The Great Monster Caper Surprise Part 1

    “And let’s see,” Cassidy mumbled to herself, “What’s in the news today?”  In a small, out-of-the-way part of the city lied a small, nameless shop.  At least for the moment, for this wasn’t any ordinary shop.  It had a habit of appearing in areas when someone was in great need and desire for something that it could only provide.

    The shop itself offered a wide and quite unique variety of items, trinkets, and liquids for the average, desperate consumer.  It was, you see, a magic shop.  A shop that could offer something that any customer wanted, as long as they were willing to pay a heavy, costly, monetary price for it.

    The owner of it was a witch named Cassidy, the leader of a coven that resided just outside of the city.  Like most days, she spent her time flipping through the newspaper or looking at her laptop for what was going on in the community and in the world.  She sat there in her shop, hoping that someone would eventually find their way in.

    That day in particular, after going almost a week without customers, her door opened and three figures stepped into her lair.  They were all young women, in their early 20’s from what Cassidy could surmise from just glancing at their appearance.  They also had this air of pompous and importance to them in their mannerisms.

    The one in the middle, the obvious leader of the group, looked around the shop curiously and harshly, mentally judging everything that was there.  She had blonde hair with baby-doll blue eyes, though there was a harshness in them.  She had a moderately fit body, having most likely gone to the gym and tanning studio a lot from a glance.  She wore an expensive-looking white, form-fitting dress and heels that made clicking sounds when she walked about.

    The second lady was paler and had vibrant red hair.  Her hazel eyes were far less harsh than her leader and other companion, but she was still looking about the room critically.  She wore a simple black t-shirt and blue jeans that covered her shapely hips.  The last member of the posse was more attached to her phone than anything.  Brushing her silky black hair out of her eyes, the young Asian lady had much rounder features and heavier makeup than the others.  She wore a black shirt and dark gray shorts as she wandered in behind her companions.

    Cassidy looked the three over carefully, not getting a good vibe from them.  Their appearance and attitude didn’t sit well with her at all.  However, with a lack of customers recently, she took a deep breath and said, “Hello.  Welcome to my little domain of magic and wonders.  I’m Cassidy, the owner and witch of this establishment.  Who are you three?”

    “I’m Alicia,” the blonde lady responded, looking at a few of the shelves before coming closer to her, “And these are my friends.  Catherine, or Cat, is the redhead and the other is Susan.”

    “Ok,” Cassidy said, “What brings you to my shop?”

    Cat approached her and said, “Well, you see… there’s this big convention that’s just come to town.  It’s an anime convention… anime is…”

    “I’m quite familiar with what anime is,” Cassidy stated, “but continue.”

    “Well,” Cat said with a nod, “we’re all anime fans and we’re going to it today.  There’s also this contest going on at it as well, a cosplay pageant or what not.  Cosplay is…”

    "I’m also quite familiar with what cosplay is,” Cassidy replied, her eyebrow cocking, “I’ve had more than a few anime fans wander into my shop or come to my home seeking something that they’d want as fans.  Just please continue.”

    “Ok ok,” Susan said, looking away from her phone and giving her an irritated stare, “the thing is that we’re all entering this contest and we want to have the best damn costumes that’ll knock everyone’s socks off.  The thing is, making a costume just costs way too much time and money. [though it certainly looks like you have the money for anything, Cassidy thought, seeing their own expensive outfits and items].”

    “…so we wanted to find you and see if you could give us the best costumes that would guarantee us a win and be the stars of the convention that we deserve to be,” Alicia finished.

    “Alright then,” Cassidy said with a frown, “So instead of winning a contest the old fashion way, you figure you just cheat by having me make you a costume or give you something that would be better than any cosplay that anyone else could make.”

    “Exactly,” Alicia said, not bothered by the cheating accusation, “we got the money.  Just give us what we want.  Magical item, enchanted clothing, potions, or whatever.  We’ll take it.”

    “I’m sure you will,” Cassidy said, standing up from her chair, “First things first, what exactly do you want?  What anime are we talking about here?”

    “Monster Musume!” Susan answered, “We want to look like the three most popular girls from the show: Miia, Papi, and Cerea.  We’d totally win if we went in looking like them.”

    Cassidy raised an eyebrow and thought, and everyone will totally deduce that none of you are wearing actual costumes, makeup, or nothing.  They’ll see it’s obviously magic and give you jack shit, unless they’re dumb enough to think they’re part monster...

    However, she didn’t tell them that.  If they were this stupid and full of themselves, they could fall flat on their faces as far as the witch was concerned.  She’d still make her money from the sale regardless of whether or not they win and she wouldn’t have to deal with any of the consequences at all in the end.

    “Alright,” Cassidy said, stretching her arms and cracking her neck, “I think I got something that’ll give you girls the Monster Musume look you want.  You weren’t the first to want to be like those characters anyways.  Lots of guy fans were partially interested in being Lamias or…”

    “Enough with the backstory,” Alicia firmly said, “Just go get the damn… whatever it is and we can get going.”  Cassidy only frowned at her, saying nothing before heading into the back to get the item in question.

    Entering the backroom, the witch approached a locked cupboard.  On it laid a sign that read: Highly Experimental and Protected.  Steal at your own risk…

    She unlocked it and pulled out three small, tin spray cans.  On them, there were some hastily written labels, all of which said: Specialized Costume in a Can: Monster Musume Edition.  Just below those labels were the names of the three main girls from the anime and manga, with doodles that showed their faces.

    With them acquired, Cassidy locked the cupboard once again and returned back to the front.  The young women waited there impatiently, shooting her dirty looks as she returned.  Cassidy, however, paid them no mind and set each bottle down on the glass counter.

    “Alright,” the witch explained, “You got here your basic Costume in a Can… sort of.  Due to the unusual genetics and anatomy of monster girls, each spray can only turn a person into one particular girl from the series instead of anyone in particular.”

    “But they’ll work right?” Alicia asked curiously.

    “Without a doubt,” Cassidy stated, continuing to explain, “Anyhow, all you need to do is spray yourself with the potion and you’ll turn into one of the girls from the series depending on the can.  Spray a little to be one of them for a small amount of time, like an hour, or spray a lot you’ll be the character for a VERY long time, like a few days.  Any questions?”

    “No,” Alicia said, understanding every bit of what the witch had explained.

    “I think the main question is now,” Susan interrupted, finally stopping her texting, “how much are these cans going to cost?”

    “These were extremely difficult to make,” Cassidy stated, “It’s simple to change a human into another human with a potion given that the ingredients are not hard to come by.  Making a human turn into a monster is also reasonable as well.  However, part human part monster?  That’s complicated, since you need to find the right balance of ingredients, do several tests ahead of time to make sure things work, then there’s…”

    “How much?” Alicia butted in, obviously not interested in the finer details of the transformation at all.

    Cassidy glared at her, not pleased as well.  However, she managed to mutter out, “$500 for each can and not a penny less.”

    “What?!” all of the human girls said, “That’s a rip off!”

    “No it’s not,” Cassidy stated, “As I was going to try to explain to you, there’s a lot that goes into making these potions, including ingredients, time, overhead, and what not.  500 is incredibly reasonable for that I had to go through to make these things.”

    “No it’s not!” Alicia retorted, “It’s highway robbery!”

    “Like you can’t afford it you rich snob,” Cassidy said, narrowing her eyes and not even trying to hold back anymore, “Look, you either give me the money for your precious spray can costumes or you get absolutely nothing and have to make your own fair and square.”

    None of the girls said anything, just glaring at her.  A few moments of staring and Cassidy simply responded, “Well I guess that’s that then.  I’ll just put these away and you can leave.  I assume you remember where the door is…”

    Cassidy reached for the cans, but suddenly, Susan shoved her phone in the witch’s face.  It snapped a picture and a blinding light flashed out of it as it did.  Cassidy stumbled backwards and cried out irritated.  She couldn’t see anything for a few moments, cursing and rubbing her eyes over and over.

    “Who makes flashes that powerful?!” she growled as her vision slowly came back into focus.  She heard the door open and by the time she could see straight again, it had slammed shut.  The three girls were gone and also gone were the spray cans from the counter.

    “Those little thieves!” Cassidy angrily said, “They stole from me!!!” It was too late for her to chase after them.  With her mystical shop always changing locations, by the time she got to the door, the entire store will be situated somewhere else by then.

    However, despite the theft, the witch merely took a deep breath and exhaled.  She relaxed back into her seat and put her feet up on the counter.  Opening the newspaper again, she thought pleasantly, well… it’s not like I won’t find out where they went or what happened to them.  My little security measure I didn’t take off will surely kick in after they use those cans.




    Eager and excited, the trio of young women hurried all the way back to the hotel they were staying at as fast as they could.  Alicia checked over her shoulders several times, but saw no trace of the green witch at all.  It seemed like they had made a clean getaway after all.

    They stayed on their guard the entire way until they eventually reached the hotel they were staying at.  They took the elevator and rode it to the penthouse suite, taking a few moments to catch their breath.  Once they entered their room, they locked the door behind them, now finally being able to relax.

    “Phew!” Alicia said, “That was a rush.  I’m impressed Susan.  Didn’t expect you to do that.”  The blonde eyed her friend with an approving smile, which the black-haired girl returned.

    “I figured you would want me to,” Susan replied, “I knew that look in your eyes.  You wanted it badly, so I helped you.”

    “I dunno,” Cat stated, the only one who seemed slightly worried, “Was it really a good idea to steal from a witch?  They have a tendency of being rather mean from what I hear and plus, it’s not like, you know, we couldn’t have paid her or…”

    “Don’t be a bitch Cat,” Alicia retorted, setting the cans down on the counter, “You heard what she was asking for!  There was absolutely no way I was going to pay for something like that, no matter how much I have.  Besides, if the witch comes back, my family has the best lawyers and attorneys at their command.  That witch wouldn’t dream of hurting us.  We’d take her for everything she has.”

    Susan smiled and nodded, Cat didn’t though.  She had a funny, and rather realistic, feeling that a witch would not really care that much about legal repercussions for some reason.  However, at this point, it was way too late to turn back and fix the problem.  They had the spray cans now and they couldn’t simply give them back now.

    “So here we are,” Alicia said pleasantly, “We got our prize at last!  I’ve been looking forward to getting my hands on these since I first heard about them.”

    “I thought there wasn’t any more Costume in a Can spray cans left since the company that made them went under after all of those lawsuits,” Susan pondered out loud.

    “Same here,” Alicia stated, “From the rumors I heard, I thought the witches just sold regular potions or magically enchanted items that turned people into different anime characters, not the actual Costume in a Can spray cans themselves.”

    “I think these might just be custom made ones CiaCs though,” Cat remarked, walking over and looking at one of the cans, “I don’t think Monster Musume was ever an official line like One Piece or Bleach was.”

    “Official or not official,” Alicia said pleasantly, “We got what we wanted and now we can officially head over to the convention and have some fun!”

    “Before we do that,” Susan stated seriously, “we should probably deal with the elephant in the room right now.  Who gets to be who?”  Silence fell across the entire room and the girls each eyed each other, looking from one another to the cans on the counter.

    After a few moments of thinking, Alicia spoke up first, “Well, since I’m the leader of our group, I think I should be Miia.  Plus, she’s my favorite character from the show.”

    “But I want to be Miia!” Susan snapped, suddenly rather angry, “You even said I could be Miia in the first place if we got something that could change us into the characters.  We did, so I get to be the Lamia.  Plus, we wouldn’t have these damn cans in the first place if it wasn’t for me!”

    “I appreciate that,” Alicia said firmly, though not entirely convincing, “but I am the leader and what I decide, we go with.  You can be Cerea or Papi.”

    “I… I want to be Papi,” Cat said.

    “Then the centaur girl it is for you Sue,” Alicia said, taking the can marked “Centorea” and handing it to the dark-haired girl, “I think you’ll look good in it.”  Susan frowned and glared at her, but grudgingly accepted the can anyway.  She could deal some payback to Alicia another time… or maybe during the contest.  Sometime later anyway.

    Cat took her can, while Alicia seized hers as well.  “So I know our bodies change,” Cat pondered as she grabbed their bags, “but what about our clothing?  It’s not going to fit any of us exactly after we turn into these monster girls.”

    “The can says here that it’ll also transform our clothes as well to fit the monster we become,” Alicia said, reading over some of the label in the back, “Guess that witch thought of everything… besides better protection for her little cans.”  The girls all chuckled and left the room, ready to head over the convention in the center of the city.