Melinda.
Gube was now, unquestionably, the 'exception' that proved her bestie's favorite rule made manifest.
Mindy would have done a murder to look like the reinvented goblin, weird monstrous bits and all!
She'd been good-looking, no questions asked, but Gube was already shaping up to be next-level, hormonal fantasy-grade dream fuel that had Mindy wishing she still had a body just to reach out and grab some of those delectable curves…
"No, that's getting a little weird… Rein in the horny, Mindy. We all get you're an eager beaver when it comes to bedtime fun, but settle down, girl, sit!" Still, she mentally clacked her teeth as though to bite at the air with a saucy growl before moving on.
After a few moments wherein she rediscovered her center to regain control of her desires, Melinda couldn't help the barking chuckle that escaped her nonexistent lips as she considered her work with a grin.
"Ha! My gobbo would have thirsty nerds at some comic con begging to be stepped on! Girls pumping! Except for her face, oh well, easy enough fix, no need for cosmetics when we're a biological plastic surgeon. M-minus the silicone and terrifying 'after-pics'...
"We'll just work the magic with dermatology, smoothen the wrinkles, clean things up, widen the cheekbones, firm and sharpen the jaw, chisel the angles, fix the oil-rig chin… God damn, that thing is insanely long, and those teeth—ugh."
Melinda scowled once she got a look at the craggy mess of jagged tusks within. Wondering if the poor goblin had ever brushed them a single day in her life.
Well, she would figure out a way to introduce hygiene in all its forms at some point soon, but for now…
Focusing, the goddess-in-training systematically adjusted each and every tooth, keeping the sort of pointed fang-like concept the girl already had going but rounding the new pearly whites to make them a little more aesthetically pleasing, giving each tip a sort of slight and cruel curl that really sent shivers down the spine.
On a tangent thought, she also extended the length of her tongue, finding the idea that Gube was turning out to be so damned fine but, under the hood, an absolute creature compared to humanity to be a real winning idea.
The thematics of it all, from Mindy herself to her would-be first corrupted entity just flowed so prophetically that she earnestly had a hard time not tossing in a few extra little 'spooky bits'!
She even changed her eyes, aiming for a sort of large, too-cute-to-be-dangerous but decidedly psychotic energy before coloring them a vivid bubble-gum pink.
The goblins didn't really have an observable sclera, just one slightly ominous shade of red and another marginally darker sphere within the first…
Thus, Mindy wasn't really sure what was going on there from a scientific standpoint, but she ultimately just went with one glowing shade, going with the whole 'touched-by-divinity' look she'd often seen in such settings. But, throwing in just a little hypnotic black spiraling that hopefully would both terrify and enrapture.
Last was the hair.
And, having personally lived through the hell that was waxing just to stay smooth, Melinda did the little goblin a favor and vindictively purged every single goddamned freaking useless hair follicle below the eyelashes!
Yeah, Melinda had come from a family with very coarse hair, and maybe she was feeling just a little vengeful on this particular point, but sue her!
It wasn't like dudes wanted to see that sort of thing anyway… Well, not most of them, at least.
Glancing at the previously mentioned lashes, Mindy didn't bother explaining herself, just making them long, curly, and thick. Ensuring to stomp out any other pesky hairs she found in unwanted areas, just to be sure.
She was having too much fun as she dealt with the creature's long, greasy hair, starting over from scratch and a bare scalp and growing out a voluminous waterfall of cascading waves that reached her lower back before making each and every strand a gleaming moonlit silver that, when she gazed at the finished product, she hadn't even realized she'd made something of a cardinal sin.
"Silver doesn't really match the green…" She mumbled with slight annoyance as she considered her work. "That said, new species, new phenotype! And, if I'm going to be some corrupted dark lord, then it would be fitting if my minions looked like something belonging to the underworld, underdark?"
Should she go with the classic dark-elf color palette? Eh, why the heck not? Elves didn't have a patent on colors.
"Light gray skin, purple tint, and voila!"
The rather pleased goddess basked in the afterglow of her perfection, glancing between the image she'd created on the status screen and that of the pitiable creature still covered in her—well, her sticky, goopy 'godliness'…
It was a stark comparison.
The two examples of the goblin named 'Gube' were so utterly opposite to each other while still sharing an observable theme that Mindy honestly wasn't sure how the girl's kin might react…
The transition was day and night, one iteration a classic goblin while the other was, frankly, looking like some dark-elf-goblin hybrid for all her efforts to sidestep the concept…
The larger issue, she knew, was just how idealized she'd made the girl.
Sometimes, when a person appeared too perfect, they also looked fake. But again, with all the monstrous differences, it wasn't too horrible, and Mindy was at least reasonably sure that someone back home had been born looking just as good. O-or, at least, close enough to it—probably…
"It's just because elves are supposed to be hot," she assured herself, ratified in her decision. And though Gube wasn't an elf, she was right along those lines of attractive, just—extra carnivorous.
"There's a reason, after all, why the race is synonymous with 'beautiful people'. Whoever heard of an ugly elf? Still…" Melinda muttered, "With all the monstery bits, the eyes, the ears and nose, longer clawed fingers and toes, not to mention the teeth and tongue, my version of it all is definitely enough removed that it could be considered my own thing… I think."
Oh, who was she kidding? Plagiarism wasn't an issue anymore, so who cared if Gube was elf-like? She still looked enough like a dangerous 'creature' that any dude hoping for a blowy would have to think twice before giving in to the old monkey brain…
Honestly, the goblin looked as though she might just chew it off just so she could enjoy the screams, but at the same time, she was seductive, full-lipped, and wide-hipped enough that Melinda wondered if any guys she'd known back home would, as the saying went, risk it for the biscuit.
"Definitely," she chuckled, grinning widely and enjoying the process.
"This one's bringing 'don't stick your dick in Mindy' to a new and fun peak! And look how many dudes did exactly that back home! Or was the saying 'don't put your dick in crazy'?
Melinda cackled at one of her bestie's favorite jokes, then found herself momentarily dejected as she wound down, coming to terms with the knowledge that she'd never get to hang with the guy and smoke weed all night… not ever again.
It was a sobering thought and one that sort of helped her calm down from all the manic energy she was feeling. Mindy—probably needed her meds, but, oh, that was right…
Dead.
Goddess.
Superpowers.
There likely wasn't a pharmacist for a kajillion light years in any conceivable direction.
She was just in the process of wondering if she should maybe toss in a tail or something of the like, just for a touch of demonic fun while sort of feeling a little morose.
Giving the idea of throwing in some horns to really sell the whole 'succubus' thing Gube had going on now, when, after making a slight adjustment to her height, everything went gray.
"The hell?" Mindy demanded, narrowing her gaze at the screen as she tried to mentally adjust anything without finding even a modicum of success. "Don't tell me all that was freaking permanent! A one-time deal? Really? Just when it was getting fun?"
The goddess pouted, disappointed beyond reason, finally noticing a flashing red light that managed to catch her attention as her gaze drifted towards the bar denoting her devotion.
It was empty.
Utterly bottomed out…
Not so much as a sliver remaining behind, which just left Melinda glaring at the thing and willing it to start rising.
When it didn't, she began to reevaluate how 'liberal' she'd been with Gube's transcendence.
"I might have fucked up here…" She admitted somewhat sourly, peering back towards her adjusted version of Gube and realizing she couldn't even reverse her changes. "God, I hope she actually likes what I did to her… I mean, I would, but how fricking petty, do I have to be to do all of—that!"
Again, she had to admit her work was impressive; she'd genuinely outdone herself and might have contemplated the deaths of loved ones if it meant she could have been rocking the goblin's new looks.
However, now that the excitement of it all was settling down, Mindy almost felt—dirty…
This was a living, breathing person that she'd just fucked with tentacles and then proceeded to fuck her natural state of being, and without any semblance of consent beyond—what? Prayer?
Hah!
Hadn't Mindy always said 'praying' was ridiculous?
An utter nonsensical thing to do that was as meaningless as it was absurd? Yet here she was, now taking it as gospel, using it to justify her own desires and—fun.
It wasn't lost on Melinda that she'd warped the little Goblin into the spitting image of her idealized concept of beauty. Granted, her standard wasn't anything wholly special from more modernized AI-generated images or filtering, ignoring the nightmarish accoutrements she'd bull-rushed into the greater design, but…
Did Mindy really have the right to do what she'd done?
"I honestly couldn't say…" The deity admitted, tone more contemplative as she considered the issue. She was technically a god now, and, as a god or goddess, didn't that afford her certain—privileges? Or was she just hiding behind thinly veiled justifications?
Who was to say?
More, who was even there to stop her if she wasn't?
Shrugging with a perhaps inevitable dismissal of her troublesome conscience, Melinda eyed the last slider that was still available to her. Considering it for a span before shifting the only thing she still could, Gube's future 'share' of profits within the scope of their little bargain.
Now, the girl would receive twenty-five percent rather than an even twenty.
It was a minor consideration, but again, Melinda was pretty positive that Gube would be over the moon with the changes, so it was earnestly more something born of a selfish whim to forgive her own transgressions.
She was healthy enough to recognize what she was doing for what it was, not at all beyond the ebb and flow of her own emotions and ideals. But that was just something Mindy had always loved about herself, now wasn't it?
"Being able to identify when I'm being a total c-word, but enjoying it for what it was. And, knowing full well, I could just bribe myself later to feel better about what I did…"
Was she a bad person?
No, probably not… probably…
Would a bad person have spent so much time trying to fix her little corrupted goblin? Or would they just abuse and take advantage of them and treat them like slaves?
"See, universe?" Melinda shouted, glaring at the endless darkness. "When I'm a selfish bitch, at least I can admit it and try to do a little good with my time! Unlike a certain someone who lets all his followers crusade and jihad across the planet, killing millions the world over!" She paused, emotions dropping by the wayside for a moment as she stared blankly in a momentary pause of hesitation…
"Maybe I'm starting to feel a little—tired…" She conceded, knowing just how silly she was being.
But then, the anger flared with a resurgence of indignation as she thought on it all, returning right back to where she'd been as though the darkness had said something snippy.
"Or! Whatever asshole—" She seethed, hateful in her tone. "Just up and decided I was going to die at twenty-one with a fucking brain tumor!"
Nothing replied in response…