“What’s up? Is it about Raphael?” Carmen asked, sitting down across from Lilith.

“N-no, it’s…about us.” Lilith muttered, looking away.

Carmen tilted her head to the side. “Why bother with all this, then? Just send me your feelings and we’ll talk it out.”

“That’s the problem!” Lilith said, “I can’t just keep going on like this!”

Carmen walked over and put her hand on Lilith’s shoulder. “Get a grip! If I’m that troublesome, just put me away when I’m not tending the gardens. We’re not in a situation where I’m particularly useful, so if I’m causing you stress just don’t deal with me. It’s not exactly rocket science.”

“No! No, no, no!” Lilith shouted. “I can’t just treat you like you’re a thing! You’re a living, breathing person with emotions and everything. You think, therefore you are! I can’t just “put you away”, that’s awful! You’re not a tool for me to exploit!”

Carmen facepalmed. “Ah, so that’s it. Let me guess, you don’t want to share your emotions on this because you don’t want to influence “my” thoughts on it. Well, I don’t have any such hang-ups, so let me just put it like this. I am you.” She said, punctuating the words with a spike of emotion. “Like it or not, I will eventually return to you. As such, it’s ridiculous for you to not communicate emotionally, it’ll happen eventually, and we’re probably going to be on a similar wavelength anyway, so all you’re doing is hindering communication. Look, I’m thrilled to be “out” more, but all you’re doing by agonizing over this is –”

Their conversation cut off as both of them got a pop-up.

“Well…” Lilith said. “I guess that solves that?”

“I’d say so.” Carmen said. “Could you disconnect our senses, though? It’s disorienting.”

“Yeah, I was just about to do that. We should probably let mom know about this, though. I’m sure she’ll want to be informed.”

And, when she was told, Siph was delighted.

“Score!” She cheered. “Two daughters for the price of one!” She hugged both Lilith and Carmen. “This is great news, though! It makes you just that much safer! Create another avatar ASAP and just store it somewhere out of the way, it’s important!”

“Does that mean I can fight with you and Carmen?” Lilith asked

“Nope! That’s still way too risky! I don’t want those negative side effects from dying, so you’re going to sit tight if we get attacked. Now hop to that avatar creation!”

Roughly a week passed in a similar manner. Lilith’s daily routine became one of going out early to hunt with Siph (Assimilating most of the prey and leaving one or two for the kids to eat), and then training with her and Carmen for the rest of the day, before relaxing with the other adults in the evening. Siph drilled the two in fighting together, often forcing the two to share senses, forcing them to get used to it. From time to time, people would pop in to watch. Most of the time it was Raphael, but occasionally Thiala or Emily would stop by for a bit before leaving to go about their duties (food preparation and cleaning, but they did end up with a lot of free time now that they didn’t have to actively search for food).

However, one day Emily lingered longer than usual, eventually walking up to the three while they were taking a break between drills. “Forgive my intrusion,” she said, “but I’ve received a communication from councilwoman Kali. I have her on a magical line, would you like me to let you into it?”

“It’s fine.” Siph said, looking at the two. “This is important, we’ll break for lunch after you finish talking. I would like to be included in this conversation, though.”

Lilith nodded. “Alright, can you patch us all in?”

“Of course, mistress.”

A moment later, they heard Kali’s voice in their minds.

Finally! She said. A few days ago, we finally managed to repel the Society and fix the damage they’d done, but you can imagine our surprise when we found out you all had gone missing. We figured out a way to get in touch with Emily, so we just want to make sure everything’s OK while we work on getting you all back. How are things?

We’re all safe. A dragon took us in, so we’re pretty well cared for at the moment. Lilith said.

And I suppose you are one of the ones responsible for losing my daughter? Siph interjected. Not that I’m ungrateful for having the chance to meet her, but you’ll have to forgive me if I’m less than pleased with how easily you lost track of her, considering how important she is.

There was a long pause. Uh, what? Kali replied. Who are you? Lilith’s parents are currently sleeping in the other room, so you'll have to forgive me if I’m a little confused.

This is Siph. Carmen said. She’s the dragon we were talking about. It’s a long story, but she’s also our mom now. Anyway, what’s your progress on getting us back?

We’re pretty close. Now that we know your location, it’ll be a couple of days tops while we work on getting a two-way portal open.

Well, at least you all can do that right. Siph said. However, I will be coming with my daughter. This is non-negotiable. I understand that it would be unfair to keep her here with me, but I am not willing to part ways with her so soon. I assume there are no problems with this?

There was another long pause before Kali spoke again. The other Council members have given the go-ahead, provided you are willing to let me mentally scan you to prove there will be no threat to anyone.

That is acceptable. Siph said.

Wait, Lilith said, just a bit earlier, did you say my parents were in the other room?

Yes. Kali replied. We’ve taken them here to protect them from the Society. We’ve given them a brief rundown of the situation, but we’ve chosen to let you explain the specifics. They know about your transformation and the Society, but that’s about it. Anyway, now that we know you’re safe, we’re going to cut this communication and focus all our efforts on extracting you. See you soon.

With that, the mental communication dropped. “I’ll take the liberty of getting everyone ready while you and your mother train, mistress.” Emily said, quickly exiting the room.

Lilith looked nervously at the portal in front of her, fidgeting slightly as she waited. They had been taking the group in one at a time to ensure that there was nothing bad hitching a ride back with them. Lilith, Carmen, and Siph were the only ones left at this point in time, having opted to stay behind while everyone else was checked.

“Hey, mom, are you sure you’re alright with just leaving this place behind?” Lilith asked.

Siph shrugged. “I don’t really have anything worth keeping here. I was driven out of my old place during the war, and there isn’t exactly anywhere I could get things now, so this place is barely more than a cave. I’ll be moving to a more comfortable place now, so whatever. Not a big deal. Just relax, it’ll all be fine.”

“Alright, Lilith and Carmen we’re ready for you!”  Kali’s voice came from through the portal.

Lilith wavered for a second, but Carmen pushed her through the portal before jumping through herself. Awaiting them was Kali, Tunem, and Elenoa, as well as an assortment of magical tools.

“Man am I glad to see you two again.” Kali said, picking up one of the tools. “This’ll take a couple of minutes, but it shouldn’t be uncomfortable at all.” She quickly began to prod Lilith and Carmen with the tool, while Tunem fiddled with a few more at the side of the room. Only Elenoa did nothing, looking at Lilith with a displeased expression.

“I believe we need to talk about your punishment.” She said, folding her arms and tapping a foot against the floor. “What you’ve done to my grandchild aside, I don’t believe for a second that you didn’t do anything to those children.”

“Oh, lay off it, Elenoa!” Kali snapped, stopping her examination and turning to face her. “We’ve been over this! I gave Carmen express permission for Raphael, and I’ve been extremely thorough with the rest of the kids. They can leave Lilith’s influence any time, and they just want to stay. Simple as that.”

“You are well aware that Lilith potentially could have an ability that would be undetectable by you. There’s no reason for them to wish to remain connected to Lilith in such a fashion now that they’re here, so it’s odd that they do.”

Carmen raised an eyebrow. “Are you familiar with my abilities? They’ve got instant communication with any of their friends, and they’ve already begun to share mana between each other for convenience’s sake. It doesn’t affect them negatively at all, is convenient, and they’re used to it. I don’t think it’s that surprising. Look, if they want –”

“I’ll let everyone I can go for now.” Lilith said, cutting Carmen off. “I have no wish to dominate any of them, so it’s no big deal.”

Elenoa snorted. “That doesn’t mean anything. It won’t remove any of your mental tampering, so they’ll just ask to be let back in.”

“Then I’ll say no. What else do you want from me?”

Elenoa frowned. “That’s a start. For the rest …”

She trailed off as the portal behind them flared up, and Siph stepped through. “That’s enough.” She said, glaring at Elenoa. “You’ve no ground to stand on here. My daughter has done nothing to merit this treatment. You’re just trying to exert some measure of control over her to try and bring her down a peg.”

“That’s right!” Kali said. “In case you’ve forgotten, I’m the expert on mental manipulation, not you. It’s innocent until proven guilty, and we don’t even have probable cause, let alone evidence.”

Elenoa looked over to Tunem. “As the third Council member here, it falls to you to solve this dispute.”

Tunem tapped his chin thoughtfully. “Have Lilith remove all the children from their contract but let those who wish to return do so. I’m afraid Kali is right; we don’t have any reason to doubt her right now.”

Kali returned to checking Lilith with the instrument, and Lilith began to release each of the children from their contract. A minute or so later, Lilith nodded. “Alright, they’re all out.”

Elenoa sighed and nodded. Another minute later, Kali stepped back from Lilith and began to scan Carmen. After she finished, she straightened up. “Alright, you two are good to go. Your parents are waiting in the room behind us, go catch up with them while I get Siph cleared.”

Lilith proceeded towards the door, hesitating before she opened it. She quickly transformed into a human (having gained the ability to do so from making a contract with the children) and turned to Carmen. “Hey, I think you should wait here for a minute. I don’t want to overwhelm them.”

“Yeah, I think that’s fair.” Carmen said. “Just let me know when you’re ready for me to come in. Let me share your senses, though. I want to see this.”

Lilith nodded, opening the door and stepping inside. Beyond was a small room with a couple of couches, one of which her parents were sitting on.

They both were in their late 40s and were looking rather worried. Her dad, Mike, was a short man with dark blue eyes and a stern face. His hair had long since given up its brown color and was now a dull grey. Her mother, Jessica, was slightly taller than her husband, with short black hair and brown eyes. They both were wearing their everyday clothes and looked warily at Lilith when she came through the door.

“Hey, mom and dad.” Lilith said. “Long time no see.”

Her dad stood up shakily. “L-Lucas…?” He whispered.

“Yeah. It’s me.”

Both her mom and dad ran over, embracing Lilith tightly.

“Sorry,” She said quietly, “I know this is a lot for you to take in.” She gently pushed the two away and motioned for them to sit back down. “We…have to talk about me. I’ve changed. A lot.”

Her mom snorted. “You’re still our kid, girl or not.”

Lilith moved over to one of the couches but didn’t sit down quite yet. “I don’t know how much they told you, but…I’m not human anymore. I mean, technically I am, but not really.” To emphasize her point she returned to her base form, prompting a small gasp from her father. “This is what I look like if no magic is affecting me.” She said, sitting down.

“I…think I understand.” Her mom said. “They were talking about you being…everything at once? I guess we can just be glad it’s not any more than that.”

Lilith smiled glassily. “Yeah.”

Her mom sighed, eying Lilith. “Alright, spill it. Judy specifically told me not to freak out, and you were acting weird when you said that.”

Mike gave his wife an odd look. “Isn’t this plenty to freak out over? There can’t be more…right?”

Jessica gave a smug smirk. “Judy and I messed around with the occult when we were younger. We’ve seen some weird stuff. She knows this isn’t enough to scare me, given what we’ve learned recently.”

Lilith smiled weakly. “Well, that explains a lot about Judy. She never seemed especially fazed by all of this. But…are you sure you want to see? It’s not pretty.”

Her dad shrugged. “I always say it’s best to rip the bandage off quickly.”

Lilith looked to her mom, who nodded in agreement. “Alright. Just…prepare yourselves, alright?” After waiting a moment longer, she stood up. A mass of squirming tentacles erupted from her back, dripping in toxin. Another moment later, they were chitinous scythes, the next insectoid wings. As they continued to shift between unnatural appearances, eyes and mouths surfaced along Lilith’s body and appendages, shifting locations wildly. After a few seconds of this, Lilith retracted everything, leaving her in her base form. “There’s a possibility I’ve become an eldritch abomination. I can just sorta…do that.”

Her dad was looking pale, gripping onto the seat of the couch while his wife stroked his arm soothingly.

“I’m not going to lie and say that wasn’t frightening.” Jessica said, looking Lilith squarely in the eye. “But, horror from beyond or not, you’re still our kid. It’ll take some getting used to, but I’m sure we can figure things out.”

Lilith nodded hesitantly. “There’s…more.” She said. “Not anything like that, but…”

Her father gave a hollow laugh. “I thought the metaphorical bandage was off, but I guess not. Lay it on us.”

“It’s not nearly as scary, I swear!” Lilith said quickly. “It’ll just be surprising.”

The door opened and Carmen walked in. “Hey. Name’s Carmen. And the bundle of nervous energy over there forgot to tell you that she’s going by Lilith now. Anyway, it’s a long story, but for now just know that I’m basically Lilith’s second body piloted by an alternate personality. For all intents and purposes, we’re the same person. Tell things to one of us and both of us will know.” She winked conspiratorially. “Well, unless you want us to keep it a secret from the other. I’m sure we’d be willing to cooperate, provided it won’t hurt us. It’ll get out eventually, but I reckon I could keep it a secret for at least a few months.”

Her parents stared at her. She laughed and walked over to Lilith, sitting down next to her. “So, want us to keep ripping?”

“Go ahead.” Her mom said, smiling slightly while she looked at Carmen.

“So…” Lilith said slowly, “I got an ability that connects members of the family. It lets us share mana, communicate telepathically over distance, makes us stronger when we’re near each other, lets me make you immune to my mental attacks, that sort of thing.” Lilith said, hesitating slightly. “But there’s another feature. All people in the ability see all other people in the ability as different kinds of family, depending on how they’re related to me. And…” She trailed off.

“And…?” He mother said, motioning for her to continue.

“What she’s saying is that we accepted the dragon we met as a sort of mother, and the ability automatically strengthened our feelings and the dragon’s feelings, while changing Judy’s.” Carmen said. “We would like to let you in, but if we do, you’re going to be affected as well, and we don’t know what that will be like for you.”

Her parents had a brief conversation before her dad turned to the two of them. “Alright, we’ll do it.”

A moment later, Lilith’s parents were connected to Familial Bond. A lewd smile spread across her mother’s face as she turned to Mike. “Well, dear. Looks like we got a new wife to play with.”

Mike turned to his wife, also smiling. “I didn’t know you were into girls.”

Jessica licked her lips. “I wasn’t. Not until that ability opened my eyes, anyway.”

Well, I knew I’d be getting some relation to you two, Siph said over the mental link, but I don’t think I was expecting this. I’m going to enjoy this.

Lilith winced internally, her parent’s behavior embarrassing her to no end. “Alright, that’s everything really important, I’ll leave you two to get acquainted with Siph, I’m going to take a nap.” She said, standing up.

Carmen grinned mischievously, looking at Lilith. “I’m not tired yet, so I’ll wait here for mom to finish being examined. I’ll make sure to get you caught up after you wake up.”

Fighterman481

And we're back to the academy. First, it shouldn't be too surprising that the invasion was repelled successfully. The Society isn't nearly strong enough to assault a position like this the way they did, and even though it took time, there weren't too many casualties on either side. The Society tried to play defensive, which...did not turn out well once the dimension was stabilized and their major advantage was gone. So, once that happened they got out ASAP and from then it was just cleanup and finding out where the kids actually got sent.

So, let's talk Carmen. This was actually not her intention. She might be manipulative, but she wholeheartedly considered herself part of Lilith. If pressed, she would say there wouldn't be much difference between her and something like a limb. Sure, she may be autonomous, but she thought of herself as nothing more than a minor part of Lilith. As such, she always tried to work towards Lilith's benefit, even if it's done in a manner Lilith wouldn't approve of.

And, when pressed, Lilith found that she didn't feel the same way. It would be one thing if they were stuck sharing the same body as they were before, but being able to communicate like this had Lilith gradually thinking of Carmen as someone else.

At this point in time...well, views honestly haven't changed much. Carmen just considers herself to be a larger part of Lilith than before.

Oh, did I even explain one of the consequences of having Carmen constantly out like this? I've been writing with it in mind but I don't know if I've explicitly stated it. Basically, only the body with Carmen in it is benefiting from Jekyll and Hyde. Lilith's charm is as average as before, as is her resistance to charm effects.

Well, that's not the case for resistance anymore, not really. If anything I'd say it's stronger than before as you'd have two personalities working to suppress any given charm, even if most of the heavy lifting is going to be done by Carmen. So long as she considers the charm potentially dangerous, anyway. And if it was getting past the both of them combined then she wouldn't have been able to do anything about it before, either.

Their shared senses at all times is something interesting as well. Theoretically they could handle it given that their processing power has doubled, but I don't think it's reasonable to be able to easily deal with all that extra information at all times. So, it's something they can probably work towards, but it's too much trouble to do so. Now, it'd be another case entirely if there was another Parallel in their heads to help deal with that load...but that's not the case right now. If they wanted to do it without that, it'd probably mean a lot of time with one side of the connection in a dark, soundless room with not much else going on and gradually increasing the intensity as they get used to it.

One thing I'd like to point out is that Siph's right. There's no way the Council should have lost track of Lilith so easily, especially with Tunem on staff, even given the circumstances. So, chew on that for a bit. We'll get to it later.

And then we get to know a bit more about Elenoa.
...Well, at least we know where Raphael gets it from. At least Raphael's on the road to recovery. It's going to be a pretty difficult road for her, but I think she's young enough to make a change for the better. Elenoa's a bit of a lost cause, though. I get into it in the next chapter, but she's really set in her ways.

And as for the kids not leaving Lilith's "rule"...why would they? There are literally no upsides to doing so for them.
Of course, for many of them wishing to stay as is, that's just keeping the status quo. They don't have any reason to leave and it'd be annoying to do so, especially when all their friends have stayed, so they're just staying put. We'll talk more about it next chapter.

Alright, onto Lilith's parents. Did you expect the Council to just leave them where they were after the stunt the Society pulled? That just screams hostage situation in the making. So shortly after the assault was launched the parents were taken to safety ASAP.

And we also finally learn why Judy's been so...chill about everything. The occult is quite a bit more...real in this universe, but the general perception of it is the same as ours, due to a massive information suppression campaign from the Protectorate. So, none of this really came as a shock to her. A surprise to be sure, but a welcome one.

Lilith's "reveal" of Eldritch Abomination is certainly overly dramatic, but think of it as 2 parts just wanting to get the worst out of the way then and one part wanting to get a rise out of her parents.

Last thing, it's about Familial Bond because that skill is nuts.

So, Familial Bond hit a bit of a snag when trying to introduce Lilith's birth parents into the equation. It already had a mother set for Lilith, but Lilith was telling it that there was a mother right there. So then it decided there was no upper bound to the number of parents, and basically copy-pasted the relationship between the birth mother and father onto Siph. As this relationship included mutual attraction physically, it ended up tweaking Jessica's sexuality unintentionally. For what it's worth, the only woman she's actually attracted to is Siph, so she's not really bi so much as she just finds one particular woman attractive. In either form. It wasn't very specific about that attraction.

Oh, and Lilith's parent's didn't actually do much in front of Carmen. They were at least conscientious enough to hold off until they were in private to begin thoroughly "introduce themselves".