Final Fantasy IV - Haunted Baron

Author's Note: Those of you who know me well, know I've developed an immense dislike toward Rydia. I'll leave the many, many reasons out of this note, but I say this because it felt very wrong not to include her when I have most everyone else, and I'm not asshole enough to do such things. This was the hardest chapter for me to write, and however it's interpreted, I tried my best to work with her the same as I've been doing for every other character. Oh, and Lenna is NOT the same one from FF5.


Edward counted himself lucky that Cecil and Rosa maintained the strange Baronian tradition of hiding treasure, however ordinary, behind walls... despite the grotesqueness of the access switch. He took his hand from the skull-and-bones, wiped the cobwebs onto his pants and strode into the hidden chamber. Within the first of three treasure chests, he discovered precisely what he needed. Uncorking the vial, he lightly sprinkled the Potion over his burns and let its magical properties sink under his skin.

"Ahh, that's better," he said. "Did you find anything?"

"What good is 480 Gold going to do us in a time like this?" Lenna scoffed, secretly slipping the change into her money pouch. By Edward's instruction, she left both chests open for the King and Queen to find after this ordeal.

"Cecil and Rosa keep many royal keepsakes hidden. Remember to watch for any switches that look suspicious." Edward exited the room, Lenna shortly behind him. The candles burned, bat-screeches rising from the dual Mage study rooms of the main hall. He gave a confirming glance to Alec, taken aback as the man rushed forward.

"Look out!" Alec pushed Edward aside and rolled sideways, knocking into Lenna... and narrowly dodging the crashing blow of a sword. The pair tumbled to the ground.

"Hey! What do you think you're doing?!" Lenna's annoyance waned when she looked up at the strange sight.

A black, rusted suit of knight armor stood at the passage. A quick upward tug freed the sword's edge from its position, cleaved into solid rock. The knight clambered toward them, the threat of its blade more than obvious enough by the blood dripping from its tip. Lenna braced herself for an attack, when she instead watched the knight press its hand against the access switch. The wall slammed shut.

"Hello again, Edward."

Edward could instantly place the man's voice even before his appearance shifted. The knight's armor altered as a new kind of Darkness came over Cecil. Purple energy glowed in a circle at his feet. Rust lifted like vapor. His gauntlets broke to reveal his biceps. Each finger of his hands exposed as metal shrank away, a cape flowing out from the back of his chestplate. The distinct alteration of his original paladin armor into a twisted, evil scheme bore its resemblance when the armor's details tinted to red and his helmet melted to nothing, his new headband parting his moon-white hair. His sword was the last to find new substance, the purity of the blade tarnished into a serrated black-and-red monstrosity.

Cecil swished his sword as his Darkness aura faded, blood arcing in a splatter to the floor. "I see you met with Yang, and more importantly, his wife. Did you ever think in your wildest dreams that her bossy attitude with her husband would manifest as some fire-breathing sex fiend?"

"Release them." Edward demanded.

"Why would I do that? You need to see one of the surprises we built into the castle." Cecil's hand pressed down on the skull's mouth. Before Edward could act against him, he feigned, "That's not very wise. How would you open the door if I can't stop the process and open the lock?"

"You're killing them!" Edward could hear them beating against the wall as Lenna and Alec choked on poison gas. He was a few seconds away from playing one of his songs on the King when an admission from Cecil stayed his hand.

"I'm not killing them. I'm giving them new life. Shall we see what they have become?" Cecil pressed the skull's teeth back together. Mist flooded to the floor. The blue candles lit two shady figures, the first emerging in all his green, scaly glory.

It was clearly Alec, or the remainder of him. His webbed claws flopped as he walked forward, water slithering off his body. His headfins twitched and his gills vainly tried to breathe. He glanced about through beaded eyes, the first human to become one of the dreaded Sahagin.

The other figure, Lenna, stepped forth. Her white dress sagged from the torn left strap, her breast exposed in toga-like appeal. Her red hair, a prize of their color, writhed as a giant mass of snakes. She looked at her long pink nails, and when her hair-snakes entered her vision, she reacted as any woman would: she screamed.

"AHH! What did you do to me you bastard?!"

"How strange," Cecil said. "The transformation didn't complete for the woman. You should have turned to stone as soon as you laid eyes on her, Edward. We may need to bloodlet our new servants before we turn them with these chambers."

"Turn me back! Now!" Lenna's hair-snakes hissed.

"I'm afraid that's no longer an option. We can complete the transformation, if you like." Her response was an expected one. Cecil raised his sword in time to block the incoming snake bites. "Very well. I will turn you into one of our castle slaves later. Alec, allow me to take you to your new home in the castle moat."

He grinned toward Edward and used his Emergency Exit. They faded, the green mist clearing out with them.

"Lenna..." Edward offered a comforting hand to her. He could sense the dismay Lenna felt as she spoke contrary.

"Save it. We don't know how the gas affected me. Let's hurry before we find out." Venom dripped from her snakes' fangs as she moved on ahead of him. Across the hall, up the stairs, she entered into the open air.

Edward followed. Thunder crackled. Lightning blitzed. From the slits of moonlight through heavy clouds, he peered back at the castle's overhang, the very same place where Cecil and Rosa 'greeted' them on their arrival.

Lady Emma, dryad of Baron Castle, had grown her roots across the walls. They merged into the moss and ivy, her full prominence rising higher with her new source of nourishment. Her hair-vines had four men wrapped in them, each one suspended in the air. Her current mate hovered before her, his member enclosed by her mouth as she suckled for the nutrients she needed to grow. Sap leaked from her nipples and down her plant-strands, her leaves pulled out to show her full form.

"This way," Lenna called to Edward, returning his attention to the task at hand.

Down one set of stairs, out another door, he joined his Medusa partner to the building across the way and cautiously took point as he entered.

"UWEE hee hee hee!" the witch's cackle came from the basement.

"No! Stop! I'm sorry!" some poor, desperate woman pleaded.

Their voices grew stronger as Edward skulked down the steps, his hand grasping Lenna's. He rounded the corner of the first jail cell to look at the end of the row, at once witness to a brunette Fabulian lady in still pose. The uncanny effect had all the tell-tale signs of the black magic spell Stop, a spell very few people in Baron Castle at the time of its corruption could have known. Strategically placed, Stop kept the woman's arms and legs suspended in time, the rest of her body vulnerable to all the sensations that came from remaining in synch with its surroundings. The witch's body aligned with the reflection of a well-placed mirror, jarring Edward's memory of the matured little girl he first met during Damcyan's destruction by her new monstrosity.

Rydia's soft, emerald hair, always a bit wild and frizzy, exaggerated into an untamed mess. Sticks, leaves and twigs tangled in her crazed mane, running down her back. That numbered the least of her changes. Her previously pale white skin, a creation of her lifetime in the Underground, had become the putrid dark green of her old summoner's clothes. Black eyeshadow and lipstick matched her ensemble, a wicked mockery of her original style.

A cloak, clasped below her neck by a skull pin, covered the upper third of her breasts and curved around her sides to reach her feet. Its cloth extended into loose-hanging sleeves that reached to her elbows. Combined with her largely V-cut dress, the cloak formed a diamond shape of her cleavage down to mid-torso. The remainder of her dress draped her sex and dangled between her legs, a sole skull-belt serving as her only defense against the cloth blowing up at a slight breeze.

Outfitted in thigh-high black stockings, her dark high heels kept her at steady footing as she murmured and raised her hand.

"Drain!"

Violet lines of energy waved from the Fabulian's chest. Sharp, strong pulses carried from her to the witchy Rydia. Where the Fabulian's bountiful breasts shrank, Rydia's bosom grew in equal proportion. The witch's chest blossomed into further maturity of a full sexpot, stretching her dress' straps toward their limits. In contrast, the other woman's once prominent cleavage deflated, the front of her dress loosely drooping. As if the loss of the Fabulian's massive bust wasn't insult enough, the spell's effect in the process rubbed it in.

"Oooohhhhh!" The lady cried out, orgasmic ripples swathing her chest with her downgrade. "Please! I'm a high-class call girl, I need my breasts for business!"

"Eeehee hee hee hee hee," Rydia squeezed and rubbed her breasts with every jolt of growth. "I'm doing you a favor! When I'm done, you can join a dancing troupe for little girls or train to be a monk."

"B-But I'm a grown wOOOman," she moaned. "I'm 30 years old."

"Have you seen some of the men on the Blue Planet? Some of them look more like a woman than you ever will. One look at your flat chest and nobody will stop to ask!" The last ball of purple drew from the Fabulian and sank into Rydia. Joined in a last groan, Rydia released her victim's limbs from the Stop spell. "How does it feel to look like a man?"

Rydia grinned as the lady stood dumbfounded before her reflection.

The Fabulian by no means looked childish or manly, the buxom beauty unnaturally lacking what she clearly deserved for her frame by birth. Yet the magic mirror preyed upon the woman's new insecurities, pulling her attention to the aspects of her that most exaggerated what she least wanted to see. Paired with the magical pleasure coursing through her, the call girl tweaked the tiny nubs of her slab flat chest.

"Why?" The lady tried, and failed, to resist the temptation of her nipples.

"Because you don't deserve them, that's why! I could give you a big penis, or cast Bio and watch you try to find a man, but I have better ideas. How would you like to become one of my pets?"

The horror on the Fabulian's face only made the act all the sweeter. Rydia chanted, green mist rising up around the target. Shards of likewise light snuck out and reflected off the mirror, causing Lenna's snakes to hiss as it flashed into her hair. As the mist cleared, a small creature croaked where the lady had once stood.

"Weeheehee, another toad for my collection."

Rydia sauntered around her giant cauldron and grabbed the yellow amphibian in her brittle green fingernails. Adoring her latest pet, she pressed it against her midriff and squeezed her bosom around it. "I'm going to play with you so much, my little Fabulian. At least until I find another woman to give me another boost. Why don't I give you a grand tour of the body you helped make?"

Rydia lifted the drape of her dress, revealing the mess of tangled pubic hair between her legs. She pried them loose as she moved the toad nearer to her loins, cackling while her tight grip held the struggling toaded woman in place. She groaned with excitement...

"OINK!"

Edward leapt away from the jail cell at the pig crying in his ear... and entered the witch's line of sight.

"Oh, it's you," Rydia grimaced. "You had to come ruin my fun, didn't you?"

"How could you turn these people into animals?" Edward asked.

"How could I not? That pig over there used to be a man that asked if I would give him a blowjob. The next pig down was some stuffy woman who said I look like a two-gold hussy. And this little thing," Rydia raised the Fabulian, "told me to put on some makeup and wash my hair in the moat. None of them understand what it means to be a Bog Witch."

Truthfully, he was buying time. Unlike Cecil or Yang, Rydia could speak a few words and undo anything he plotted. He cautiously put his hand over his harp-strings.

Rydia sighed. The words flew from her lips in seconds, the spell playing out as easily as with her new pet. Edward shrank in the mist, his hands and feet webbing together as his mouth widened. His attempt at notes, forcing a hand across his harp, failed utterly in his complete transformation into a Toad.

"Hehehe," Rydia grinned. "I'm not like everyone else. I can't make men swoon by shaking my ass, or turn women into vampires that fight to play with my loins, but I'm smart enough to know when you're trying to distract me. Right, Medusa?"

Lenna stepped into the light. Holding Edward in her hands, she approached the wicked witch. "What nasty little concoctions have you been making?"

Her hair-snakes picked up Rydia's swampy scent with their forked tongues. Dirt smudges on the witch's corrupt green flesh showed her earthen ways, the concerns of her Underground heritage overriding those of her above ground allies. As Rydia hid her morass of green pubes, Lenna joined her beside the cauldron.

"You know what kind I've been making. How does it feel to be a monster?"

Lenna looked at Damcyan's king, the small toad at her mercy. Adjusting the tiny bard cap on his head, she returned a dark, vicious smile to the witch. "It feels great. I can go into town whenever I want and terrorize humans."

Rydia nodded, "Give me the has-been Edward and take a seat on that jack-o-lantern... you know where the stem goes."

Peering around the room, Lenna spotted all the common tools of a foul witch. Bottles and vials lined shelves on the wall. Each held a different object or brew, from the forest greens of Ethers to the ogre pinks of Mini potions. Toads croaked in the tank against the right wall and pigs oinked in the other jail cells like mindless beasts. Her designated seat nestled at the middle of this cell's back wall, and as she moved the skirt of her dress, she settled in. The stem, brown, long and thick, entered her loins as she kept an eye on her host's actions.

Upon putting her two newest pets in the tank, Rydia placed Edward's harp on her shelves. Unsnapping her skull belt, she grasped her favorite broom and wrapped her legs around it as she played with the toad slime in her cleavage.

"Ehehehe, let's make you a little more comfy!" A wave of her hand sent fire into the jack-o-lantern's mouth, lighting the candles inside its gutted husk... and sparking the magics that lay dormant.

The stem pulsed and grew, like some withered dildo come to life. Its expansion filled Lenna in full, and as she spread her legs to accommodate, she cried out at the sudden vibrations through her sex. "Ah! This is amazing!"

"I'm glad you like it. I use that to make all my brews, but my first honored guest deserves a little show of how I make the secret ingredient."

Rydia clutched the handle. Her nails wrapped over each other, tapping green to green as her nipples rose against her dress straps. A thrust. One thrust started the process, and from there her hands lost control over the ensuing carnality. Her grip tightened to bear the broom's power over her as it acted of its own accord, the bristles brushing against the floor, her juices coating the wooden handle.

With the witch occupied by her spell broom, Lenna rushed to a stand... or at least, she tried. Her butt rose from the pumpkin's orange skin but an inch before she discovered her bondage to the plant's stem. She twisted and tugged. Her efforts fed into the pumpkin's core and sent back to her with double the strength in its stem-vibrations. Quaking in ecstasy, she plopped back down and pressed her hands against her nether lips.

"I can't get up!" Lenna complained.

Rydia cackled, "You've fallen into my trap. That jack-o-lantern works differently on monsters... and half-monsters. Cecil warned me you didn't complete the conversion, so I had to trick you into becoming my Familiar!"

"A... Familiar?" The term was a common one in reference to the mythical witchcraft, a spirit that aided its master in magic. She understood its full meaning as Rydia explained during her self-love fest with her broom.

"Those rejects in the Sylvan Caves use Toads as their Familiars. It's disgusting to see those long-distant, backwards ancestors of my original Summoner blood using Toads to fight for them when people come into their territory."

"You were a Summoner?"

Rydia ground deeper into her broom. "Mmmm... yes. That was before I realized I could be something better. I've always been a bog hag at heart, I just never knew it!"

For all her struggles, Lenna remained fixed on her seat as the pulse ran down her legs. Her toes tingled, her exposed breast bounced, her hair-snakes hissed and swarmed alongside her in the raw desire forced through the magical vines. The sudden realization of what this plant's powers could do had Lenna awe-struck at what she discovered in reflecting on the night's events.

Lenna asked, "You made that dryad bouquet, didn't you?"

"Rosa and I cooked that one up together. I'm not strong enough to make men and women turn into sex fiends by myself with my magic... but I will be."

"You mean-"

"I'm going to get breasts big enough to surpass Rosa's and take Baron Castle for myself. After that, I'm going to turn all my old friends into Familiars. It's going to be so much fun summoning Yang's wife and making her burn people to death with that fiery mouth she has on her. But first, I need to add you to my list."

Rydia grunted as she came. Sweat glistened on her filthy knotted hair. Her pubes trapped some of her juices, as what could seep out coated the broom's handle and soaked into its bristles. The bounce of her bust waned as she calmed herself and pulled her favorite broom away, walking toward her soon-to-be Familiar. She held the handle aloft.

"Behold, the secret ingredient! A raw dose will make you into my summon-slut for all time. You want to be mine... don't you? Eeeehehehe!"

Lenna stirred. Twisting her head away, she clasped a hand over her mouth to avoid even a single drop catching her as she moaned. She eyed its brush, misty green flowing off as Rydia's cum evaporated into the air. With so few options, she reached into her dress and tossed the one remaining item she discovered in the chamber of her transformation.

As soon as the Maiden's Kiss landed in the tank, Edward made full use. He grew, the same fog as Rydia's spell reversing him back to human size and shape. Stepping from the glass box, he snatched up his harp and loosed a note faster than the wicked witch could react.

"Die, witch! You don't belong in this world!" Edward shouted.

Rydia shuddered and spoke. "It was not by my hand that I am once again given tits. I was called here by men who wish to pay me tribute."

"Tribute? You steal women's breasts and make them your pets."

"Perhaps the same could be said of all religions," she coyly remarked.

"Your words are as empty as your soul! Mankind ill-needs a witch such as you!"

"What is a man? A miserable little pile of perversions! But enough talk...have at you!"

Edward plucked the harp-strings as Rydia began the words of her spell. She nearly finished when...

"UHN!" Rydia wailed and shuddered. Her chant cut off a few words short of completion, ripples of orgasmic hunger pulsing through her sex fiercer with all the notes played by Edward's more than capable hands. Moans, groans and gasps broke her magic in ways that Silence could never achieve, and as she ripped her dress clean off her body, she rammed the side of her broom handle between the lips of her loins.

"How dare you treat me this... this... OH!"

She took heavy steps toward the bard assaulting her with his music, bending the wooden handle with how hard she forced the curved side against her groin. Much of her messy bush drove between the folds of her sex with her efforts, while her breasts jiggled and darker green nipples formed into giant peaks. At last unable to put up with so little satisfaction to her lust, she decided to call on her most trusted allies for aid. She concentrated on her chant...

"E-Edward!" Lenna writhed on the pumpkin. Her snake-tongue flicked out as she rode through several rushes of delight, her juices running over the jack-o-lantern's face... and into its open mouth. The fire in the pumpkin snuffed out, its stem retracting back to its original form as the breathless near-Medusa sat ragged and worn by its power.

"We can't leave yet. We have to help these people!" Edward rifled through the vials, cages and flasks on the witch's shelves, wiping dust off some of the oldest ones to look at the labels of objects formerly chosen as props. "Silent Bell, Bacchus's Wine, Lilith's Kiss, it must be here some place."

Green orbs hovered and spun around Rydia as her first Familiar broke through the castle wall, its giant head poised and ready for action. The wicked witch seethed at the bubbling contents of her cauldron as she bent over it, her nipples bouncing above the liquid's surface, her hands gripping the curved edges. Its aroma masked the smell of her boggy arousal as she dripped, spreading her legs wide and commanding the same Familiar that once protected her home village of Mist.

"Ohhh yeeeeees." Rydia felt the vapor of the Mist Dragon's maw flow over her sex, cooling her nether lips' desire... for a scant five seconds. Once the mist dispersed, she felt the power of Edward's music on her body full as ever, left to groan while she called another ally.

"I found a Diet Ration!" Lenna exclaimed as she held it into view.

"Good, use it on one of the Pigs." Edward watched her monster-girl companion hurry to do as told and cast a look back toward the witch. "Where can I find another Maiden's Kiss?"

"Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh," Rydia sighed as Shiva appeared. The elemental's wand sent a burst of freezing wind forth, coating the witch's entire groin in a thick sheet of ice. From navel to ass crack, it created a strange bluish-clear thong. Rapt with relief, Rydia let her body droop into the cauldron. Her magically-endowed chest submerged into the liquid's surface, its heat simultaneously soothing and torturing her corrupted flesh.

Strands of hair fell over her shoulders and soaked in the brew, as Rydia regained enough composure to respond. "Like I would ever tell you. When I've recovered my strength, I'm going to-"

Another few notes were enough to undo everything the brief appearance of Shiva had done to sate her. The ice melted in half a minute, small rivers running down her thighs. She had one last hope. Size wasn't enough, otherwise Titan would have served her well. She chanted again.

Edward went back to scouring the shelves. "Lenna, any luck?"

In the same reverse order as all the other transformations, the pig reverted back into the human male who Rydia had so cruelly turned. Blonde hair, red eyes, he had a warrior's build and the armor of one as he thanked his savior.

"Aha!" Edward plucked the artifact, the sole Maiden's Kiss he could find, and tossed it into the small Toad tank. He stood back, a swarm of the amphibians vying for the item, until one made use and reformed.

The Fabulian regained her lady-like flair. She stared at her chest, exposed by the droop of her dress, then back to Rydia as she crouched beside the cauldron. "I want my breasts back!"

"Eeeheeheehee!" Rydia cackled. "You'll never get them back! As long as I remain a bog hag, I will keep them forever. You'll never find the key!"

"If I may," the blonde warrior strode toward the cauldron, dipping his hand into the lightly boiling brew. From within, he retrieved the very thing the witch taunted them over a second ago.

Edward spoke to both, "Thank you for your help. What are your names?"

"Abel," the warrior said.

"Wen Chi," the Fabulian call girl answered.

"Give me that!" Rydia reached, nearly steady enough to reclaim it when her Familiar arrived.

"WARK!"

Yellow feathers flew in the air. The familiar call echoed across the countryside. The patter of its clawed feet stopped before the moat as it leapt through the same busted wall that the Mist Dragon had created and plunged its ridged shaft into Rydia's wet mound of kinky pubes. The chocobo's entrance into her waiting loins alone was enough to make her quake, head dipping lower as her body convulsed.

Then it started pumping.

"NGH!" She bit her lip as the thrusts went into the legendary speed and power that her Familiar was known for. Its beating wings cooled her skin, while her breasts splashed her cauldron's mix in her face. The taste coaxed her tongue with strange delights as it dripped off the tip of her nose.

"We should move on to get the last key," Edward surmised, his new allies in agreement. They stepped around the copulating pair, the wicked bog hag and her chocobo companion. He stopped at the stairs, looking on Rydia one more time.

"Ehehehehe, you're one big bird aren't you?" Rydia cackled, her brew wafting before her. "And Edge thought he could measure up to one of my beastly Familiars, the idiot."

Edward turned away. Mind on their mission, he ignored Rydia's cries of passion as he left the remodeled jail.