides.
“YEAH, AND THAT’S THE PART THAT I LOVE ABOUT THAT LITTLE SCREAMING MUSHROOM FREAK!” Shiki laughed as she screamed, spinning around as her clothes transformed right then and there thanks to… whatever was in those mushrooms that she had stuffed her concoction full of. Instead of the erotic and deep-red dress that she usually wore on stage, it was now made out of reds and blacks that clashed against one another in the best of ways. Combine that with her skirt now being both tattered and kept together by chains, and she had awakened a whole new aesthetic then and there.
It wasn’t just her outfit that had changed either. Because she was closer to the mixture, she had gotten more of the gunk on her when the bubble popped. Which meant that most of her face was now covered in tattoos, leaving her lips as the safe spot. Even then, those cute pillows were dotted with stitch-like patterns to make every word that left her lips even more potent, while her cheeks had one half of a pulled-apart heart each.
“YOU’RE SUCH A SACK OF SHIT THAT YOU DON’T EVEN UNDERSTAND PUNK APPEAL, SHIKI!” Mika shouted at her ‘friend’ as she grabbed her by the sides, yanking her real close as their punked up faces got pushed up against one another. To the point where their lips were meeting. “A REAL PUNK WOULD NEVER STOOP TO THIS KINDA SHIT! A PUNK WOULD-”
Her ranting, her passionate ranting filled with genuine care towards her other friend’s choice in attire and in behavior, was cut off by the redhead forcing her tongue in between those lips and pushing her into a french kiss. Their tongues smashed against one another, a ‘fight’ breaking out between the two would-be punks as they put their own feelings on the line…
Until that turned into nothing more than a makeout session, their eyes growing a little foggy. By the time that they pulled apart, a bit of saliva connecting their lips, there were very few sensible thoughts left in their heads. The only thing remaining in there, after everything was said and done?
An endless, unrelenting scream. The scream of their hearts, now beating as one. Instead of arguing like a pair of bitches that couldn’t get along, they were ready to scream their hearts out towards their new audience. An audience that would be frightened to see them like this, for sure.
Shiki and Mika let out a powerful “YEAAAAAAAAAAH!” as they stormed out the door, ready to show the world their brand new appeal…
And hopefully, at the end of it all, the Producer would be able to fix them back up...