[RAW] - Monster Girl VTuber

Random story idea I noodled with a bit today, completely unedited.  No idea if I'll pursue it any further, my calendar for 2023 is already pretty well booked, but it is a fun idea.  Let me know if you liked it, maybe I can bring it fully to life one day!

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Chapter 1

Bhakti and I stood in front of the security monitor, watching the black, ominous-looking town car drive into the lot in front of the warehouse.  A man, wearing a severe looking trench-coat, like something out of a pulp detective novel, climbed out.

“Shit, I was hoping Olivia was wrong, but I guess she wasn’t kidding,” she said, a frown crossing her face.

I looked over my shoulder, glancing around the studio.  “Everything set?”

She nodded sharply.  “We’re good.”

Running a hand over my face, I headed towards the door.  “Good, let’s go and put on a show.”

I slid open the door just as the man was about to knock.  He was wearing aviator sunglasses and an honest-to-god fedora, like he was some kind of detective or spy.  I had to resist the urge to sigh at how cringy it was.

The man frowned.

I shrugged and turned around, walking back into the warehouse.  “I saw you coming through the security camera.  There’s nobody else here, so I figured you must be coming to visit us.”

He seemed utterly nonplus as my attitude, to him I must have looked like a twenty-something slacker living and working in some derelict warehouse district.

But the fact that he was there, just like Oliva warned us, meant he was dangerous.  Bhakti and I had be on our toes; if our starlet was right, he wouldn’t hesitate to kill all of us if he thought we were a target.

The man reached into his coat and produced a badge.  “Agent Jefferson, FBI.”

I paused in my tracks to look back at him.  “And what is the FBI doing here?  Last time I checked, running a VTuber studio wasn’t a crime.”

He put the badge away; I was sure it was fake, just like his name.

“We received a tip about unusual activity here, along with credible reports of weapons smuggling.”

Weapons smuggling?  Is that the best they could come up with? It was like they weren’t even trying.

“Got a warrant?” I asked.

He shrugged.  “I could, but do you really want that kind of hassle?  If you’re a legitimate business, like you claim, you have nothing to hide.”

I ground my teeth.  Normally I would fight tooth and nail against such bullshit, but as Oliva had warned us, the man was a trained killer.  Our best bet to get out alive was to put on a show and convince him his target was elsewhere.

“Fine,” I sighed, heading towards our studio, set in the middle of the warehouse floor.  “Just don’t make a mess, and don’t touch the equipment.”

Most of the building was empty.  Bhakti and I had two worn down office trailers that had been converted into dorms, where we stayed.  There was a small kitchen between, centered around an electric stove we had jacked from an abandoned house.  A folding and table and chairs was set up, along with a few mismatched benches and chairs.

Bhakti was standing in the middle of our studio, working on calibrating the equipment. She looked at the so-called FBI agent, but she didn’t say a word.

“How’s it looking?” I called.

She checked her tablet, then gave me a thumbs up.  “The rig is looking good, way better fidelity than before.  I say we run a test-motion capture.”

“Cool, go ahead and get dressed, I’ll show our guest how our operation works.”

Agent Jefferson frowned, looking around the mostly empty building.  “This is some kind of film studio?”

“Sort of,” I said with a shrug as I went over to the director’s station.

A server rack hummed loudly, a hundred different cables snaking out of it, connecting to the various cameras strung around the green-screen.  Dozens of light rigs surrounded the green sheet, which was hanging from a large stand, giving us enough room to work.

Bhakti came back out of her trailer, dressed in a black tracksuit, a few bits of tape here and there along her major joints and hands.

Agent Jefferson loomed behind me as I booted up our Vtuber software.

“This is all custom,” I saw, sweeping a hand to encompass the computers, the lights, everything.  “Like I said, we’re going to break ground in the world of Vtubing!”

“Vtubing?” he grumbled.

“You do know what stream is, right, people recording themselves playing games or doing activities for an audience?  You’ve at least heard of Vitch, right?”

Vitch was the world’s biggest streaming platform, specializing in gaming, IRL stream, and Vtubers.  There were millions of different channels, but our studio, Monster Girl Heaven, was aiming to be the best.

“VTubing involves the performing using a virtual avatar, usually it’s some kind of cute anime girl or something,” I said, waving my hand to a nearby monitor, which already had Vitch queued up.

The top broadcast on the screen was Periwinkle, who used a super-slick nekomata avatar.  I was still trying to figure out the algorithm she used to make her cat ears look so life-like.

The fake agent looked at the screen, then at my computer screen.  “Why monsters?”

I felt a surge of irritation hit me, followed by an almost overwhelming design to tell the man off.  Didn’t he see the glory of monster girls?  They were the perfect combination of cute, scary, and sexy!  Plus the variety!  There were snake-girls, cat-girls, spider-girls, dragon girls –

“Mr. Trenton?” the man frowned, “Are you listening?”

I shook my head.  I never told him my name, I realized.

“Monster girls have been trending for years, their popularity rising just as fast as VTubers themselves.  If an independent studio, like ours, wants to succeed, we need to follow the crowd.”

“Ready!” Bhakti called.

“Let’s just do a basic walk animation,” I said, tapping on my keyboard.

On my screen, Bhakti’s image was replaced by a VTuber avatar, an Arachne.  She appeared as a cute, eight-legged spider-girl, with the lower half of an arachnid, and the torso of a woman rising from where the spider’s head would normally be.

I heard Agent Jefferson’s breath catch as Bhatki began to walk, the avatar on the screen mimicking her movements.

Not bad for something we threw together with asset-flips and some hacked code, I thought as I asked Bhatki to walk back the other way.

“See, pretty amazing, right?” I asked with a shit-eating grin.  “This avatar is still in beta testing, V 2.0 for Oliva, our current starlet.”

The fake-agent stared at the screen.  The avatar wasn’t perfect, the details were still low-rez and the face looked nothing like Olivia, but we hadn’t had time to fix the mistakes.

“And where is Olivia?” he asked, a dangerous note in his voice.

“Singapore,” Bhatki said, jogging off the stage.  “All our talent is outsourced, our home studio here is just to develop and test avatars before making them available to our talent.”

“I can give you her contact information, if you think we’re shipping weapons to her instead of cute spider-girl pictures,” I growled.

Agent Jefferson ignored me.  With out saying a word he began checking the rest of the warehouse, poking into the bathrooms and looking at the various cargo crates and boxes left by the previous occupants.

Olivia, Bhakti, and I had spent the days before cleaning all the spider webs, removing any trace of the monster-girl.  I was thankful beyond words that she had been able to warn us before the hunter showed up, we would never have been ready if he had managed to surprise us.

He spent twenty minutes checking the place before returning to the studio; Bhatki and I pretended to work while not-so-subtly keeping an eye on the man.

“Nothing,” he announced, as he came back.  “I apologize for interrupting your day, Mr. Trenton, Ms. Singh.”

He didn’t so much as say goodbye before he headed out the door.

“I never told him my name,” Bhakti said with a shiver.

“He did the same thing to me,” I admitted.  “Must be some kind of intimidation tactic.”

“Fucking creep,” she growled.

We returned to the security station, watch Agent Jefferson.  Rather than returning to his car, we observed the hunter as he checked the other warehouses. We both held our breaths as he searched the building next to ours. He quickly picked the locks, stepping inside to sweep the structure, before stepping back outside.

“Bastard isn’t even showing an ounce of shame, is he?” Bhakti growled.

“What do you expect from a fucking lunatic?”

Agent Jefferson swept the other buildings without breaking stride. Without even a glance back he got into his town car and took off.

Bhatki and I let out a stilted breath.

“Fuck,” she said, “that was scary.”

I nodded.  “Let’s be careful though.  Olivia said not to contact her, even with the dummy phone.  We’ll stick to the plan and pick her up tonight.”

Bhatki sighed.  “A whole day of shoot, wasted. I really wanted to record that Scary Pizza Party Let’s Pay segment today.”

I shrugged.  “Better we air some pre-tapped segments rather than find ourselves killed by an asshole monster-hunter.”

*********

The rest of the day passed in slow monotony, I really missed having Olivia around, she always made things brighter, more chipper.  Bhakti was a hardcore nerd, like me, we’d both be cool spending our way working, eating instant noodles, and web surfing.  Our starlet really made our studio alive, breathing fresh air in the staid, grimy warehouse.

Bhakti snuck out at lunch to go meet her girlfriend, who worked at a local IT company.  She offered to grab me some takeout, but I declined.  I was focused on reaching sliver in Fables Unlimited.

“Stupid OP mids, unlimited range, unlimited dashes, what were the developers thinking!” I grumbled as I barely managed to eek out a win.

Fables Unlimited was the hottest MOBA game running, easily topping Vitch and other streaming platforms.  The multiplayer battle arena featured a huge cast of characters, vicious gameplay, and an actual storyline.  I had actually met Olivia playing the game back in college, becoming her friend before learning her secret.

Together, with Bhakti, we had decided to start Monster Girl Heaven, turning our hobbies and passions into our careers.

Bhatki returned late in the afternoon, a goofy smile on her face.

“Good lunch?” I joked.

She nodded dreamily.  “The best.”

I resisted the urge to sigh.  Bhatki had been my best friend since middle-school; she was second generation Indian, her parents had moved to the states just before having her.  She had grown up in a traditional household, but the allure of video games and anime had twisted her into the ultimate otaku.

I loved her like a sister; she was the perfect business partner for our VTuber studio.  So I refused to be jealous knowing she got some action over lunch while I was stuck grinding through ranked matches.

Really wish Olivia could use her phone, I silently grumbled.

Texting with my monster lover always improved my mood.

Chapter 2

We waited till after ten PM to head out to pick up Olivia.  My old panel van wasn’t much to look at, just a white-brick on four wheels, but it was big enough to hold Olivia comfortably, which was all that mattered.

The warehouse district around us was utterly silent, only a few security lights shone, barely breaking up the dark, gloomy shadows.

I would have been super-uncomfortable living in such a remote, destitute area, but I knew anyone stupid enough to bother us or break into our warehouse would be in a world full of pain.

Arachne were apex predators, and very territorial.  I doubt she’d kill any intruders, but she would at least give them a few years worth of nightmares.

Driving out of the district, we hit the highway.

Nobody would ever say Grand Marsh, Idaho, was a happening place.  Most of it was given way to warehouses, rail yards, and truck depots.  While thousands of people worked there, its actual population was probably around two-hundred and fifty; everyone just commuted.  People mostly passed through, heading west to Oregon or east towards the Dakota oil fields.

The town’s center featured a big box store, a few restaurants, and a couple of apartment buildings.

We had chosen Grand Marsh due to how cheap it was to rent two warehouses, plus the low utility costs.  The fact that it was remote, that nothing really happened there, was the other attraction.

Monsters preferred quiet places, it made it less likely for people to notice them.

Making a quick stop at Olivia’s favorite takeout place, we hit the road again.  I knew she’d be starving after being cooped up for two days, even with the food she’d backed.

The van smelled like fried chicken as we pulled into an abandoned oil refinery ten miles out of town.  Bhatki had spent the entire trip looking behind us, making sure we hadn’t been followed.  We had also swept the van for tracking and GPS tags before leaving, just to make sure Agent Jefferson hadn’t slipped anything beneath the bumper or into a wheel well.

You aren’t paranoid when people are actually trying to get you.

Bhakti decided to remain behind, playing with her phone, while I grabbed the food bags and headed inside.  I didn’t have to worry about letting Olivia know I was.  Her webs were strung up all over the place, transmitting vibrations to her. She swore she could tell people apart by those tremors based on their weight, their gait, etc.

So I wasn’t surprised when I walked into the main room and a huge, dark shadow descended from above.

“Darling!”

Olivia managed to slow her descent before crashing into me, all eight of her limbs embracing me a crushing hug.

“I missed you so much,” she said, her eight eyes blinking at me.  “I was so worried for you!”

“We’re fine,” I told her. “Your dad’s warning was spot on, but we managed to convince him we were harmless.”

“Thank the goddess,” she said.

We kissed, a long, lingering thing, all trust and passion.  I love Olivia with all my heart, and she loved me.

Her eyes went wide when we finally broke off our kiss. “Chicken!”

“Triple serving of Mrs. Poon’s twice-fried Korean wings,” I said, holding up the greasy bags.

“You are the best!” she said, hugging me again.

She quickly slung up some web so we could sit and she could eat.  I had picked up a soda and snack for myself, since I knew my girlfriend was self-conscious when eating by herself.

As she tore open the first bag I couldn’t help but take a moment to study her inhuman beauty.

Like the jury-rigged avatar Bhakti and I had thrown together the night before, Olivia was an Arachne, a creature straight out of myth.  Her spider half was glossy and black, with thick hairs extending off her four segmented legs.  A human torso rose from her front end; where a woman’s legs would have been instead she had her two palps, which she shifted back and forth as she happily ate.

Her human half was gorgeous, there was no denying it, with dark, tanned skin and hair so black it verged on purple.  High cheekbones, a narrow nose, and a tapered chin gave her a hungry, almost predatory expression.  Her eyes were deep black, with no visible sclera or iris; six more smaller eyes ran along her brow, coming to a tapered arch.

“Stop staring,” she huffed, pausing mid-bite.

“I just love the way your jaws unhinge like that,” I laughed, my hand rubbing affectionately along her palp.

“Franky,” she whined. “Seriously, you know I hate it when you say stuff like that!  It makes me feel unlady-like!”

I had to laugh at that; Olivia was the most delicate, lady-like person I knew.

She always wore elaborate dresses, even when on the lamb from monster hunters.  Her outfit that night was a gothic dress made from shimmering gray fabric, with plenty of lace along the billowing sleeves and collar.  The long trail was draped across her abdomen, the fabric held in place with spandex straps.

“I thought when we dropped you off you were wearing that green romper you like,” I noted.

She blushed.  “I got bored!  I couldn’t bring my phone with me, even the burner Papa gave me, and there’s nowhere to recharge my Switch. I'm just lucky I snagged my sewing kit before leaving my nest, otherwise I would have died from lack of distraction!”

I chuckled.  “Well, it looks good on you!  You should wear it for your next sewing stream!  The fans will love it!”

Grinning, she dainty put her food down and did a little twirl for me, showing off her handiwork.

Olivia claimed all Arachne were skilled tailors, and they could weave the silk they produced into a variety of fabrics with little effort.  I knew back home she had a small workshop set up that she could use to dye her clothes, though I thought their natural, pearlescent hue was captivating.

[to be continued?]