Fighterman481

Before we get into it, there's answers to that Q&A I mentioned in the author notes at the bottom, in a spoiler. Check it out!

Beginning of Arc 4: Greasing the Wheels

Lilith walked down the street, letting the nostalgia completely overtake her as she did. She was back in the neighborhood where she grew up, heading back to her parent’s house to pick up their stuff and take it to the dungeon. Carmen had volunteered for the job, but Kali had shut her down, claiming that Carmen also had to spend some time with her new girlfriend.

Mae had finally modified Carmen’s body, meaning Lilith was able to tell that the two were out…mini-golfing? She wasn’t always paying attention to what was happening with Carmen, so she was surprised by the unexpected development.

Carmen says they are in Oregon. Mae supplied. They’re under the effects of the same spell we’re using.

The spell in question was one that filtered the awareness of other people, essentially making the target the least interesting person around to anyone who didn’t know them well. It was a step up from pure invisibility in Lilith’s opinion, as with this people would still acknowledge their presence, they just…wouldn’t think anything of it. You could rob a bank using it, and the guard would hold the door for you on the way out. Provided they didn’t know you well, that is.

“Kali, it seems that Mae and Lilith have finally noticed what we’re doing.” Carmen said absentmindedly, hitting the ball, bouncing it off the side of the course, and completely missing the hole.

“Ah, thanks!” Kali said, turning to face Carmen. “You’re next, Mae!” She said, smirking. “I’m sure Carmen or Lilith would be willing to spend some time in the Dungeon Core so you can use a body.” She took her shot without looking and the ball went completely the wrong direction, causing Carmen to burst into laughter.

“I’d be more than happy to volunteer.” Carmen said between breaths. “You might not want to do mini-golf if you want to win, though. I doubt Mae would take it easy on you.”

Kali grinned. “I’m sure she wouldn’t. Now, the two of you have things to be doing, so get back to it, because the two of us also have things to be doing.” She said, punctuating the sentence by giving Carmen a kiss.

Carmen playfully pushed her away. “Stop it!” She teased, “You’re just going to distract them even more! And don’t think I didn’t see you move your ball!”

Lilith stopped paying attention at that point, focusing back on her task. She was only a few streets away from her house, having chosen to teleport just outside of her neighborhood rather than in front of her house, so as to enjoy the nostalgia a little more. She…doubted she would be coming back here any time soon, so she intended to make the most of it.

“Yo, Lucas!” A jovial voice called out. “Woah. You…are Lucas, right?”

“Yeah, it’s me.” Lilith said, turning around. “How’d you know?”

The owner of the voice, a tall man with short brown hair, rubbed the back of his neck. “Dunno. Just got a real “Lucas” vibe from you, you know? Anyway, what happened to you? It’s been, like, a day.” As he said that, a look of understanding dawned and he broke into a smirk. “No, wait, I got it. Some faerie thought it would be funny to make you look exactly like the chick from the broadcast because of your names. I understand, this sorta thing is happening all over if the internet’s to be believed. Hey, look on the bright side, though. She may look a little edgy, but at least she’s hot.”

Lilith made a mental note to go have a “talk” with the fae. She’d have to have Kali introduce her to…whoever passed for a ruler. “No, that’s…” She was about to deny his guess, but trailed off when she realized that, in a sense, it was accurate. “Look, the fae are partially responsible, but I am the “chick from the broadcast”. And, I…guess it’s flattering that you think I’m hot, but also, ew. I don’t swing that way.” The man, Jameson, was an old friend from all the way back in elementary school. It was just…weird to hear him say that.

Jameson laughed, walking up and clapping Lilith on the shoulder. “Man, they really did a number on you. Can’t even properly talk about what happened, right? And no worries, man, I wasn’t saying you’re attractive, just that the girl was. I’ve got no interest in you, would be weird to go out with you like that, given you’re, you know, a dude at heart, if not in body.”

Lilith sighed. “No, it’s nothing like that, Jameson. The fae haven’t done anything like that to me, I can talk just fine.” She looked him dead in the eyes and, in her most serious voice, said, “My name is Lucas Clements and a faerie turned me into a copy of the girl from the broadcast.”

Jameson frowned. “Alright, why not just say that, then?”

“Because I actually am the broadcast girl, dude. It’s the truth.”

Jameson shook his head nervously. “Man, you don’t expect me to buy that, right? It’s only been, like, a semester since we’ve last seen each other, so I can hardly believe you became some interdimensional peacekeeper. The name thing’s weird, but there have got to be hundreds of other Lucas Clements out there.”

Lilith looked around, confirming that the street was empty save for the two of them. Satisfied, she activated Aura of the Arbiter, watching as Jameson froze in place, completely unable to move. After about five seconds, she released it. “There, happy?” She asked. “I can prove it to you in other ways, if you want.”

Jameson let out the breath he had been holding. He was silent for a long moment, looking Lilith over. “…Really?” He asked in a small voice.

“Really.” Lilith replied, nodding. “Anyway, what are you here for? I thought you wouldn’t be back until Thanksgiving break.”

“Nononono,” He stuttered, “You’re not just going to gloss that over. You need to explain, mister.”

Lilith rolled her eyes. “Alright, I’ll explain. But, in return you’ll help me get stuff from my parent’s house. I’ve got a lot to move.”

“Fine, fine. Let me go let my parents know. I’ll meet you at your house.” He shrugged once he noticed the question look Lilith gave him. “We’re trying to keep each other in the know when it comes to where we are. Everyone’s a bit on edge since the Shift.”

“The Shift?” Lilith said, slightly amused. “That’s what people are calling it?”

“We have to call it something. It’s kind of a significant event.” He replied, walking off. “See you in a few minutes.”

“Got it, I’ll leave the door unlocked, make sure you lock it when you come in.”

Lilith unlocked the house and made her way into the living room. She cleared large area in the middle of the room and laid out an array that would transfer items back to Kali’s house. She would have preferred to send the stuff straight to her dungeon, but apparently teleporting into a dungeon just wasn’t possible outside of Higher Being shenanigans, but that would require Worship that neither Lilith nor Kali were willing to spare at the moment. Once the items were in the dungeon, moving them would be trivial, so teleporting them one room over was good enough.

After this she would be emptying out Judy’s house, as well as the one that she used to rent from Judy. Most of what she would be keeping was stuff that couldn’t be easily reproduced by the dungeon (such as electronics with data on them), or items with sentimental value. The rest would be absorbed into the dungeon for a slight increase in DP and variety of items it could produce.

“Yo, I’m here!” Jameson said, walking in and locking the door behind him. “How are we going to do this? I don’t see any trucks or anything.”

He walked into the living room and then stopped, noticing the large array on the floor. “Or…that, I guess? How’s it work?”

“We put stuff on it, when it’s full I’ll activate it and the stuff will be sent away. Simple as that.”

“Handy. Any chance you could teach me?” Jameson asked.

Lilith shrugged. “I mean, there’s no reason you couldn’t learn it, but you’d kind of be skipping a lot of steps and making it harder than it needs to be. Gotta learn to crawl before you can sprint. Not to mention the fact that I doubt you have enough mana to really use this thing. You’d probably need to store some somewhere and draw on reserves.”

“Yikes. How much does it take?”

“About a thousand per go.” Lilith said casually, picking up the couch with one hand, moving it onto the circle, and activating it with no apparent effort. She put on a look of faux innocence as she looked at his shocked face. “What? It was going to be annoying, so I got it out of the way.”

“Show-off.” He mumbled. “Isn’t that kind of wasteful?”

Lilith grinned. “That much will be back in barely over a minu- scratch that, it’ll be thirty seconds.” She said, updating her estimate as Mae transferred over 500 mana so they both were regenerating.

“Oh, lay off it. Do I even want to know what your mana pool is?” He half-joked, moving an end-table over to the circle.

Lilith smiled wider “If we’re talking easy-access mana, that’s around sixty-eight thousand. If I pull into some reserves that I like to keep untouched I can probably crack eighty thousand.”

“That’s nuts. I specced into magic and I’ve got 152. What kind of steroids are you taking, and where can I get them?”

Lilith activated the circle immediately once the end table was in, thoroughly enjoying showing off to her friend. He was always more athletic than her, so it was nice to have the tables turned in magic.

And, come to think of it, she was also probably far stronger than him too, now. She wouldn’t tease him for that, though. No reason to lord her stats over him more than she already was. “Well, for one, if you include my Racial Classes, my total level is almost eleven-hundred. So, you know, that’s slightly higher than what I’m imagining you’ve got.”

“I’m level four.” He chuckled. “You’ve got me there.”

“Hey, if your magic growth held up and you hit my level, your total would be bigger than mine.”

“Uh, earth to Lucas, I think your math is off. I’ve been growing like, 15 to 20 every level, and that wouldn’t add up to anywhere near sixty eight thousand, let alone eighty.” He said, rolling his eyes. “You might want to double check your work.”

“Alright then.” Lilith said, sending the other end table through the array. “You have 152 mana. Assuming you started at 100 and got three level ups, including taking your Class, that’s 52 mana from levels, or an average of 17.3 repeating per level.” She continued, parroting the numbers Mae was feeding her, “Multiply by eleven hundred and you get 19,066.6 repeating, add 100 and that’s 19,166.6 repeating. Which, yes, does not reach sixty eight thousand, but I’ve also got four separate mana pools, with another as a backup if I really need it. If you count against just one of those pools you win, they’re only around 17,500.”

“Wow, only around 17,500.” Jameson said sarcastically. “ I feel so much better. That’s only a bit over one hundred times my pool, so I’m sure I’ll make it past that in a couple of weeks. How’d you get that many levels, anyway?”

So, Lilith began to tell Jameson her story while they worked. She wasn’t rushing the cleaning, so by the time she was done, they still had a few rooms left.

Jameson rubbed his forehead. “Wow. I can’t believe it. You got a girlfriend.”

“That’s what you feel the need to point out?” Lilith retorted, playfully throwing a cushion at him. “Rude.”

He watched the cushion soar through the air and made no attempt to dodge or catch it, letting it hit his chest and fall down. “It’s the only thing I think I can point out right now. I’ve been preparing to tease you about this for ten years, man. I’m in shock over everything else. I mean, that’s not even getting into who your girlfriend is.”

Mae nudged Lilith into paying attention to Carmen as the latter leaned over to Kali. “They’re talking about you and our relationship.” She whispered. “Jameson’s having a hard time processing.”

Kali grinned impishly. “Oooh. Alright, mind if I step away for like, five minutes? I’ve got something I’ve always wanted to try.” She said, clearly delighted.

Carmen grinned back. “By all means. I’m looking forward to whatever it is.”

A beam of light shone around Lilith, a figure descending majestically from it…before landing so she was sitting on Lilith’s shoulders. “I am the great goddess Kali Clements!” She said imperiously. “Bow down before me, puny mortal, and I will spare your life.”

The image was ruined, as much as it could be ruined further, by Kali kicking her feet back and forth, bouncing them gently off of Lilith

“Stop that.” Lilith said, swatting at Kali’s foot. “You’re not fooling anyone. Get down from there, you’re hunched like, all the way over.” It was true. While on top of Lilith, she was too tall to fit in the room, so she was leaning over to keep herself from hitting her head. Lilith wasn’t done, though. “And what do you mean Kali Clements? We’ve been dating for two days.”

 “I just wanted to say it.” Kali giggled, jumping backwards off of Lilith and then flapping her wings, sending her right back towards her. She latched onto Lilith in a piggyback pose and gave her a quick peck on the cheek. “There. Now I’m not hunched over.”

Lilith rolled her eyes. “Whatever. Anyway, Jameson, this is my girlfriend Kali. You can ignore the whole bowing down thing, she’s just messing with you.”

“Hi there!” Kali waved energetically. “Nice to meet you! Any friend of Lilith’s is a friend of mine!”

Jameson stood there mutely, observing the situation with an unmoving face. He slowly pinched himself and then, when that apparently didn’t work, croaked out a greeting. “Hi.” He said, voice betraying no emotion.

“I think we broke him.” Kali giggled, playfully biting Lilith’s ear. “Should I get the duct tape?”

“We?” Lilith said incredulously. “I’m pretty sure 90% of everything leading up to this situation is your fault.”

Kali giggled again. “Guilty as charged. Take me away, officer.”

Jameson, finally seeming to come to terms with the situation, spoke again. “Um, I’m flattered that you came to say hi…” He floundered for a moment, obviously trying to figure out how to address Kali, “Your holiness, but…aren’t you kind of busy right now? What with changing the world and everything?”

“That’s right.” Kali said, fidgeting as she tried to straighten her posture without making her hold on Lilith any looser. Not finding a way, she gave up and just tightened her grip instead. “I was in the middle of some very important work.”

“She was playing mini-golf with Carmen.” Lilith said flatly.

“Right! Like I said, very important work. It’s research!”

“For what.” Lilith replied, unimpressed.

“The Mini Golfer Class, of course.”

“That’s not a thing…right?”

“It will be!” Kali said proudly, thumping Lilith’s chest in place of her own. “The system will probably add one once people have played enough mini-golf.”

“That’s nice, dear.” Lilith said in mock condescension. “Now go play.”

Kali squeezed Lilith’s waist. “Or what, mommy?” She purred. “Will you discipline me?”

Lilith blushed fiercely, embarrassment not at all helped by Carmen cracking up in the background. “Alright, that’s enough. I thought you said earlier that we should focus on our work so you could focus on your date”

Kali laughed. “Fair enough. I was just stopping by for a minute.” She waved at Jameson again. “By the way, just call me Kali. “Your holiness” really doesn’t suit me. I’m not really a god. Later!” She said, and vanished, reappearing next to Carmen without any of the fanfare that had accompanied her when she had gone to Lilith.

Jameson breathed a sigh of relief. “Wow.” He said. “That was a trip. She always like that?”

“Lately, pretty much.” Lilith said, picking up a box. “It’s not that bad, though.”

Jameson grinned, elbowing Lilith in the ribs. “Seems like you like it, eh?”

Lilith blushed even harder. “Maybe a little. It’s kind of cute.”

“You’ll have to go on a double date with me sometime. I’d love to see the look on Anna’s face when she finds out what you’ve been up to.”

I’m down for it! Kali said in Lilith’s mind. Ask him if Friday at seven PM works! I mean, I’m free any time, really, but I want to set up a concrete time.

“Um…Kali wants to know if Friday at seven PM works for you. She says she’s free at any time, she just wants to nail down a time.”

For a brief moment, Jameson had his “idea” face, but he quickly masked it. “Yeah, that’s fine.”

“Alright, spit it out, what’d you think of?”

“It’s nothing, not a big deal.” He replied sheepishly.

“Nuh-uh, that face never means nothing. Say it.”

“I was…thinking it would be funny if we pushed it back a day and told Anna it was because we didn’t want to interrupt her night out with her family. She usually goes out with her sisters then, but none of them really care if someone has to schedule a date then. But then I figured I shouldn’t push back the schedule of someone like Kali for a dumb joke.” He said, moving for the stairs with box in hand.

That sounds hilarious. Tell him it’s a deal and that we’ll show up at his house on at seven o’clock on Saturday.

“She says that sounds hilarious and that we’ll be there at seven on Saturday.” Lilith told him, following down the stairs.

“Oh.” He said, blinking. “Sounds like a plan, I guess.”

He dropped his box when he reached the bottom of the stairs. “Lilith?” He whispered shakily. “Who’s that?”

In front of them in the living room was an extraordinarily beautiful woman. Her reddish-brown hair fell down to her waist, coiled in an intricate fashion. She was tall, too – Lilith would have put her at nine or ten feet, but her height was hard to judge, as she was sitting on a small…creature.

It was a deformed and disheveled wreck, blood and sweat were pouring off of its body, mingling with the tears it was shedding. Cuts were constantly closing and reforming on it, cysts appearing, bursting, and then fading away, splashing the floor with pus. The assorted bodily fluids were gathered up every few moments, compressed into a putrid ball that forced its way into the thing’s mouth, prompting a small shudder each time.

The woman gave the two a radiant smile, stood up and bowed. “Hello. My name is Titania.”

Fighterman481

Sorry about the late upload, my Numerical Analysis teacher heaped a ton of homework on me and I just barely finished >_>

Well. I'm going to be real. Next time things go down, and we get a more...in depth description of the thing. It's...um, well, after writing that I realized that it's about as grotesque as I'm willing to write, to the point where I considered dumbing it down a little. Eventually, I decided against it. It's bad, but I think it's important to establish Titania's character. Still, since that's all it's important for, I'm going to be letting people know what to ctrl+f and search for if they want to skip it. 

That all aside, I'm super happy with how this chapter turned out. Specifically basically anything to do with Kali. For whatever reason, I just really like the interactions she has here.

As a side note, how much do people want to see the double date? I'm going to write it, the question is if you all would prefer to have it sooner (read: this arc) rather than later (read: between this arc and next arc). It won't add...too much to the plot, but there'll be a lot of fluff and I think it sounds like a good time.

Honestly, events were not supposed to turn out this way when I introduced Jameson. I was like "hey wouldn't it be cool if Lilith met one of her old friends because, you know, she has those", and...this just sort of happened. I swear the bit he mentions about fae transforming people wasn't supposed to be foreshadowing Titania coming over or anything, since that was going to happen anyway, it just provided a more reasonable way for him to be doubting Lilith somewhat. Also I thought that sounded about right for the fae being let loose on an unsuspecting populace, so it worked.

And, yes, Titania is the faerie queen, Darragh mentions her waaaaay back. I suppose it could be a different Titania, but I don't think anyone would really buy that given the circumstances, and you're not supposed to, so whatever.

Anyway, unless I'm completely spacing after hours of homework, I think that's everything. Q&A stuff is in the spoiler below (and while the situation is non-canon, the information contained within is. So...don't worry about it, I guess)!

Spoiler

Kali, Lilith, and Siph were sitting around a table in Kali's house.

"What?" Lilith asked, bewildered. "Why are we here?"

"Well, I had been given a question, and I thought you all should be here while I answer!" Kali said, smiling happily.

"Alright, fine." Siph said. "But why the two of us?"

"It concerns Lilith," Kali replied, "and I know you are quite interested in this yourself."

"What?" Lilith said, even more confused now. "From where did you get this question?!"

Kali waved a hand. "It's not important. Anyway, here it is!" She pulled out a piece of paper, growing visibly excited. she opened it up and read from it. "If it so happens that you and lilith have some 'fun times' in the future and somehow procreated a child, what would that child be like. Like, what are their race, powers, etc"

Kali squealed with delight. "Ah, I'm so excited someone asked!"

"Again, who?" Lilith retorted.

Ignoring her, Kali continued. "I've been thinking about this for a long time. So, normally when Perfect Chimeras have kids, they're supposed to pass down the Racial Class they originally would have passed down, which would be human for Lilith. But, Lilith's in a bit of a weird situation, having been transformed in the middle of her transformation. I'm guessing if she was to have a kid with another human they'd have the Human Racial Class, but also might have wings and a tail courtesy of Lilith? But, having one with a succubus like me, it'd probably just be a kid that looks just like a succubus but is really half-human half-succubus. The same would probably apply with angels, but I don't want to think about that so I won't."

"Anyway, our daughter is going to be super cute!"

Siph nodded sagely. "Of course she is. There's no reality in which that wouldn't be the case."

"You sound...awfully sure it'll be a daughter." Lilith stated hesitantly.

"Do you see any y chromosomes around here?" Kali asked. "Sure we could do some extra workarounds to give it a chance to be a son, but that's a lot of extra work for no real benefit. A daughter is every bit as good as a son!"

"Anyway, she won't be a Perfect Chimera or a Higher Being at first, since neither of those are hereditary."

"At first?" Lilith asked.

"At first! I'm going to give her a couple of days to get stable after being born, and then, boom, we'll make her Perfect Chimera number 6! I want the best for our little girl!"

Siph smiled. "Good. I'm glad you agree with me. You better believe she'll be getting super spoiled by her grandparents!"

Kali grinned. "As for Higher Being, I...may or may not have created a special Class for our kids. I don't want to outlive them, so I just made sure I wouldn't be able to!"

Lilith smiled more weakly than the other two. "You...put a lot of thought into this."

Kali pounced at her over the table, giving her a big hug. "What do you think I was doing while waiting to officially meet you? Anyway, that's it for now, thanks for asking a question! Now, what say we go back to my room for a date? I'm all excited now!" She said, giving Lilith a quick kiss.

Lilith blushed. "Uh, sure. I'll see you later, mom." She said, already being pulled away by Kali.

"Don't come back until I've got a grandkid!" Siph teased, smiling to let Lilith know she wasn't serious.

"Mom!"

And then the door closed, the two ready to begin their date.

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