Episode 1
I couldn't believe this. I couldn't believe I was standing in front of the Critter Squad barrack. Silver, Nekko, Jaina, and Hacksaw, my heroines, were probably inside and only a rusty garage door separated us.
My shaky hands were holding my application form with my passport picture attached to it with a paperclip. My eyes moved in every direction, scanning the paper, ensuring I didn't miss a field or identify anything that would make them reject me. They didn't ask for much detail, so I wasn't quite sure what their selection process was, but if I could, at the very least, provide everything they had asked in a decent manner, I wouldn't be too disappointed with myself following a rejection.
No…
They wouldn't reject me. I HAD to be part of their team. It was my dream, and I couldn't be so unconfident if I were to try this. I would be brave, walk into the barrack, face my heroines, and refuse to be intimidated by them. They would see how strong-willed I was and offer me a chance to prove myself. I would crush all their tests, I've been training hard for this moment, and I would become the official fifth member of the CRITTER SQUAD!
"Hahaha… ha… haaa… urrrgh…"
My eyes returned to my passport picture, and my brief balloon of overconfidence deflated pathetically and now looked like an older man's scrotum. My shoulder dropped, my back slouched, and my hands lowered to my side along with the paper they were holding.
I looked plain.
With my short black hair, lack of boobs, and pale skin, I was nothing like my heroines. Sure, I trained hard, very hard, but no matter how much effort I put in at the gym, my muscles never got defined, and my abs never showed up. I was just a tiny unexceptional twenty-one year old girl who would never be badass. I probably didn't even have a personality.
Defeated by my own brain, I looked down, turned around, and slowly dragged my feet away from the barrack. My fingers didn't even feel like holding onto my application form, so it slid off my hand, flew left and right like a little parachute, and landed on the Critter Squad humid driveway for them to drive over with their truck.
Only now, after a ten hour journey on an uncomfortable bus, I realized my mistake; I didn't remotely have what it took to be part of the Critter Squad. I was just a typical fangirl.
As I inched away from the barrack, rained on by the little stormy cloud above my head, a loud buzzing noise startled me.
BUUUUUZZZZZZ!
I turned around and saw the garage door rising.
"N… No waaay!"
Before the door was even fully open, a very familiar girl popped from under it, dragging a bunch of equally familiar backpacks. After tossing them aside carelessly, she turned her gaze to me.
I couldn't believe this! It was NEKKO! One of my heroines. With her punky black hair, cat ears, and tail accessories, she was smaller than I expected. Barely five feet tall of pure Asian-ness, wearing oversized shoes, a small black short, and her iconic Critter Squad tank top marked with their logo, I could see how thin her exposed waist was.
"Hey! You! Nya!"
"… M… Me?"
"Nya! You! Move aside if you don't want to get rolled over by our truck."
"Oh… oh. Right. Sorry."
As the door continued to rise slowly, making an unhealthy chain noise, Nekko returned inside the barrack. I made a few steps aside as ordered and stood on the grass next to the driveway. My eyes remained locked on the vehicle that gradually appeared from behind the door.
"The Critter Squad truck!"
Cute mixed with fierceness, shaped like a bread delivery truck, the customized vehicle was the real thing. It was exactly like in the videos they published on their CritterTube channel; perfectly maintained and painted with a flashy design based on the Critter Squad colors.
"Wooow!"
Unconditional fan, forgetting why I was even here, I raised my phone and began filming. Would I be lucky enough to see the three others? I was so happy right now.
On my phone screen, my wish came true. A silver Goddess appeared, followed by another equally awesome woman.
"… Silver!… Jaina!"
Two more of my heroines.
Silver was the most badass woman in the world. I had an absurd crush on her for as long as I could remember. Dark skin, long silver hair mounted in a ponytail that matched her big eyes, and a body crafted by intense Crossfit sessions. Her Critter Squad tank top could barely contain her large, firm boobs and her shredded jeans just gave her this confident look. I've always seen her as the group leader, even if she kept repeating she wasn't.
On the other hand, Jaina had a more nerdy look with her medium-length blue hair featuring pigtails and round glasses. Perhaps she was not as intimidating as Silver, but she had a brain to compensate. On the CritterTube channel, I often saw her outsmarting everybody with her extensive knowledge. Many fans, including me, were in love with her for her good look and smartness. With her black leggings and a more conservative high-neck tank top, an exposed belly seemed mandatory to work there, Jaina was a crowd favorite.
But something didn't seem right. Silver was abnormally agitated as she gave the truck a once-over. Jaina just followed her around, fueling the discord.
"I can't believe it, Jaina! When did she decide to go there? And why didn't she tell me?"
"Would you calm down? Hacksaw just went to a dentist appointment. Anyway, you are not her boss. Stop acting as if you own the place."
"I may not be her boss, but we are supposed to count on her. We need her, and she has abandoned us."
"Silver. She just went for a dentist appointment!"
"Let's fire her. Anybody can do her job anyway!"
"Oh, that's not true. You are just overreacting. Hacksaw is essential to our team, and you know it."
"Well, She should be here then. We need quality CritterTube content. It wasn't a busy month. And for that, we need Hacksaw. She is not here."
"Okay, then, make up your mind. You want to go without her, and at the same time, you want to record content. What's the solution? I say, we just wait until she returns, or we simply decline this job."
"We go without her. You can do her job."
"No, I can't! I suck at filming."
I heard everything, and I couldn't believe it. On CritterTube, we never saw the Critter Squad fighting with each other like that. They were all good friends and went to do jobs together in happiness. What I had just witnessed, this surreal conflict between Jaina and Silver, was nothing I had ever imagined could happen.
Because of my knowledge of their channel and job, I immediately understood the problem. Silver was right. The four girls always worked together as a team; if Hacksaw weren't around, it would make things much more difficult for them. Hacksaw, usually, was the girl who handled the best camera and recorded their whole adventures so they could publish them on CritterTube. She was participating in the action as well, but even if everybody wore body cams to record their part, Hacksaw was definitely the one recording the best scenes with her professional handheld camera.
So, yes. I could see how her absence could irritate Silver. Silver was the main fighter, Jaina was more about logistics, and Nekko was the gutsy one who cleverly caused a distraction to generate hunting opportunities. So If Hacksaw weren't around, Jaina or Nekko would have to handle the good camera to produce quality content, making Silver's job more difficult in the process.
And the entirety of this little fight was recorded on my phone for me to review and savor later. Seeing my heroines on the little screen, providing me with such an exclusive real-life moment, was priceless.
But then, the tiny Silver displayed on my screen looked straight at me with her shiny gray eyes.
My blood curdled.
Until now, I had not even remotely considered that filming them without their consent could be a bit… unwelcomed. I lowered my phone and saw that Silver was perhaps a bit closer than the image on my phone was letting me believe. She was walking straight toward me with a severe look on her face.
"YOU! THERE!"
"…"
She approached me and only stopped when her nose was an inch from mine. Being so close to one of my heroines was so extremely intimidating…
… And she was so pretty… So incredibly pretty… A lot prettier than the poster of her I had pinned above my bed.
"Hey! I'm talking to you! Did you just record us?"
"… N… no… I'm… Yes… I'm sorry… I… I didn't mean to…"
"Sure, you meant to. What are you talking about? Why are you here anyway?"
"Well… I'm… I… I was leaving and… well…"
I couldn't think straight. Silver was looking at me intently, and I couldn't give her any decent answers. I didn't even know what I was doing here anymore. At first, I wanted to apply for a job, but when I realized that it was just a fangirl's stupid move, I decided to leave.
"Leave our fans alone, Silver. She did nothing wrong."
As Jaina tried to recall her, Silver noticed my application form that I had let fall on the ground a moment ago and picked it up. I was petrified. Coming here wasn't supposed to turn into this. I should have gone to one of their fan events to get a picture instead of placing myself in such a delicate position. The more her gorgeous eyes scanned my application form, the more knotted my guts became. And when her gaze returned to me, I wanted to die of shame.
"Hey, camera girl. You wanted to work for us?"
"N… No…"
"What do you mean, no? Yes, you were! This is our application form and your picture attached to it."
"N… no… it's not…"
"I crafted that form myself. Of course, it's ours! And it's totally your picture too. Why are you lying? You have a porous brain or what?"
"…"
I was about to faint due to my embarrassment. In the background, Jaina kept trying to recall Silver, but for some unknown reason, she was hung on my case and didn't want to let it go. She was so close that I could feel the warmth of her shiny dark boobs radiating on my face. I was smaller, and she was taller, and this statement wasn't just about our physical appearance. It was hard to be madly in love and scared simultaneously.
An evil smile appeared on her face, the same one I had that made my heart melt so often while watching her CritterTube videos. Her next words obliterated my brain.
"You are hired!"
"GAK!"
"We need a new camera girl, so you are hired. Come. We have to go to work."
"Huurrrr! Huuurrr!"
Unable to breathe anymore, my head was spinning. What did Silver just say?
Without any additional discussion possible due to my collapsed lungs, she turned her back to me and returned to her truck, asking Nekko to take care of me.
The petite Asian cat girl lover trotted to me, grabbed my wrist, and pulled me toward the barrack.
"Nya! Follow me. We don't have much time. I'll show you where Hacksaw keeps her stuff. You know how to use a camera, right?"
"I… I…"
"You should breathe more, Nya. You are all blue. Don't worry about Silver. She is a bit rough on the edge. Jaina will talk to her later."
What was happening to me? Nekko, the punky cat girl, pulled me inside the barrack and led me all the way to the locker room. Being inside this place was familiar since I watched all their CritterTube videos. I knew the exact layout of the entire building, but at the same time, it felt like a dream as I had never been here before.
Nekko opened a cabinet and pulled a baseball cap out of it, the same one they shipped to me when I ordered some of their merch in the past.
"We don't have time to find you a proper uniform, so wear this, nya! You'll look kind of legit if you end up on our videos."
"… uuurrrhhh…"
"I told you to breathe. You'll be just fine. Here. Take this. All you have to do is to film us while we work. It's not like you'll have to fight critters or something… hopefully."
Hopefully? I wanted to die. Nekko opened my hand and placed Hacksaw's handheld camera in it. Was this really happening? Were my heroines asking me to film their adventures?
"Come. We really have to go now. Nya!"
Before I knew it, I was sitting at the back of the famous Critter Squad truck, all sirens on, with Silver, Jaina, and Nekko, my amazing heroines, and we were racing down the street toward a critter event.
It was absolutely unreal.
Ten minutes later, we arrived at the site of the event.
Nobody talked to me during the whole trip, except at the beginning when Silver took her eyes off the road and frowned at me, saying, "Hey, Camera girl! You have to film everything!" After that, I began recording using Hacksaw's handheld camera, and it felt like I was watching one of their CritterTube videos.
They talked about this job, saying that we would encounter critters level one, the easiest ones of all, but that we could also face a level two. I knew what they were talking about. I was an expert in my own way because of all the searches I had done on the internet, but real life felt drastically different. The truth was, I had no idea what they were talking about since I had no real qualifications, had never encountered a critter in person, and had obviously never been touched by one.
My role as a camera girl would possibly keep me out of trouble, but the risk was still present. I could feel it in my bones. Who knew what we would encounter? If there were indeed a level two critter around, it would be a very different ball game. I had received no training at all and would probably be terrified if that were to happen.
Silver slammed on the brakes and parked the truck in front of a house. Unused to this driving roughness, I tumbled out of my seat while Nekko and Jaina just began to assess the situation by looking out the windows.
"I see one on the porch already. How many were detected?"
"Four. And the two occupants who reported them stopped all communications. So it's fair to assume they got infected, which would leave us with another critter roaming around inside the house."
"Right. Easy peasy."
We all stepped down from the truck, and I observed my surroundings. We were in front of a suburban house, and all the neighbors seemed to have assembled not too far to discuss the event. They kept their distance from the critter-infected area, but they cheered for us and took pictures and videos.
Well, no matter how this day would end, there was no getting out of it now. These people would post videos of us on CritterTube, and everybody would see me working with the Critter Squad team. It would set social media on fire.
Nekko hit me in the ribs with her pointy elbow.
"Good. Nya. We will get a lot of views because they think we fired Hacksaw. Haha."
Wait, was this a good thing? Why was she so happy? I knew the Critter Squad carburated to views on CritterTube to get revenues, but to be so delighted about controversies was not supposed to be normal. I knew these girls were special, but still.
Silver grabbed her stunner stick from the utility box attached to the truck and pressed the trigger a couple of times. A bright blue spark zapped between the two electrodes at its tip.
"That should be enough for today. Jaina? What's the report?"
"Once sec. I'm still scanning…"
Using her tablet, Jaina walked a bit closer to the house and changed the various filters in her scanning app. She was trying to validate if the information they had received was accurate or not before entering the wolf's den.
But then she nodded and put her tablet away.
"Yep. Only four level one. I don't see anything that could remotely indicate the presence of a critter level 2. People always panic when they see a critter for the first time and they always assume they are bigger than they actually are."
"Good. Let's do this, then. Camera girl, stay close. This is a simple job, so we need you close to the action to make it look more fun than it is."
"O… okay."
I pulled my hat down over my eyes a bit more, uncomfortable with all the attention, and I just submissively followed the team.
There it was… Sitting on the porch… A real critter. I had seen them on CritterTube all the time, and they were all different, but seeing one in person was nowhere close to the same thing. It was quite small, maybe big like a cat, and had little tentacles waving around. It was very possible that this one wasn't smart and had not yet found a way to get into the house like his friends. It was a black rubbery mass, a level one critter, and we needed to catch it.
Very calm, Nekko took the lead and approached the small shiny creature. As soon as she got close enough, the creature reacted to her presence and began slowly crawling toward her. She walked back and away while letting it get closer to her. Her role was to distract the critter and allow the others to launch an attack.
She was so brave.
Then Silver initiated a sprint toward it. Seeing her in action with her white hair floating in the wind like a horse running in a grass field was magical.
"Yaaaaah! Take this, space octopus!"
Before the small creature even had time to react, she stabbed it in the core with her electric stick and shocked it until it began to smoke. It was as disturbing as it was satisfying. Nobody wanted to have these nasty things around, so I wasn't going to cry for it, even if the scene felt a bit cruel. It would take more than a bit of electricity to kill one of these critters anyway. I just kept filming to the best of my ability.
The small rubbery creature was spasming around and couldn't control its limbs anymore. Silver had really tampered with its nervous system.
Then, it was Jaina's turn to spring into action. Using her backpack vacuum, she approached the dazzled critter before it regained its senses and sucked it inside the machine. After traveling through the corrugated pipe, the creature landed inside the transparent plastic tank on her back.
"Camera girl, you caught all that?"
"Y… yes…"
"Film it closer. People love it when the critters are trying to escape."
"Okay…"
I approached her back and filmed the gelatinous black creature trying to climb on the tank walls. Every time it reached the top, it got zapped with some more electricity and fell back to the bottom. It could be considered animal cruelty, but people generally did not pity these space things. They were less than a pest to us.
Meanwhile, Silver and Nekko forced the house door open and took their first look inside it.
"Clear, I don't see anything."
Nekko walked in, fearless, relaxed, and so darn adorable, and she began inspecting the place. It was as if she had eyes all around her head and knew exactly where to look to find potential creatures. She was a critter expert, and it felt like it.
Silver, Jaina, and I also walked into the house while Nekko was exploring. Silver grabbed me by the neck, sending a shiver down my spine. It wasn't easy to get touched like that by the heroine I had a crush on for years.
"Camera girl, keep your eyes open and do everything we say. In close quarters, it's much harder than it looks. It's not just another CritterTube video."
"Y… yes. Right."
Well, that made me nervous. As I tried to keep filming, my head was on a swivel, and I tried to be part of the team by trying to find the missing creatures. Obviously, everywhere I looked, they had already looked, so I was useless.
"Nya! Found them! Come here, camera girl."
"Ah! Yes!"
Following Nekko's voice, I entered the living room, and my heart skipped a beat. Two glossy black masses twisting and turning around on the thick carpet, two women's bodies encased in living bags. I could tell they were trying to struggle their way out, but it was impossible. The critters level one had managed to attach to them and had spread all over their bodies. It was too late to do anything about it.
The victims moaned as if they were enjoying themselves. Of course, it wasn't something they could control. Through the shiny stretchy shell encasing their body, I could tell that their clothes had long dissolved and that they had been prisoners for a while. Their boobs and curves slid inside the latex-like skin, one of the things the viewers on CritterTube loved to see. This was premium content that would increase the number of views.
Nekko warned me, though.
"That's great, but make sure you don't touch them. Nya. Or else you'll end up in the same situation."
"I'll keep my distance. So, it's too late to help them, right?"
"Right here, right now, nya. They are already full of eggs too. We will bring them to the anti-parasite hospital later so they can remove the critters from them and empty their wombs."
"Urgh…"
"Don't worry. Nya. Keep filming. I'm going to help the others find the last one."
"Okay."
The two encased women didn't seem too sad, though. I could see the black glossy skin gripping their breasts and some big tentacles penetrating their orifices inside that cocoon. Even with their face completely covered with creature flesh, I could hear their muffled moans, and they were very erotic. It even made me feel fuzzy inside when I imagined how it could feel to be infected like they were. Most women who had been infected preferred not to talk about it. I always thought that if they had been forcefully sexually stimulated, it would be embarrassing to admit it in public. I didn't blame them for not wanting to share their experience because society would undoubtedly accuse them of being nasty perverts if they said they had enjoyed being abused by the same aliens who plagued our planet. It would be like having sex with the enemy and saying it was fun. Even the women who kept their mouths shut were somehow judged harshly from time to time.
For the next two minutes, I filmed the squirming women from different angles, making sure I was capturing what was happening to them well. Depending on how the light was hitting their glossy black skin, the viewers would better tell what kind of fun the critter had with them. But then, I heard a noise coming from the room I was in. Some sort of crackling or something…
"Uh? Hello?"
I looked around and didn't see anything. Jaina entered the room after having heard me calling.
"What is it, camera girl?"
"I… I don't know… Nothing. I think I'm just a bit anxious."
"Whatever. Just keep filming them a bit more. Try to capture one of their orgasms too. That's always popular. We are going to look in the basement. We haven't found the last critter yet."
"O… Okay…"
Yeah, it was better for me to stay here even if I heard noises in my head. Nekko had cleared my room, so it was probably the safest place to be at the moment.
For a bit longer, while the others were finishing their survey, I kept filming the moaning encased women. I kind of wanted to touch them because the black skin covering their body was somehow very attractive. It was glossy, jet black, stretchy, and appeared to be very comfortable. I knew better, though. Just one finger on it, and I would get infected. As much as I was curious about how it would feel to be encased like that, I didn't need that experience in my life.
CRACK!
"AAAAH!"
A big noise terrified me so much that I screamed. Alerted, I heard the other girls running up the stairs. But before they arrived, I turned around toward the noise, and saw a plant in its broken pot that had crashed on the floor. I looked up to see where it had fallen from, and on top of the bookshelf was a black creature, big like a cat, actively reacting to my presence. It was the missing critter level one, but it looked slightly different than the previous one we had captured on the porch.
Done. I was done for… I didn't know what to do.
A high-pitch voice yelled at me.
"NYA! IT'S A JUMPER! MOVE, STUPID!"
Nekko's words entered my ear and exited the other. I was paralyzed.
The creature began vibrating as if it was about to do something, and suddenly, it jumped toward me.
"AAAH!"
Just before it hit me in the face, a pair of small arms wrapped around my waist and pushed me to the floor, which knocked the wind out of my lungs.
"Ooof!"
Nekko landed on top of me and looked me in the eyes.
"You are so dumb, nya. You almost got caught!"
"I'm… I'm sorry…"
"Dumb, dumb, dumb… nya!"
Then, another voice, a very disgruntled one, interrupted our deep conversation.
"I hate you, guys. I hate you so much."
Nekko and I looked at the voice, which clearly came from Silver's mouth, and we saw her rolling her eyes while trying to unstick the black creature from her ample chest. The critter had missed me because of Nekko's swift reaction, but right behind us was Silver, and she didn't get that lucky. The critter level one had landed right on her torso as she had entered the room.
She knew… She knew that nothing could be done. Aside from waiting to get infected and transported to the anti-parasite hospital, Silver could only accept her fate. She knew what was coming for her and was not super happy about it.
Nekko, on the other hand, smiled and reminded me of my role.
"Nyahaha. Alright, camera girl. This is extremely rare. You have to film this."
"Film… Silver? While she is getting infected!?"
"YES! NYA! GOOOO!"
It was obvious that I had to do this, and I knew exactly why. Silver was one hot girl, and she had NEVER been recorded while getting infected, even if it had happened to her a couple of times in the past. Me filming her getting infected was a chance of a lifetime. It was something all her hardcore fans had been waiting for for numerous years. I turned my camera to her and did what I was asked to do.
Silver knew why I had to do it, that it would be extremely good content for CritterTube, so she just rolled her eyes some more.
"Well, enjoy yourself, camera girl. But after my treatment, I'm SO going to spank both you and Nekko with a tenderizing hammer. I swear."
"…"
Jaina arrived in the room as well and sighed. Even if she didn't look too happy by this turn of events, a smile appeared on her face when she saw the critter quickly spreading over Silver's face.
"Mmmph!"
Blind and mute, Silver fell to her knees and abandoned herself to the process. With my camera on her, I found it so interesting to watch. It was so much more intense than watching it on CritterTube. Because of how beautiful Silver was, it was just a dream come true.
The black skin crawled over her chest, head, arms, then all the way to her hips. It would only take a short moment before she got completely encased like the two other women.
Her clothes fell apart, replaced by the glossy black material, revealing more and more how perfect her body was. Her large, heavy boobs coated with a black skin blacker than her own were amazing to watch as the creature gripped them mercilessly. Her erect nipples were so pretty.
"Mmmmph!"
When a tentacle slid over her crotch and penetrated her, I made sure to film a close-up of that. If I were to film that video half right, this would get the Critter Squad so many views and, therefore, lots of revenue. As a big fan of Silver myself, I knew the entire fandom would go crazy over such a video that showed her most intimate body parts getting infected by a critter. And since she couldn't help it and moaned of pleasure, something that would undoubtedly be very humiliating for her if it were posted online, the fans would rewatch that for years to come. It would never disappear from the internet.
It didn't take long for her entire body to get encased, and very soon, Silver was a prisoner of her alien body bag.
Jaina whispered to Nekko.
"Alright. Let's go get the vacbags while camera girl finishes her work."
"Anya! No! I want to see the eggs entering her."
"Not a chance. She would never forgive you if you let that happen."
"Aww… not fair. Nya! I wanted to see her get impregnated. More views too!"
"Whatever, Nekko. Let's go."
While I finished recording Silver's downfall, Nekko and Jaina returned from the truck with the vacbags. They were big and shiny PVC bags big enough to hold a human body. Using tools to avoid getting infected, they placed the squirming bodies of the two women and Silver inside them. After sealing the bags, Jaina used her vacuum to remove all air from them, double-encasing the victims.
It didn't take long before we had three vacuum-packed bodies piled up on one another in the middle of the living room. As I kept filming, I wondered how ethical that was.
"How are they supposed to breathe?"
"The critters provide them with all they need at the moment. We vacuum pack them to ensure the critters can't escape."
"But, the infected people, don't they feel anything?"
"They totally feel everything. They know they have been vacuum-packed, but they don't really care. They are far from being unhappy right now… Except for Silver… I'm pretty sure she is pissed."
"Mmm.. Okay."
"It should have been you inside that bag, camera girl, so don't complain. Common, grab one too. Let's get out of here."
Nekko and Jaina began to drag a vacuum-packed body out of the living room. Their day of work was over, and they wanted to return home.
Only now I realized how lucky I had been not to get infected. But I also couldn't get over how lucky I had been to have been spontaneously hired by my heroines. Considering Silver was now infected because of me, it would probably be my last day of work, but… still…
"What a chance… I'm so lucky."
I smiled for the first time today. I was happy, and no matter what happened next, I would cherish this moment for the rest of my life.
I grabbed the last vacuum-packed body and dragged it toward the exit.
"Hey! Wait for me…"
"Come one, camera girl. It's getting late."
"Yes. My name is Alexa, by the way…"
"We don't care. Just bring that body to the truck, camera girl."
"Yes… yes… sorry. I'm coming."