This is still a story of the Becoming Monsters universe by Ai Loves, setting used with permission. All canonical and mechanical errors are my own. The yarrb is the exceedingly cute creation of FelisRandomis, used with permission.

 

Even more characters from my other series will be here. They will also be around as long as the plot demands.

 

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Chapter 65: Tidbits of the Future

 

It only took about thirty minutes to unpack and get things mostly put away. Having eight motivated people and a helpful yarrb will do that. Most of the team really just wanted to settle for a bit, relax while they could, so in the end only about half the team went downstairs to greet our hosts. Lucy, Sarah, Gloria, and I took our time. For once, we weren’t in a rush. We could just walk to the kitchen. There we found Justin talking to four others.

 

One was a Human woman, looking vaguely Indian, but I could see the Aura shimmers around her. She was a Demonic of some kind, and well-fed at that. The second was a petite Korean-looking woman. The third was also a Demon, but she wasn’t making any effort to hide it. A Succubus with deeply tanned skin was openly breastfeeding a baby at the table, and nobody was paying it any mind. Considering that she had, like my wife, reacted to her pregnancy in certain unmistakable ways, none of us were particularly squeamish about it. The fourth at the table was a man, looking a lot like a high school nerd who had grown up and filled out a bit. If that was his kid, I could understand why.

 

They turned, greeting us warmly. I noticed something else, then. The Succubus mother had a very strong Aura. One that felt familiar, somehow, but I’d chalked that up to her Race. Thing is, with some focus, I could tell the difference. She was a Greater Succubus. Not someone to be trifled with. The simmering smell of her baseline lust was just under the surface, though apparently she was well-practiced in keeping a handle on it. Or she had recently been well-satisfied. Either way, I could tell my own abilities were playing havoc with both her and the Indian woman.

 

Speaking of, Justin walked over and shook my hand. “Thanks again for this, Mr. Kithkiin.”

 

“Please, I’m renting a chunk of your mansion. You can call me Jeremiah or Jay. Let the others be formal. And I assure you, I should be the one thanking you for the arrangement.”

 

“We can debate who owes who more later, then.” He smiled, and I echoed it. That was indeed a good way to spend an evening. “For now, let me go ahead and be a good host. Jeremiah, here are our other guests. Todd,” the man waved, “May,” the Succubus nodded, “Ghata,” the Indian Demoness smiled, “and Song” the petite Korean woman didn’t need to respond, by process of elimination.

 

“Nice to meet you all. This is my wife, Lucy, along with our Enchanter, Sarah, and our Hunter, Gloria. The others stayed upstairs to rest for a bit and put away what we brought. There’s going to be at least one more trip, either today or tomorrow. It doesn’t matter how hard we cheat, an apartment where eight people live is not a job for one bus ride.”

 

Lucy had, predictably, been drawn like a magnet to the baby, and by extension their mother. May stood up to be able to speak to Lucy face to face (as opposed to staring into her chest, which I admittedly would not have blamed her for). Her baby chose that moment to decide they were done. “Oh, Alex is full. Lucy? I’m pretty sure you have the closest body type to me in the house, mind holding him so I can get a shirt on?”

 

Don’t threaten her with a good time. Lucy reached out, her scarlet skin standing out against May’s tan and little Alex’s paleness. The tiny child easily accepted the new pair of arms, blissfully resting against my wife’s chest. Can confirm, very comfortable place to be, but I could practically see Lucy melt into a pile of feelings. May stood up to go get her shirt, Lucy sat down in the recently-vacated seat. Little Alex seemed to feel something. He started to reach downwards. Towards Lucy’s growing belly. She felt it, and instinctively held the child lower. He spread his arms wide and hugged her there. Inches from where our daughter was growing.

 

Lucy knew it, too. We were witnessing something real, something important. Something that didn’t last, since May chose that moment to come back out of the room they were in… wait, that one had a placard, too. That was the nursery. Alex saw his mother and decided that the moment was over, reaching out to her again. May leaned down and scooped up her son, none the wiser, and resumed idly chatting with the others. Lucy looked at me, a stunned expression on her face. I nodded. We both saw it, even if nobody else in the room had. We both knew it for what it was.

 

Justin was speaking, and I’d missed at least some of it. “... Yeah, this place is great, but it can be a bit of a pain at times. It’s kind of tied into our mana pools. Abbey and I, I mean. Sometimes it decides to be chill and let me finish a project. Then there’s today. It’s been draining us dry, and I REALLY don’t want to be drinking more mana potions to be able to go work. Kind of defeats the point if I’m spending more than I’m making, you know?”

 

“That doesn’t even count the taste,” I quipped.

 

“Exactly!” Justin was rather emphatic about it. Either his had been worse-tasting somehow, or he had other trauma.

 

Sarah got a thoughtful look on her face. “Do you have ten Gold coins? If not, I’m going to ask permission to pay half our first month’s rent a bit creatively.”

 

Justin shook his head. “We’re cash-poor right now. It’s taking everything we can to keep up.”

 

“Sarah, I know what you’re thinking. Go ahead and bring down my spare, the one that’s half-charged. That will help.” She turned to run upstairs, I turned to Justin. “I mentioned Sarah’s an Enchanter. One of her specialties is making batteries. In this case, she’s talking about a Mana Battery. Rechargeable. That’s about $600 of materials there, I’ll not count labor, so if you’ll take it in kind then we can help you out with the mana problems. We like to charge our batteries before bed to make room in the pool for overnight gains, so we can start making sure that’s filled up first for you to use.”

 

“DUDE!” Both Justin and Todd were openly staring at me, but it was Justin who got loud. Alex objected, crying, and he looked a bit sheepish as an irritated May carried him off to the nursery and Sarah brought the device back. It was still odd to think that this thing that looked like a roll of quarters could do that. “What’s next, you’re going to tell me you have a gourmet chef on the team and offer to cook, too?”

 

Sarah, Lucy, and I all immediately looked at Gloria, who had the grace to blush a bit. “I wouldn’t call myself gourmet, exactly…”

 

Justin scooted over to the fridge and reached over to open it, but paused. He shook his head. “I was about to ask you what you could do with some of the oddball groceries I’ve gotten by way of tips, but given that my mana pool just dipped under five percent I think I might find more here.” He opened it, and nodded.

 

I went to look in, and realized the oddity immediately. Specifically, there were containers of leftovers labeled in Gloria’s handwriting already, as well as other supplies I recognized from our kitchen. Somehow, the house had linked together the upstairs fridge with the one down here. I had a suspicion that if I opened the pantries and freezer, I’d find more of the same. “So the magic here. The doors, the gates, the creation. It’s fueled by your personal mana pools?”

 

He nodded, closing the door and walking over to the battery. “Yeah. The house itself holds a lot that it likes to use. Todd did some math on it, but I’m scared of what might happen if we run out. So… consider our rent to be in both Mana and cash. How do I use this thing?” He indicated the battery on the table.

 

While Gloria dug through the pantries, fridge, and freezer for ideas to make dinner for fourteen instead of eight, Sarah showed Justin how to pull mana from the battery. And how to put some in, just in case it ever came to that. May and Lucy were chatting about the finer points of motherhood and keeping up with their Hungers. Todd, Ghata, and Song were splitting their attention as their interest led them. For myself, I couldn’t help but look out the back door.

 

“Feel free to go out on the beach, Jeremiah,” came Justin’s voice. I guess I was being obvious.

 

When I stepped out back, what struck me most was the calm and peace of it all. It was in the air just as much as the salt water. With a flap or two of my wings, I went out onto the small dock, sitting on the edge. The shoreline hadn’t been kind to me recently. North of here, the shores meant fights. Kidnappings, ambushes, threats from all directions. Here? I could just breathe it in. I could take in peace, the sound of the waves and the gulls, and let go of the turmoil and chaos.

 

Still, alert was alert. I pulled out my phone, checked to make sure I had signal, and checked where exactly we were. Still on Earth, which was good. The GPS satellites still worked, and placed us miles to the west of where we’d stepped through that doorway. Right where it should, to be on this kind of beach. Still within Washington, which meant the portals were only slightly mindblowing rather than utterly mindblowing. I’d have to ask Stephen how that worked sometime.

 

I glanced upwards at the house, taking in its oddly clashing styles that somehow worked together. It was like a child’s drawing of a mansion, a three-ish story cube but somehow featuring Corinthian columns. Up on the third floor, I could see windows. Looking closer, they didn’t seem to have full decks outside of them, but there were platforms. I took the invitation. A few beats of my wings, and I was there. The platform wasn’t exactly large, but it would fit two people easily enough. Maybe three if they were careful. The window wasn’t locked, and was large enough to let me in easily. Hm. Might need to be more careful about that.

 

Still, it turned out to lead directly to our new living room upstairs, which meant it had an ocean view. Seriously, what even WAS this place? Paige and Whitney were there, playing with Nibbles. All three looked sharply at the window as I entered, but calmed down shortly. “Hey, there. Beach view out here, by the way, how are you doing? How are Amber and Emily?”

 

Whitney snickered a bit. “Napping. Emily is… well, let’s call it comfortable right now.” Both Paige and Nibbles chuckled a bit right with her. With a lead-in like that, I couldn’t help but walk over to the room and peek in. Amber was asleep face-down on the bed, but poking out from between her mountainous breasts was a tiny fennec fox. Emily’s eyes were closed, she was breathing easily, and her fox face had an absolutely enormous smile on it.

 

Couldn’t even blame her. I was chuckling as I came back out. “Alright, you weren’t kidding. I’m going to walk around a bit to see what’s up on this floor. We’re probably going to have to hop back to Camp and take the bus to the apartment soon to get the rest of our stuff.”

 

Paige closed her eyes as she pet Nibbles between the ears. “Yeah, no sense waiting for tomorrow. No offense, Jay, but too much happens around you. If we leave something half-done, we might not get another opportunity.”

 

“I’d be offended if you weren’t a hundred percent correct. I’ll be back in a couple of minutes, it shouldn’t take long.” Leaving the room, I was faced with a choice. Either check the room labeled Guild Hall, or else roam around the hallways of the third floor. I decided on the latter, and found that the entire place was laid out in a fairly predictable grid pattern. One that was either extremely efficient, or else actually occupied more room than it looked from the outside. I walked past two more doors, one labeled “Clinic” and another without a sign.

 

In the back right corner, though, I found yet another door. A peculiar one. It was on the outer wall, which made no sense. That would make it open to a long fall to the ground, which didn’t seem quite in line with the rest of the house. Knowing what we had come through one floor below me, though, I looked for a placard. Found one, too, reading “City Center.” It couldn’t be this easy. The doorknob tingled a bit, just like when we came to the house. I opened it, and saw it opened up to a rooftop. A place much more dreary than the Seaside Manor, the clouds hanging low. Three steps forward and I let it close behind me. No sense leaving it open, even if it didn't use up more power doing so it let the city air in, and that wasn’t a good thing compared to the sea.

 

This felt familiar. The door emerged from a small set of utility structures atop the roof, though the roof itself was broad. The corner looked good for perching on, to look out over what turned out to be city streets. Looking one way, I could see a familiar footbridge, and beyond that the hospital. Wait. No, it couldn’t be this easy. It was easier. This was the same roof where I’d talked to Whitney the other day. The hospital apartments, where we had been living that morning. Just to check, I walked around to the roof access door and tried my key. It worked. Well, no sense wasting a trip, the elevator still worked to bring me down to our floor and I got to the apartment. Despite how much there was left to gather, most of it belonged to the apartment. I made my meandering way around, picking up what I could. Books, videos, repair kits, things that had spilled in our haste. Not too much later, as I was getting ready to leave, I heard something from the door. Like the unrolling of some tape.

 

When I opened the door, a man in dull overalls was there, putting tape on a piece of paper. “Can I help you?”

 

He looked at me, his eyes as dull as his overalls. “Uh, I’m here posting the notice that you have to leave. It says you have two days.”

 

“Go ahead and put it up.” I was… slightly amused at this. Definitely not the reaction I would have had four hours ago. He did, and I looked at it. “Unconditional termination of residence effective…” I looked at my watch, “Monday morning. Nice of them to give us the weekend, but unnecessary. Go ahead and tell whoever sent you that we already vacated, they can inspect tomorrow morning.”

 

His eyes widened. Whatever response he was expecting, from shocked disbelief to violent anger, that wasn’t it. “Yes, sir. I… I’d best get going.” he turned and practically ran down the hall towards the elevators. Something about a hulking beast of a Guild Leader reacting in a way you don’t expect to bad news does that.

 

I had a lot to do, but my Extradimensional Space was full and I had bags in both hands. Kind of like the strangest grocery run ever. Once again up to the roof, back to the door that was thankfully still there, back to the hallways of the Seaside manor, and back to the new apartment where Whitney and Paige still waited. “If you two have a moment, I think we can get this in one more trip. Grab some luggage.” I dropped off the bags and emptied out my Pocket.

 

Whitney stood up rapidly. “How did you get there and back already?”

 

“Looks like the portal to the Guild Hall isn’t the only one in this house. One goes to the roof of our old apartment building. Come on, if we get it done quickly enough you’ll get to see Lucy and Gloria’s faces when we get to tell them we finished.”  They practically raced me to the door after that. It took two more trips, but considering our commute time was about ninety seconds that practically meant nothing. Less than half an hour later, our old home had nothing left in it that wasn’t there when we got it. Other than some dirt in the carpets, but given that we weren’t getting the deposit back anyway they could take care of that.

 

… you know, losing my deposit was becoming something of a bad habit of mine. Best to stop that one before I made it a hat trick.

 

Once what was left was down to the nitty gritty details, I begged off and walked across the hall. If I was going to be running the Guild out of here, I was going to need to see what the Hall was like. The place, as it turned out, was arranged a lot like a large conference room. Half of it was given to a table with a large whiteboard against the wall. The other side had a dueling circle drawn into it. I wasn’t sure I wanted to test that circle’s limits, but it would let us get some practice in. I stepped up to the whiteboard and started writing down notes. It was the 19th of September, a fine Friday. Work schedules were no longer a set thing, but there were two lingering elephants in the room. Next Friday, the 26th, would kick off Dungeon Expo West. I had to be there, and I had to be ready. Something was nagging me about it. Too much didn’t quite add up about what had been happening, and if someone was going to try to do something spectacular that would be the time to do it.

 

The other elephant was by far the more pressing one, though. Lucy would likely insist on continuing her treatments, which meant that the birth of our daughter was coming fast. We were probably ready, but without knowing what she was (beyond that she was Demonic like her parents) there were a thousand hazards possible. The Hunger Battery meant that we could cover for the more complicated kinds of Feeding, but what happened if she was a Greater Demon with a fiery aura? A Jorogumo with an enormous Hunger appetite? Heck, how would Lucy breastfeed if she was a Babau with a mouth full of fangs like Gloria? We would have to take things as they came and react with the same swift decisiveness that we had become known for in protecting the streets of our home.

 

Alright, Jay, time to plan. How hard could we push ourselves to get ahead this week? I divvied up the days. The rest of today was going to be us getting set up, so that left six. Six days to build up materials and Coins. Six days to grind every point of experience we could. Six days to spread the word of the Union, and to arrange for a time to announce it during the Expo. For that matter, six days that I had to provide more regular content for the Twins to post that didn’t involve commentary on either of the incidents that were presently under investigation.

 

The Dungeon seemed a logical place to start. The only Key we had was one that we would need to do wild things to earn the right to use, but we could certainly dive in and try to get Shards of the copper and silver Keys to get there. If I remembered correctly, Sarah had a formula for a compass that would help with the process. We would just need to get a shard or two for her to use to make one. Bit of a catch-22, but we could make it work. Amber could try the shops at Camp once her boobs were under control, too. Sentences that made slightly more sense in context, right there.

 

So… as many of us go Delving more or less non-stop to hunt for what we need. Sarah goes ham making things, accompanying us when she needs a break from that. My own abilities could be rapidly advanced through sex, so I guess I’d be carrying a mat or something in my Pocket for whenever we paused. We go all-in, use every ability we can for as long as we can, then claw our way out to recover and go again as soon as we know we’ll be able to finish another lap. Then come back home, get reset, and go again.

 

Somehow we’d need to Feed somewhere in there. Whitney could do it from fighting the Dungeon monsters, but the others only got slivers from that. How would we… freelancers. I could keep it in my pants for a lap so that we could take freelancers with us. Any strong emotions they felt towards us would let the ladies, especially Paige, Feed from them. Any payment they gave us, such as trading loot at the end, would let us Feed. Especially Amber. Each sliver might not mean much, but there were a hundred opportunities to get drops of power together. As hosts of the runs, one of us would get first pick of loot, so we’d be able to guarantee we nabbed Key Shards. That would also give the Union a boost, especially if we prioritized those signed on. Add some recordings of basic fights and tactics, and that would keep the crowdfunding going while we were otherwise unemployed.

 

Alright. That, in turn, meant I needed to call the Twins and Stephan today, probably also Nathan. Stephan might or might not go for launching deeper missions, but then again he’d be bringing himself with us this time instead of waving at a Guild team. Next couple of days would be the weekend, too, so that in turn would help us get started. I felt good. This was workable. It was direct. I’d have a lot of calls to make, but I didn’t anticipate any hesitation or resistance. We could get together, describe the plan, hash out details, get set, grab dinner, and get running.

 

Heck, I’d even get to show off our shiny new meeting room while I did it.

 

Back in our new apartment, the others had already gotten back upstairs. Lucy and Sarah had the Hunger Battery out and placed on the living room table, along with a tray holding the other attachments for it. Sarah had her Enchanting table set up in the living room again despite there being a room available for it. Everyone but Amber was in and out, playing with Nibbles, putting things away, or just getting used to the space. Lucy saw me walk in. “Oh, good, you’re back! Can you help Amber get out here? This place is great and we worked out rent with Justin and Abbey, so if I know you it’s time to plan.”

 

“You read my mind. I don’t much feel like waiting for breakfast.” Getting Amber back into a somewhat more mobile shape was the work of only a couple of moments, then we were all gathered together again. For the first time in our new apartment, we were together. It was a good feeling.

 

I took a breath to start things off, but Lucy beat me to the punch. “Now that we’re stable again, I want to pick up the treatment pace. As fast as possible.”