“Why does she look just like me?” Luci’s pupils dilate at the sight of what looks like an almost perfect copy of her. Golden blonde hair, albeit lacking in luster. Crimson eyes, but without the sense of life. Its also dressed in a black hood cloak with red trims, her scythe remaining down by her waist. She just came to this world after all, why would she already have a homunculus clone of herself? Her confusion swiftly turns to anger as she pulls out her dagger, holding it outward, her eyes staring directly at the homunculus. “You can’t just steal my cute looks!” she yells. The clone stares back at her tilting its head slightly, but remaining just as expressionless.

Louis begins drawing his sword, which the girl watches carefully as it tightens her grip on its scythe.

“Toughen.” Louis feels his muscles grow firmer and more nimble as the magic takes effect. He lunges at the girl, preparing a double slash at her midsection. The homunculus immediately uses its scythe to vault over him and send a fireball into his back, the force of the blast knocking him to the floor. She lands gracefully afterward, returning to a neutral state, just watching the two for their next move. Its grip on her scythe tightening.

“Quicken” Luci feels her legs and arms become more nimble, infused with the natural swiftness of the wind. She begins to charge before ducking and planting her dagger into the stone, using it to spin in a circle, throwing her legs into the homunculus’, causing her to trip and fall forward. She follows it up by casting “Fire Bolt” into her back, just as it did to Louis. Luci was about to follow her attack up until she’s stunned by a sudden burst of pain. Collapsing to the ground, she feels her body shift and morph. Her bones growing denser, her hair getting shorter, she realizes that her “Sex Shift” skill was activated, but she couldn’t recall activating it since the bandit fight. “When did I activate that skill? Fuck, this really hurts.” She curses the pain in her mind as her body transforms into its male state. 

As the transformation ends, Lucifer stands up looking over at the homunculus, noticing that it was also now male. “This… thing. It can also Sex Shift?” Louis finally gets up, noticing that both girls in the room were now near-identical looking men. 

“The hell? What the hell happened to Luci? Who are you two? Wait…” Louis looks over at Lucifer, noticing that the man looked the same as the one he rescued on the road just the other day. “I remember you. But… Luci, where is she?” He calms down a little, but the thought that Luci changed sex and is now male never crossed his mind.

Lucifer breathes deeply and backs away from the homunculus, which also gets back up, holding its scythe with two hands now. “I… was born with this condition, which lets me alter my body’s gender. The results are what you see now.” 

Louis stares back at him dumbfounded. “Is that even possible? That someone can just alter their body like that? I admit though, your body does look a lot sturdier than it was moments ago. Though you don’t look as healthy.”

“Yeah, it takes some energy to transform, but I’ll be fine. Let’s just deal with this homunculus so we can leave this place.”

Louis nods back at him as the two look back at the homunculus. He charges at it as it begins to lower the scythe around his neck. Louis presses his sword against the handle of the scythe, pushing it backwards as he lands his own slice on its chest. Lucifer follows it up with two well placed slices on its back. As the homunculus gets up, it moves its scythe around Louis’ legs before pulling inward causing him to trip. Then it swerves the blade around, throwing him into Lucifer who collide together into some rubble

“Shit, that thing’s way stronger now.”

Lucifer tries to stand up but collapses onto his knees. “Yeah, even in this form, my physical strength is nothing compared to that.” He looks at the homunculus who slowly inches towards them, seeing them as legitimate threats. He then looks over to Louis. “Listen, I have an idea.”

Louis looks over at him, keeping one eye on the threat not too far away. “Let’s hear it then.”

Lucifer nods. “Keep that thing busy, and I’ll try to change back. Then we can keep one of us at a distance and bombard it with magic shots.”

“Can’t it just transform back too?”

“Probably, but even still, us attacking in sync will be better for us than attacking disjointedly.”

Louis nods back, pulling two healing potions out of his sack and handing one of them to Lucifer. Both of them drink up, before Louis walks back over to the homunculus, keeping his distance and his eyes on it. Lucifer backs up before activating “Sex Shift” and immediately feeling his body shift again. The homunculus sees Lucifer in the midst of shifting and immediately lunges at him, before Louis tackles it into the wall. Focusing its attention back on Louis, who has now backed up slightly, it angles its scythe upwards, its tip pointed at his skull before bringing it down. Louis readily parries the strike by smacking his blade against the handle, knocking the scythe into the air which the homunculus quickly leaps up to grab.

Soon after the transformation completes and Luci stands back up in her female form. She stretches a bit and silently thanks herself now that the tightness downstairs has disappeared. She stands up, readying her spells once again as Louis positions himself between the homunculus and Luci.

“Let’s do this!” They both shout in unison.