[Droning, Music Brainwashing, Corruption]
Night had fallen upon Mimoto. And when night fell, trouble started to rise up from every little shadwed corner. Thanks to the many Monsters that lived within the city, the night life was truly something that couldn't be compared to any other city on the planet. While it wasn't nearly loud enough to force those that liked being awake during the way to wake up, those that were still awake were usually pulled into whatever antics started spreading out. Whether those antics were good or bad ultimately depended on the one that had started them up.
And on this otherwise ordinary night, a young girl that didn't wander out normally decided that it would be a great night to go exploring. Why was that, exactly? Why, it was very simple. One of her friends, one that she hadn't yet bonded with so tenderly, asked her if she wanted to go hang out at the brand new nightclub.
"I can't believe you're actually going to go out and break your ears with all that loud music." The young girl's mental passenger complained as she drowsily appeared by the girl's side, a rather quaint sleeping cap resting on her head. "You won't need me tonight, right? We're not going to run into any Jõtaijin that would want to kick our butts and turn us into Pawns, yeah?"
The girl, Mikai Fushimi, giggled and patted the much larger predator on the shoulder. "We'll be fine, Chimera. Besides, we just dealt with that big Pawn horde a few weeks back. It's not like we'll see another one this late, right?" The sandy-haired heroine of the city giggled as she tossed her hands behind her head. She was way too confident for somebody her age. Then again, she had managed to conquer whatever the enemies that tried to hide within the city tried to toss at her. And she had managed to unlock the depths of her power in the process, letting her save even more than she originally could. So she thought she had earned the right to be this self-secured.
Chimera just raised her eyebrow a little in response to her host's words. "Have you ever heard of a mosh pit, Mikai?" She asked, and the young girl just tilted her head as quizzically and as ignorant as ever. Prompting the predator to just quietly shake her head. "I'll trust you, Mikai. Just make sure to go home early, I really don't want to wake up. I've barely gotten good sleep since that day."
With that, the predator quietly disappeared into the back of the sandy-blonde girl's mind. Right on time too, as she was coming up on the nightclub that her friend had invited her to. A nightclub that she honestly didn't know existed, but she also wasn't the type to wander out at night. She preferred to stay home and fight her mom in one of her games. And get her butt handed to her in the process, but that was such a frequent occurance that she didn't bother thinking more about it.
"Yua should be right about here, right?" She said as she pulled a simple phone out of her pocket. It didn't have many features, but it let her call around and send messages. That's all she needed. Even if she needed to rapidly tap the keypad to write out a single word, she went through that entire arduous process to send a message to her friend...
Only to immediately get a picture as a response. A picture of her... back? Wait, was she behind her the entire time? Mikai rubbed the back of her head as she turned around, just to make sure...
Indeed, there was the green-haired friend that had invited her out. Yua Hokori, a girl with a soft smile and a tight latex suit wrapped around her body. The latter was something that her friends just had to deal with because it was her way of handling her Pawn Syndrome, even if it was a little too erotic and distracting during a normal day. But a few things stood out about this suit of hers...
Instead of being plain like it was on any other day, it seemed to have gained a couple of prints along her arms. They seemed to be themed after rising volume bars, almost as if she was some sort of sound board display. Combine that with her casual booty shorts and her unzipped hoodie, and she looked like she had a completely different vibe from normal. Not that it was really that weird, since Yua often got herself wrapped into Jõtaijin schemes and swapped aesthetics on a dime.
"You really gotta make sure nobody's following you, Mikai! If I was a Pawn, I could've grabbed you at any time!" Yua giggled, all while tapping the shorter girl on the shoulders and pulling back as the giggle grew a little louder. "Unless you're into that thing, I don't know a lot about you yet. Maybe we'll learn a bit more when we let the music flow through us on the dance floor!"
Mikai nervously laughed. She hadn't yet revealed her identity to everyone. The ones that she had fought knew about it, but Yua had only been a minion for the most part. Which meant that she was never conscious when it mattered. "Yeah, sounds good! I don't know if I can dance as well as you, but I can try!" She chimed, more than willing to try out something brand new. Even if that very same thing was so out of her comfort zone. Or that very same thing was done by somebody she really should be suspicious of. But Yua couldn't have any malicious intentions, she had her Pawn Syndrome completely under control!
Both girls laughed as they headed into the nightclub. The nightclub that had sprung up just as quickly as it disappeared during the day. Something that Mikai probably should've paid attention to when she saw the name of the club and how she had heard her partner discuss it.
Night Beat. Where Ravers gathered and mulitplied...
---
"Yo yo yo yo! Keep up the beat! Follow the beat and let it ring out through you! Rave along all night long!"
From the very back of the nightclub, to the very front, a voice echoed out. A voice belonging to a girl wearing a latex outfit that displayed the volume of the music along her body. You couldn't see her face either, because it was covered by a futuristic mask that visualized the beat of the song with all sorts of funky colors.
Not that it was easy to see her from the entrance of the club. Mikai had to climb up on top of Yua's arms to get a good look at her, thanks to the crowd of mostly shadowed boys and girls. "Who's the loud girl?" She asked, though that didn't seem to register as Yua just looked up at her with a quizzical look on her face. Right, it was way too loud.
Mikai dropped off those shoulders as she cleared her throat and also pulled the green-haired girl down to her side. "WHO'S THE LOUD GIRL?" She said a little bit louder, while keeping her mouth as close to her buddy's ear as possible. She wanted to make sure she heard her, even if she was going a bit overboard.
"Oh! That's DJ R.R. She's got this entire club playing along to her beat. You'd love it if you tried to listen to it for a bit." Yua grinned, her body instinctively bouncing to the techno beat resounding through the club. "Oh yeah. This beat's the best. The best beat to listen to at night! The Night Beat!" She cried out, trembling as the volume markings on her arms started to animate, showing how she was getting synched with the music pouring out around her.
Mikai scratched the back of her head a bit. The music was so strong that it was reflecting on the clothes of everyone that happened to be inside the club... Wait, was it everyone? No, it was only the ones that wore those Pawn-like suits. A lot of them were really hard to tell apart too, because they primarily had black hair with some colorful highlights on the inside. Highlights that shifted whenever the music started to change its vibe...
She could tell that something was wrong. She really could. Even somebody as dense as her could tell when something was wrong, especially since she was in the epicenter of that wrong stuff. But as she slowly started to piece together what that wrong stuff was, she could feel the beats pouring through her.
Little by little, her body started to bounce alongside the beat. It was actually kinda catchy, even though she didn't really care for techno. Maybe she should try and see if she could get her mom to buy it. Could you even buy it? She'd have to ask Yua...
As her thoughts briefly turned to her friend, she turned around to try and look towards her. But all she got for her trouble was a girl bouncing even more than she was. Bouncing up and down. Up and down. Her rhythm matching that of the beat pouring through her. The same beat that was pouring through Mikai. It was so infectious, so controlling, that she almost started to bounce in tune with Yua. Yeah, it kinda felt really nice...
That is, right until everything briefly went black, and a firm hand slowly grabbed her head and turned her towards the DJ once more. "Make that noise stop. It's making my head bounce and I need the sleep." Chimera said, the sheer frustration and exhaustion in her voice being enough to weigh down Mikai so much that she stopped bouncing, especially as the blackness of her mental scape vanished piece by piece.
Right. She had a thing to do .She couldn't just enjoy the beats that were pouring around her. She needed to stop them before they caused more trouble. Or at least find out if they were really so bad or if they were just... Y'know, really damn good. There was no reason to stop them if the beats weren't a problem in the grand scheme of things.
The first problem Mikai had to deal with was getting through the crowd. It was one thing to endure the music and shut it out, she could do that much by covering up her ears. But the crowd was all following the rhythm. Letting the beats of their hearts synch up with the beat pouring out through the song. Which meant that their bodies went up and down and up and down, all one after the other.
Looking straight at them was making her eyes bounce in tune. Which made her body bounce just as much as them. She couldn't just transform and jet over them with King's Thrust, she'd break the vibe. That and she'd expose herself when she wasn't in the mood to do so. Instead, she'd have to find a different way to get through.
One thing she had done in the past when she wanted to overpower a difficult obstacle was making it a part of her. And while she couldn't just absorb it completely because then she'd start bouncing mindlessly and get bonked on the head by Chimera again for the crime of getting distracted, she could... Bounce a little. Not a lot. Just bounce and go up and down and use that momentum to...
Mikai nodded as she started to bounce up and down in tune with the beat. And while she bounced, instead of staying in place like most of the other people in the crowd, she used that added momentum to slide through. It was a lot easier than she expected once she started doing it too. If she hadn't bothered trying this, she would've probably been blown back thanks to the synchronization. But by becoming part of it, bouncing and getting closer to the back of the club was so much easier...
Up and down. Up and down. She kept on bouncing through the crowd. Barely noticing that she was almost blending into it. Barely noticing the fact that every single patron in the club was wearing the exact same getup. All those latex suits that displayed the fluctuating volume. They didn't even pay attention to the girl trying to push past them because she was just like them. Bouncing on and on and on.
Even as she made it to the very front of the pack, nobody really seemed to notice. Nor did she notice that she couldn't stop herself from bouncing. It had been too fun to keep bouncing up and down and up and down... It was just so engrossing. It was the beat had managed to worm into her heart so badly that she couldn't ever stop bouncing. It was too fun. Far, far too fun. Maybe if she tried to stop, she'd... well, she'd stop everything. If she stopped bouncing, then everything would come crashing down...
She knew that thinking that was a bad thing. But the beat was too much to ignore. She just kept on bouncing more and more. Letting the beat spread throughout her as she got closer and closer to the sound of the beat. She wanted more of it, even though she knew it was wrong. She could even hear Chimera trying to cry out towards her inside her mind. But the beat was overpowering her. The beat was drowning out everythiing except the beat.
How could she tell that the beat had taken her? She could see herself reflected on one of the shiny panels that dotted the platform where the dj was standing. And she could see the visualized beat having taken the place of her irises. She was well and truly conquered by the beat. It just kept going up and down, and her body followed it to a tee. Up and down. Up and down. Up and down. Up and down..!
Then the beat came to a stop. The beat that had infected her brain stopped. Or at least, it stopped on the outside. But in her heart and in her soul, the beat just kept on going. She kept on bouncing, despite the fact that the sound had come to an end. And despite the fact that the DJ and everyone around her were now staring at her...
"Well well, looks like we've got an eager little raver!" DJ R.R. finally spoke up, as she started spinning her hand along on her deck. "Not to mention you're radiating a lot of that energy that I've been warned about! You're one of those hero girls, aren't you?" While she couldn't visibly grin, the visuals on her helmet displayed a grin that reached from one end of the screen to the other. "Why don't you let that beat fill you completely? You know how it goes!"
Mikai was barely able to understand that she was being taunted. She was also just barely able to tell that the world around her didn't depend on that bounce inside her heart. And yet she kept on bouncing. Especially as the beat started to intensify. She was being forced to up and down, up and down, up and down..!
The more she bounced, the more the crowd behind her started to crowd around her. The more she bounced, the more they bounced in turn. All of them were filled with the same beat. Even though the beat wasn't playing around them, they were all enraptued by the very same sound. They were all slaves to the beat, they were captured by the Night Beat..!
One by one, the ravers trembled as their heads were snapped shut by Pawn-like domes. Each of them replicating the same sort of design as the DJ. Each of them visualizing the power of the beat inside their bodies. How it controlled them. How it made them Pawns to the DJ's machinations. Those ravers were little more than Pawns that were easily directed by the beat inside them.
And Mikai was hardly any different at this point. The beat was just bouncing and beating and throbbing through her. Even though she could definitely see the Pawn domes shutting around every single one of these ravers, she didn't truly process it. Not even when she barely spotted Yua's face being shut within the very same dome. All that she properly registered was that very same beat.
Right up until she was hit in the face with a suit, not unlike the one that everyone else wore. That was enough to briefly snap her out of her trance and her beat, blinking rapidly as she looked at the latex now resting on the palms of her hand. This was... This was something she was supposed to avoid. Why was she holding a latex suit?
Mikai blinked rapidly as she quickly looked around her and finally noticed every single one of the raver Pawns, their bodies still bouncing. "I knew this place was bad news, why didn't I just transform and deal with it!?" Mikai cried out as she was about to curse herself... Before remembering that she had been responsible for not transforming. Because she didn't want to be seen. "Right. Right. Well, they're not going to see me transform if they're like that..."
"Thinking of ruining my plans, are you, heroine?" DJ R.R said as the digitized grin on her screen widened further than it already had. "I wouldn't do that if I were you. I'd just bounce along to the beat. That's so much more fun than causing problems, you know? You might just enjoy it a lot more than you think." She laughed, spinning the records on her deck a bit more to add a scratch to the beat that had begun to pour through the club again. "I might even get you a copy for your home if you'd like one. I could use a brand new audience. Even if those older folks don't like the sound of my beats!"
"W-What's the R.R. even stand for!?" Mikai cried out as she tried to block out the sound of the beat, even as the scratch disrupted her ability to block out the sounds and made her bounce just like everyone else. "That's been bothering me since Yua said it! And why are you doing this anyway, can't you just make people enjoy music without causing problems!?"
"Raving Raver! That's what it stands for!" DJ R.R explained, before laughing at Mikai. "As for why I'm doing this? I just want to spread the beat! The Night Beat is my life and soul! And it'll spread out and consume everyone! Even the people who gave me that Jõtai thingy in the first place! They'll join the dance floor, just like you!" She cried out, a golden eye appearing on her screen as her connection to Golden Freedom became apparent.
Mikai had no other option. With the DJ's connections revealed and her ambitions out in the open, there was no other way for her to deal with this than to transform. So even as she held that latex suit in her arms, she put one hand out and let her flames pour out. "Henshin..!"
She could feel the flames pouring out. She could feel them forming something across her body. But it wasn't the usual kind of armor. It was way tighter than she liked it to be. It was also way stickier. Like it was some sort of... Latex..? Hold on, she hadn't transformed, she had...
Mikai's eyes opened as she realized that something absurd had happened instead of her flames pouring out and letting her transform into Mimoto. That latex suit she had held had managed to slip onto her, the volume of the beat that had been pouring throughout the club now displaying proudly on her body as it amped up more and more and more, her body immediately bouncing in tune. She had been tricked, or something, otherwise she wouldn't be wearing it..!
"Hahahaha! You should've seen this coming, heroine!" DJ R.R cried out as she spun the records on her deck harder and harder, scratching all throughout the club. "Now let this beat consume you! Bounce along and let it be all that you could ever think of!" She shouted, the beat visualizing on her screen just as it did on every other Pawn in the club...
It was hard for Mikai to fight back against the beat. Especially since it had sunk so deeply into the core of her being that she was automatically bouncing. She couldn't even rely on Chimera, because it just kept on bouncing her out of her own head. Bouncing. Up and down. Up and down. Up and down. Up and down. It just kept on going, and it was getting harder and harder to think independently. She both wanted to keep indulging in it and pry herself away.
The more she tried to fight back against it, the more the tight suit that visualized the audio constricted her movements. Pinning her arms against the side of her body as she let that raving beat consume her more and more. Her eyes being turned into visualizes the more she bounced almost rigidly. There was no real energy to her bouncing, she was just another part of the giant visualizer that was the crowd. Bouncing up and down as the scratches eroded more and more of her mind so the beat could just keep pouring around.
Until... Until..? Until what? Was what she trying to avoid, again? Was there anything bad she was trying to stop? She coudln't really say. All that she could do was bounce and bounce. It felt really nice to just bounce and bounce. It made her tremble all over. Like it was the one thing she was meant to do. Like she wasn't meant for anything else in the world. This bouncing was what she was meant for. So much so that she just kept on bouncing more and more.
All while the DJ kept on laughing. Just like that, the heroine had fallen and become part of her collection of Pawns. Or at least, as pawn-like as a heroine could be. She hadn't gotten the dome, but the eyes were definitely visualizing some sort of beat so she had gotten some sort of progress. That was more than enough for her. If this meant that the heroine wasn't going to get in the way of her beat and spreading it all around, then she was more than satisfied.
"Alright! Everyone, let the beat into your heart! And let it play until tomorrow night, because we're going to spread the beat out until this whole city's part of Night Beat! C'mon, let it beat more and more!" DJ R.R cried out as she turned the beat up to full intensity once more, since the heroine seemed to have been subdued.
Seemed to was the operative set of words. Because Mikai wasn't nearly down for the count yet. Her natural adaptibility to stuff like this meant that as soon as she internatlized the beat more and more, she couldn't help herself from getting up on the same stage where the DJ was letting the music play out. Something about the beat felt... Incomplete. Like it had managed to sink all the way into her, but it was missing something crucial.
As she watched all of the Pawns break down into bouncing like before, DJ R.R let a heart filled with satisfaction display on her screen. All while she thought she had everything completely and utterly under control. She had won, hadn't she? She had managed to get everyone to listen to Night Beat. Which meant as long as she didn't get interrupted by another heroine, then...
"The beat... It's not good enough..."
DJ R.R felt a shiver run down her back as she looked to her side. Mikai was standing there, the visualizer in her eyes having gone dead despite the beat inside her. What was going on? As far as she understood, she had managed to overpower the girl completely. How was she able to still stand and walk around and cause problems? She had to do something before this got any worse.
"The beat's not good enough?! Then have more of it!" The DJ cried out as she slammed her hands against the records on her deck, scratching them back and forth to destabilize the beat and make it even more intense inside the girl's head. Surely that would-
Up. Down. Up. Down. Up. Down. Up. Down. Up Down.
Shake. Shake. Shake. Shake. Shake. Shake. Shake. Shake.
DJ R.R felt her chest pounding in tune with the beat in front of her. The beat that Mikai was displaying with her bouncing body. The addition of those eight shakes was causing her digitized cheeks to flush bright red. What was this feeling inside her..?
It wasn't just her body either. The beat pounding through the club was being taken over by the beat pouring forth from Mikai. The bouncy beat was accompanied by the shaking oontzes echoing from her body. It was such an intense sound that even the DJ couldn't help but move along.
"That's it..!" Mikai cried out as the visualizer in her eyes started to light up as the suit on her body started to shift ever slightly. Instead of a simple suit that visualized the sound, it compressed and peeled away until she was left with a stretchy latex top and a set of tight latex spats, both of which were still visualizing the volume pouring through her. "This is the right beat! The right Mix!" She cried out, her power pouring through the beat as it took control!
"Stop! This is my beat! It's not yours! I thought you had fallen under its spell, you weren't supposed to be able to turn it around!" DJ R.R was not pleased with this development. Even as she followed the moves that Mikai were making. Every shake, every oontz making her body tremble and her mind slowly start slipping away. D-Damnit, the beat was good. Really good..!
Mikai grinned as the beat just kept pouring through her. She shook her body in tune with the beat intensifying. Enjoying the sensation as it kept on changing her. Her mix was giving her everything she wanted. Especially as a matching unzipped and flashy hoodie appeared on her. The intensity of the beat was pushing her deeper into this corrupted state, but she wasn't about to be bossed around by somebody that didn't have a better beat.
Her hair turned from sandy blonde to blue with pink streaks pouring through them. Her casual shoes turned into big furry boots that reached up to her knees. Around her wrists, glowsticks appeared and wrapped themselves into a matching set of bracelets. And finally, her teeth turned nice and sharp as she stood out as the head raver, her hands raising into the air to let the light of those bracelets pour out.
"YOU HEAR THIS BEAT!? YOU HEAR THIS MIX!? LET IT MIX YOU UP AND MIX YOU OUT!" She didn't know what she was saying. The beat inside her heart was controlling her at this point, so it didn't matter what she was saying. As long as the beat was satisfied, then she was satisfied.
The Pawns all listened to her, as they each started to shift ever slightly. Mostly in the way that their latex was covering them. They weren't completely covered, beyond their head at least, instead they wore them like tops and shorts just like the girl spreading that new beat. They were still bouncing too, only to stop in their steps and let their bodies shake every time the beat got to shake around.
Even DJ R.R wasn't immune. Her body was trembling, but she was shaking in tune with the beat as well. She wanted to stop. She wanted to take back the beat. But she couldn't deny that it felt good to shake. It felt so good to listen to the mix. It felt so... so...
A moan echoed from that helmet as the screen was filled with hearts, and just like the Pawns, DJ R.R started to bounce around and shake whenever the beat started to shake. She had been conquered thanks to a better beat coming along. Even if she had been responsible for the Night Beat, this brand new mix had conquered the dancefloor.
The source of the Mix, Mikai, couldn't help but grin as her body trembled a little more. She wasn't just Mikai. Not when this Mix inside her heart was pouring forth. Not while she had all of these adoring fans in the shape of Pawns. She was so much more.than just Mikai. She was... She was...
She blinked for a moment as the Mix came to a screeching halt in response to her idle stupidity. But she got right back on track when that mix started to scratch around. That's right, since the Mix was so important to her, and since she had so many that followed her, she was Mixtress! Mixtress Mikai! And as long as she could scratch it with the best of them, this Mix would keep playing. Until somebody tried to stop her and managed to Mix even better than she did!
Night Beat continued to blast its beats throughout the night and into the day. All thanks to the Mixtress manning the DJ stand, letting her Mix pour out more and more. It let them rave throughout the day and all the way to the following night. With not a single soul stopping, and those that tried to come and stop them just joining in as the Mix just poured through them.
It was no longer the Night Beat. As long as the Mixtress was in charge, it was the Mighty Mix. And nothing could beat the Mighty Mix. It would swallow up everyone and turn them into Rave Drones...
Even if Mixtress Mikai was stopped at this point, it was a wonder if anybody would be able to escape the Mix and the effect it had on them. Their identities would be irrevocably tied to the Mix, and if they as much as thought about it, the sound would just keep pouring through them. Leaving their continued independence a big question mark.
Especially for the girl herself, utterly consumed by her own Mix as she kept helping it spread. With no end in sight at all.