MTTCC: Escape from Marshmallow Marsh 2 (Patreon)

Of Wardens and Weighty Witches

Shadows moved inside of the fog.

They swelled and they swirled upon air as thick as honey in a kaleidoscope of gray, spinning laughing and dancing around the small redhead. Some of the shadows even seemed to sing.

Rai didn’t know very much about magic. It was life energy, she understood that well enough. It made sense that life should be vital to the creation of any whimsical confection, but the bizarre tingle of power raised the hairs on her neck and breathed chills upon her skin.

She could hear the kiss of sunlight, taste the fruit of a hard day’s labor. It confused the senses, and for a brief moment she was sure she’d begun running upside-down before all of the fog suddenly cleared, and she staggered to a halt before the factory’s Warden.

The supernatural is real. Most people don’t know it exists, in fact most people ‘know’ that it doesn’t. Wake up, eat breakfast, go to work, go home; there is a comfort to regularity, and it’s hard to explain ‘Magic’ to a board of investors or to place ‘Infusion Ingredients’ on an expense report.

Even if you did know about it, there’s a part of you that doesn’t want to understand. You want to think that everything’s natural. That it’s easy to create life out of sugar, that a confection which is digested in minutes without wasting a calorie is a simple creation, and that it’s only natural for a small cup tea to make a few juicy alterations to a girl’s DNA structure.

After all, chemistry and biology are taught in high school.

And so a song-infused elixir becomes a ‘Sweetie-Bird Soda.’ A sugar-touched lifeform is labeled as a ‘Productive Confection.’ It is easier to understand and explain such labels to the powers that be and the guests who come in, just as it is easier to have a ‘Warden’ on payroll as opposed to a ‘Witch.’

But the eye of the storm has no space for delusions.

Teal and orange bolts snapped against the bright fog. Power crackled, life glowed, and the soft and pale form of the Witch was illuminated. A short woman, a large woman, with a larger presence.

Her hair was white, her eyes a bright orange. She was pleasant in her plumpness, a tight outfit of burgundy and black with a velvet corset that was far more flattering than it could be slimming, showing just enough skin to make the younger girls blush.

Vivi the Witch held a staff in her left hand, the shaft planted against the steel deck. Power traced over the dark oak and through her fingers, diving out from the head to add to the storm before coming back stronger as a strike at the tip of her immense witch’s hat. The bolstered power then swept down through her skin, a colorful swirl which danced under her cheek and through her smooth shoulder, then up through her right arm till it reached her index finger, which was touched to a pink orb that was the size of a baseball that Rai quickly realized was bright bubble gum.

“Warden!” Rai called over the cacophony, and Vivi glanced towards the two girls.

She seemed unable to talk, lifting a finger from her staff in a warning motion before her vision returned back to the bubble. She inhaled, the slight motion somehow louder than the storm, and then blew into the pink bubble until it began to glow.

Then, the glow faded. Nothing had happened.

“What’s she doing?!” Mikasa shouted.

Rai’s lips furrowed. She turned, looking around the storm to see Vivi’s focus. Magic usually required eye contact, at least to see the general spot of the spell, but Rai couldn’t see anything on the catwalks.

She nearly slapped herself when she finally realized that she should be looking down.

Rai went to the guardrail that Vivi’s belly and breasts were pressed up against, ducking to see beneath the Witch’s shadow. She saw first the trees, then the isle, then the stream. She was still searching for the target when Vivi’s staff clapped against the catwalk behind her, and then she saw the bubbles making ripples in the syrup.

The ripples were parted as something bright brown slowly came to the surface, then the unmistakable whiteness of marshmallow scales. Rai gaped as the largest marshmallowgator, the bull of the congregation, was forced to the surface with a reptilian snarl.

For a brief moment, she’d thought that Vivi’s target was the marshmallowgator itself, but soon realized that the white claws were clinging to a bright pink surface. More emerged, bringing the huge gator nearly two inches above the Marshmallow Dark, and then Rai could hear Misha’s bright screams.

Mikasa dropped to Rai’s side. They saw the bull lift its head to slam down on the shell, the other gators surfacing to ram the sides with their snouts. Misha’s shouts became startled yelps, but louder still was the noise from the barrier like splintering glass.

“She’s trapped…” Mikasa breathed.

Rai was already moving, crossing beneath Vivi to rise on her left side, away from the staff and from the bolts to her hat. The Witch’s bright orange eyes watched her, her finger never leaving the pink bubble.

“What can we do?” she asked.

Vivi just looked at her for a moment. Then her eyes dropped, looking down past her chin. For a moment Rai thought that she was looking at her breasts, which… did they seem bigger than just a moment before? She blinked, just watching the heft as the pudgy Witch breathed, and was startled by when the woman stomped a soft thigh and shot her an exasperated look before looking back down.

Rai followed again, this time seeing the large belt tied around the corset. Small leather pouches had been fixed to a chord, each marked by a unique silver clasp. Near the edge, a handful of beakers were arranged into individualized slots.

The redhead turned back up to see the Witch watching her. Vivi looked calm, apparently unbothered by the strength of the storm and the screams from below. She blinked patiently.

“A… potion?” Rai asked.

Vivi nodded. There was a particularly loud *crack,* both from below and attached to her mouth, and the witch turned her focus back onto the bubble, eyebrows narrowing in annoyed concentration.

Rai saw the power from her finger pass through the pink bubble, then saw the fissures that covered its surface. Orange light dove into the cracks, mixing with the bubble before, Rai gasped, becoming it. She looked towards the barrier, then back, nodding as she understood.

“What should we do?”

Vivi motioned down to her left, near where she held her staff. She wasn’t a very big woman, but the Witch of Marshmallow Marsh had a waistline to match, and Rai had to circle ‘round her backside before finding a silver flask tinkering upon the woman’s full waist.

As she reached for the flask, Rai was startled by a noise that sounded like air being forced through a balloon. She looked up towards Vivi’s face, white brows knit in concentration, and watched the woman blowing air into the bubblegum.

The pink glowed brighter, though it did not grow larger. Rai wondered for a moment how that could be, before the noise of rushing wind became wet and heavy. It was a noise that was fat, fatter than even the witch… before her body trembled, and her belly puffed outwards over her burgundy skirt.

“Raaaai!” Mikasa called. “Something’s happening!!!”

Rai moved towards the railing, but was stopped as a bolt of orange energy flashing past the guardrail. She turned back to see Vivi’s orange eyes glaring at her, and Rai had the very sudden impression that the Warden would rather walk away from the spell rather than waddle.

Rai snatched up the string which secured the flask, her fingers amazed by how puffy yet solid the Warden’s waist felt. The outfit was struggling, and Rai could see how the skirt was now held up more by the fullness of Vivi’s buttshelf rather than any structure. Several tears had appeared in the woman’s thighs, and most alarmingly, her pudgy white feet were entirely exposed, swelling with so much energy and weight that her ankles had become cankles, and her shoes had split apart.

“What now?” she asked, holding the flask.

Vivi moved very slowly. Her arms, round and full like marshmallows themselves, came as inward as her full waist and fuller chest would allow, then she exhaled heavily into the glowing pink bubble.

Rai dared a look this time. Beneath them, the fog swirled atop of the surface, flicking Darkest Chocolate over the bull’s stained-white skin. He seemed to snap at it, as if aware of some unseen thing. And then, to its left, Rai gaped as a trail of Darkest Chocolate were lifted from the marsh.

Up, up, a tiny river flowed. It passed through the protective barrier, carried by the Warden’s will, and up to the railing. Rai unstopped the top of the silver flask and the small stream swirled down into it, landing pleasantly with a sound like a fat woman’s giggle.

Rai turned back to Vivi, whose attention seemed to be back on the bubble. She brought the flask closer, offering it to the witch, but the white-haired woman denied her with a simple head twitch.

“I-I have to make it myself?” she asked.

Despite the bright screaming from the girl below, Vivi seemed to grin. She dipped her head slightly to her right and then, with a motion that made Rai blink in surprise, the witch’s very pupil seemed to change and rotate. Her left eye was unchanged, but the orange gem of her right eye swirled and shifted to reform into a large #3.

“T-three?” Rai asked, looking to Vivi’s normal eye.

“Her pockets! She’s got pouches on her belt!” Mikasa called, quickly crossing to come near the witch. “The third pocket? Is that what you mean??”

Rai felt a slight air of relief as Vivi nodded.

Then Mikasa asked, “My third or your third?”

Vivi and Rai both blinked at the larger Kaito.

“Oh, there’s five. The middle one, got it.”

“What??” Rai asked.

“Nothing!”

Mikasa moved forwards. She was taller than Vivi, but the brunette was maybe a third of the Witch’s weight and rapidly losing ground. She had to bend over to reach Vivi’s waist but, to Rai, might have been fussing with something on the other side of the globe. It was becoming all the more apparent that the energy which spilled off of Vivi was indeed moving through her, and more than a little remained jiggling upwards and outwards.

Rai, realizing the sudden emptiness without Misha’s screams, looked down. The bubble was gone, the bull was gone. The surface of the marsh had gone still and silent.

“Jeez, Warden, remind me to get you a new belt… You’re gonna use up all our stretching powder.”

Vivi’s orange eyes seemed to glow with ominous warning, but Mikasa’s hand came free and she reached across the woman’s width, offering to Rai a marshmallow so fluffy and fat that it barely fit into her hand.

Rai took it, looking between it and the seemingly ill-suited flask. “Y-you want me to put…” she asked, looking up to Vivi.

The witch’s nod seemed more emphatic thanks to her new double chin.

The redhead placed the marshmallow against the small top and pushed. The reaction was something… entirely expected, with the topper cutting into the center of the marshmallow and the rest folding over the flask. Rai pushed as far down as she could, feeling as at least some of the fluffy innards made contact with the Deepest Dark within, but when she pulled her hand up the concoction looked more like a fatty white hand grenade than a witch’s potion.

“Uhhhh,” she began, but with a flick of her chins, the orange energy that leapt from Vivi’s hat impacted upon the assembly of silver and sugar, shooting it from Rai’s hand and over the railing. As it spun, Rai had the brief impression that the fattened marshmallow almost seemed to be swelling even larger before it struck the surface of Deepest Dark near where Misha had vanished.

Ripples thrummed from the impact spot, but besides that… nothing. The marsh was unchanged. The magic in the air thrummed silently, and the violent marshland below responded in kind.

“W-was that supposed to…umm… do something?” Mikasa asked.

Vivi didn’t respond, still holding her right hand to her small pink bubble.

Then suddenly, a crash came up from beneath. Both Kaitos jumped as four, then five, then six marshmallowgators came suddenly snarling to the surface of the syrup. They moved erratically, thrashing against the chocolate waters, and Rai spotted the bull snapping at the tail of another which had unwittingly swiped him. They scattered into the nearby ferns, up the slight embankment. Then the Kaitos saw others, creatures of strawberry and the purest snow, predator and prey alike, scurried up and away from the pond around Milk’s Isle.

Which Rai noticed seemed to be growing increasingly white…

Then, with a soft thrum, the pink curve of the bubble began to rise to the surface! Ripples began to rise from the… Milk Chocolate? Rai wanted to hop and clap and laugh like her sister, but there was something happening to the water and she couldn’t help but-

“W-what’s happening?!” she heard Misha’s voice. “Are they gone??”

“Way to go, Warden!” Mikasa chirped, and Rai turned to see Mikasa excitedly clap Vivi on the back, and the big bubble of pink burst upon the witch’s lips.

Beneath them, a scream and a splash. The sisters rushed to the railing, each shouting downward with worry while the once-plump now-obese Witch of the Marsh spluttered and coughed, her skirt tore at her waist as her belt burst from her gut, and she thundered down tiredly on her fluffy backside.

“What happened?!”

“The barrier burst, you idiot!”

Behind them, Vivi seemed to try and talk, but she could only breathe messily as the magic faded and sweat and exhaustion filled its place.

“Well how did that happen?!?”

Rai was two steps from flinging her sister over the railing when she heard a wet slopping noise. Pink broke through the milky surface of the liquid, thrashing about as Misha gasped to the surface. The sisters squeaked in excitement as the plump peachy girl kicked and pulled herself towards the marshmallow grass of Milk’s Isle.

“She made it!!” Mikasa shouted.

“G-get out… of the water…”

Rai spun to see the witch’s hands on her belly, her pale plumpness spreading her thick thighs wide. She looked almost like she was trying to figure out how to stand.

“Get out of the water…” Vivi wheezed again.

Beneath them, a plump, fluffy girl sagged against the shoreline, breathing her final all-natural breath before the soft whiteness crawled down through her chest, and the next mouthful of air tasted suspiciously of sugar.

Her belly rumbled.