Despite her very real ninja skills and attendant deadly specializations, her common sense was critically lacking. This was the very reason Rixu had offered to accompany her back to her family. Of course, now that he’d met them, he began to realize the problem was familial. Nelvynn and Nelvarr were also bimbos, which made the whole coming-out conversation far more convoluted than it needed to be.

Still, he was determined to see it through.

“Valex…” he said, eyeing the confused gazes of Vynn and Varr, “Why don’t you start at the beginning?”

“I thought I did!” Valex protested. “That’s what happened to me! The Demon Lord turned me into a girl!”

“But-” Vynn gawped.

“I don’t…” Var trailed off.

Rixu sighed, then twitched as he felt Nyze’s reassuring hand on his shoulder. This time, at least, he’d have backup.

“Valex,” Nyze added, “Why don’t you start by telling your family why you were in the Demon Realm in the first place?”

“Yeah!” Vynn exclaimed. “I thought you were just in Arkaelia, like usual! You never said anything about going into the Gods-damned Demon Realm!”

“Er… how far back are we going?” Valex floundered. “Back to Nyze and Diane, or…”

Rixu cleared his throat loudly, drawing all eyes. “Okay, here’s the short version. About a month and a half ago, the Hero’s party including Nyze directly attacked the Demon Lord and were soundly defeated. This was meant by the Supreme Breeder to act as a precursor to invasion. Va-… that is to say, ‘Bob’ was assigned with me on a covert infiltration mission to determine the exact extent of damage the Realm suffered from the Hero’s attack.”

“A-And since it was a super duper secret mission, I couldn’t tell you. I’m sorry,” a glum-looking Valex interjected timidly.

Vynn shook her head in disbelief. “You should have said no, Bob! The Demon Realm is filled with all manner of horrible evil!”

Nyze was the next to clear her throat. “Actually… it turns out that’s a lie. The demons aren’t evil at all. Well, not literally, anyway…”

Vynn glowered and folded her arms. “I have a hard time believing that.”

“C’mon, mom,” Var interjected. “Let’s try to keep an open mind and-”

THUD! THUD! THUD!

The whole jumbled mess of a conversation was mercifully interrupted by a thunderous rapping at the door. Faster than a blink Nyze was at the threshold, weapon drawn, and her eyes flashed pink.

“OPEN UP!” came a muffled voice from outside. “BY THE AUTHORITY OF THE HIGH BREEDERS, OPEN THIS DOOR IMMEDIATELY!”

“Twenty-five men outside, fully armed,” Nyze reported. “Looks like a full squad of the city guard.”

“Look what you’ve done, Bob!” Vynn fretted. “You’ve brought a demonic curse upon our house! They must be here to cleanse us!”

The voice from the other side of the door rang out again. “NELVYNN! WE KNOW YOU’RE IN THERE! COME OUT NOW! SURRENDER PEACEFULLY OR YOUR FAMILY WILL SUFFER!”

“Oh,” Vynn said as all gazes lasered to her. “Wait… they’re after ME?!”

“I guess Qoithe isn’t as forgiving as you thought,” Valex speculated.

“I guess not…” Vynn muttered, her eyes growing wide with fear. “I never thought he had the courage to send guards, though. Oh gods…”

“DON’T MAKE US SET FIRE TO YOUR HOUSE, NELVYNN! COME OUT PEACEFULLY AND NOBODY HAS TO GET HURT!” the voice insisted.

“Damn,” Vynn mumbled, trembling. “If they capture me…”

“Not gonna happen,” Nyze said, donning a cocksure smile. With a flourish of her hand she dispelled her glamour, displaying the full glory of her lamia form and drawing sharp gasps from Vynn and Var. “I’d be perfectly happy to handle this problem for you… if you don’t mind accepting help from a demon, that is.”

“THIS IS YOUR FINAL WARNING, NELVYNN! WE’RE TAKING YOU IN, DEAD OR ALIVE!”

Vynn waved her hands emphatically. “Okay, point taken! Nyze, please deal with those guards!”

And so, she did.

******

 

“That was incredible!” Var gushed, his feet throwing up little splashes as he struggled to keep up with Nyze. “You were like a blade goddess! To kill twenty-five men in only ten seconds… are all demons that powerful?”

“Er…” Nyze muttered as she winced. She’d lead Valex’s family into the sewers under the city to hide, but the rancid stench was playing havoc with her serpentine sense of smell. Every time she spoke, exposing her tongue to the air, it made her retch. “We tend to pride ourselves on martial strength, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“Nyze is an exception,” Rixu corrected. “She was already formidable as a human, and as a lamia she’s become an unstoppable weapon. I know of only two others who can hold a candle to her.”

“Whoa!” Var gushed, his eyes sparkling. “Cooooool!”

Nyze had secretly been hoping the true reveal of her demonic nature would dull the boy’s fandom towards her, but no such luck. Rixu, meanwhile, was thinking of more practical things.

“We’ve lost them for the moment, but twenty-five corpses won’t go unnoticed for very long. The whole city guard is sure to be on our tail soon,” he cautioned. “We need to be gone before that happens.”

“Agreed,” Nyze replied. “Fighting hundreds of guards hand-to-hand isn’t feasible, and any spells large enough to kill them in one go would impact the civilian population above. Our best option is to keep moving. Any objections, Vynn?”

The frazzled Tinker shook her head. “I’ll stick with you for now,” she said begrudgingly, “but I don’t fully trust you yet. The holy writs say demons are full of trickery. For example, why would you lot turn my sweet Bob into a girl?”

“Entirely on accident,” Rixu explained as he began walking, the others falling behind him in a line. “They were just trying to resurrect her after a very bizarre demon blew her apart.”

“What?! He died!”

Valex picked up on the explanation. “Rixu and I miscalculated while inside the Demon Lord’s castle, and I wound up blown to bloody chunks. The demons were kind enough to resurrect me from death, but due to the magics involved I came back as a demon instead of a human.”

Vynn cast Valex a sidelong, questioning glance. “I have several questions, but the most important one is… does that mean you’ve got a snake tail too?”

“Er, not exactly,” Valex mumbled, dispelling her own glamour and allowing her foxy ears and tail to come into view. “Turns out there are lots of different kinds of demons, and I wound up as… foxkin.”

Vynn stopped dead in her tracks and gaped. “Huh.”

“I think it’s cute,” Var added, earning an acerbic glare from Vynn. “What? Look at those fluffy ears! They’re adorable!”

Vynn shook her head incredulously. “Okay, I’m following along with this insane story so far, but why did any of this turn you into a girl?”

Valex hmm-ed in thought. “I’m still fuzzy on the basics, but apparently demonic corruption takes your personal wishes into account when transforming you?”

“Basically you wind up with a body you like,” Nyze elaborated. “Hence why I turned into a cool-as-fuck snake lady.”

Vynn thought that over. “So… you turned into a girl because… deep down inside, you wanted to?”

Valex nodded.

Vynn snapped her fingers. “Oh, well. That’s the first thing you’ve said that makes sense. I was starting to wonder if you wanted to switch your gender.”

“Me too, to be honest,” Var added. “Although I hadn’t quite connected the dots.”

Now it was Valex’s turn to be nonplussed.

“Wait… what?!”

******

Metokai rose to her hooves so rapidly the entire table shook, sending her tea cup clattering to the ground. Anti-shattering enchantments kept it intact, but the tea spilled all over the ground. Yerpe grimaced at this sudden interruption to their pleasant afternoon.

“Why did you…”

“Nyze is in trouble,” Metokai said brusquely, her eyes crackling with black lightning. “I’ll be back.”

“How do you know that? Where are you g-” Yerpe’s protestations were interrupted by a shill tone, and then the sound of crackling lightning. Two thunderclaps later the teleportation spell was complete and Metokai had vanished entirely.

Yerpe sighed and retrieved the fallen cup, before reluctantly storing the whole tea set in hammerspace and moving to muster the Demon Lord’s personal guard.

******

Despite the repressive government of Saimonica, queer people were not so uncommon as you might think. They found their own safe havens within a hostile society, everywhere from the brothels of the slums to the heights of the Towers. Even a High Breeder might know what someone meant when they referred euphemistically to their ‘roommate,’ for example, although such things would never be spoken aloud. Given that, the concept of trans people wasn’t as foreign as most might initially assume.

“You knew I might be transgender?!” Valex yelped, astounded at her wife’s proclamation.

Vynn frowned. “What does ‘transgender’ mean?”

“It’s the demonic term for folks who want to swap their gender, or otherwise don’t fit into the whole male-female dichotomy,” Nyze explained. “We regard it as something normal, like changing one’s hair color.”

“Or species,” Var added drily.

“Truer than you know,” Nyze said, a smile creeping across her features. “The point is, we’re much less stuck-up about stuff like gender swaps, same-sex love and so on. I take it from your reaction you’ve encountered something similar in Saimonica, Vynn?”

“Not exactly, but I’ve heard rumors,” Vynn said. “One time a Mechanic from the Maroon Tower retired quite suddenly, and I spotted a girl who looked a lot like him working as a secretary a few days later. We were all gossiping about it… although that gossip wasn’t always kind, I’m sad to say. Sorry, Bob.”

Valex looked slightly pained but waved it off. “It’s fine. But why never mention it to me? Your only advice was to seek guidance from the Breeders!”

“Never put two and two together, I guess?” Vynn shrugged. “I lacked context. But now that I know, everything makes sense. You always did seem happiest while wearing your lady-glamours.”

“Most definitely,” Var added. “So if we think of this like a permanent glamour, does that mean you’ll be happy all the time now?”

Valex frowned, her stomach twisting. “I guess it depends on if you two are willing to… to… to accept me this way?”

“Sure,” Vynn said. “I got no problems with it. The sex might take some getting used to, though. I’ve never done it with another woman.”

“I can provide some pointers there,” Nyze added, smirking as she watched Valex’s face flush beet-red.

“HEY!” Valex protested.

Chuckling softly, Var gave his new mother a squeeze on the shoulder. “If you’re happy, then I’m happy.”

“Although I’m still upset about the demon thing,” Vynn added hastily. “Not to mention the fact that you apparently died and came back to life. That’s way harder to accept than a simple gender-swap.”

“F-Fair enough,” Valex conceded, her voice suddenly quiet. “In that case… can I ask a favor?”

Her wife and son nodded.

“Please start calling me Valex?”

Vynn assumed a somber expression. “Valex?”

Rays of pure happiness shot through the fox-girl’s nervous system. “Yes, dear?”

“They’ve found us. Duck.”

Valex didn’t hesitate to hit the smelly water, dragging her wife and son down with her, as blasts of fire whizzed over their heads. So happy was she in that moment she barely registered the blurred forms of Nyze and Rixu as they charged at their pursuers.

“Stay here, stay low,” she instructed her family, who responded in the affirmative. Then, humming happily, she whipped her knives out of hammerspace and danced towards the enemy with renewed vigor.

******

“Welp. We’re trapped,” Nyze announced as the group ran into a dead end. “They’ve cut us off everywhere.”

“Can’t we teleport out?” Valex asked, panting and listening to the sounds of hundreds of approaching footsteps.

“No such luck,” Rixu groused, kicking at the poopy water in frustration. “The whole Inner District is protected by anti-teleportation wards for this very reason.”

“Trying to keep demons out?” Vynn joked.

“And keep misbehaving Tinkers in,” Var retorted.

“Cute. Look… Nyze, Rixu. This is my mess. You don’t have to die here for my mistakes. If I draw them away, you might be able to…”

Nyze rejected that offer before Vynn could finish making it. “Absolutely not. As a self-respecting demon, I could never turn my back on someone in need. Besides, if I ran from a fight, Metokai would never let me live it down.”

“We promised Valex we’d ensure the safety of her family,” Rixu added. “If we reneged on that, the Demon Lord’s good name would be besmirched.”

Vynn blinked in disbelief. “I never expected demons to be so… honorable.”

“For the record, I’m not a demon,” Rixu grumbled. “Just a human who’s allied with them.”

Var’s eyes turned to the lamia. “Nyze, can’t you just do one of those big army-destroying attack spells? A five-line one? That would vaporize everyone chasing us.”

Nyze shook her head emphatically. “All the ones I know would destroy the Inner District above us as well. I couldn’t justify ending all those innocent lives simply to save my own hide.”

“Oh… good point,” Var said, thinking of his friends in the city above.

The pursuing guards rounded a corner and charged forwards, blades first. Nyze, Valex and Rixu all assumed battle stances, ready to intercept, while Vynn drew the small knife she kept stowed in hammerspace and gathered Var into her arms.

This was it. This was the end.

But not for them.

“FOOLISH MORTALS WHO DARE OPPOSE DEMONKIND, TODAY YOUR JUDGEMENT IS AT HAND.”

The guards stopped in their tracks, looking around in a panic for the source of that deafening, terrifying voice.

“YOUR SCALES ARE HELD BY SKELLISH, MISTRESS OF DECAY AND RUIN OF ALL CREATION.”

The ground beneath them began to glow with black mana, rising up in small discharges of lightning. Nyze’s eyes widened, then she broke into a smile. “We’re saved.”

“Saved?” Vynn asked disbelievingly. “By who?!”

“FOR YOUR SINS SHE HAS FOUND YOU WANTING, AND THUS GRANTS THE GIFT OF OBLIVION TO END YOUR PATHETIC LIVES.”

“Is that… Metokai’s voice?” Rixu asked, shocked.

Nyze nodded, then turned to Var. “Hey, kid. You wanted to see a five-line spell? Pay attention. You’re about to witness a real master at work.”

“I thought you said a five-line would kill everyone on the surface!” Var protested.

“The ones I know would. Metokai’s skillset is happily far broader.”

“LET THE CHILL OF THE FIRST UNIVERSE SEEP INTO YOUR VERY PORES, AND REMAKE YOUR ATOMS INTO DUST AND SILENCE.”

As the mana intensified and the room began to quake, the guards dissolved into a mass panic and began to run. Alas, it was too late.

“REJOICE AS YOUR BODY FADES AND YOUR SOUL IS PURIFIED IN THE CRUCIBLE OF ENTROPY. HYPER DESTRUCTION SPHERE!”

Dozens of guards all shrieked in unison as they began to rapidly age. In seconds their flesh rotted away to nothing, causing their armored skeletons to clatter to the ground. Their leather-plate was the next to go, crumbling away as decay overcame their preservative enchantments. Finally the bones of the guards began to break down, throwing up great puffs of calcified dust as they collapsed.

There was a purple shimmer in the air as Metokai decloaked herself and examined her handiwork with a satisfied nod. She then turned toward Nyze, who was slithering towards her with an expression of pure relief.

“Got in trouble again, aye serpent?” Metokai said smugly.

“Wasn’t my fault this time,” Nyze replied as she gave the baphomet a quick hug. “It turns out Valex’s wife is wanted by the High Breeders.”

“Seriously?”

“Seriously.”

“I’m sorry!” Vynn wailed. “Thank you for saving us, tiny goat demon! I didn’t mean for any of this to happen!”

“What’s done is done,” Nyze said, dismissing her concerns. “I trust you have an escape route, Metokai?”

The baphomet nodded. “I created a breach in the teleport jamming field about two thousand feet north-northwest of here, but it won’t last long. We need to move quickly.”

Nyze nodded. “Lead on. Let’s get the hell out of here before my olfactory glands are permanently damaged.”

Metokai took the lead, and everyone followed. Soon enough, they were free.