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.

 

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Chapter 68: Sparks Fly

 

I don’t know how long I sat there. Looking back, it was probably only a moment or two, but it felt eternal. Perfect. I could practically feel my soul realign with my new reality. I’d held many titles in my past. Brother and son, boyfriend and husband, programmer and Delver and Guild Leader. None of them were ever going to mean as much as the one I’d just added to the list: dad.

 

My brain floated in thoughts like this, until I noticed Lily stirring restlessly in my arms. Her eyes opened suddenly, purposefully. I’d seen babies in the past, and I was struck by the difference. Lily resembled a Human in many ways as long as you ignored the horns and wings, but make no mistake. Her nature as a Greater Succubus made a massive difference. The movement was purposeful and directed, her eyes focused, her coo recognizably one of curiosity even if I hadn’t been able to feel it in her soul directly. And the other thing? She wasn’t looking at me, nor her still-recovering mother. No, her eyes were focused a little bit to the left, where some of the others were rapidly recording notes and observations. Ghata and Whitney had a chart of some kind between them, Song and Emily a different one, and in the other chair sat Sarah, eyes closed and looking as exhausted as if she had been the one who just gave birth and not Lucy.

 

None of them quite felt right. They were mostly moving, and my daughter’s eyes were fixed on one spot. It was in Sarah’s general direction, but it wasn’t her. What could possibly…

 

Wait. Most of what was over in that direction wasn’t particularly interesting, but I focused on other senses. One thing sprang into my view. The Auras in the area flickered and flowed with a serene calm that came with a job well done, but one of them in the area wasn’t like the others. One was rapidly becoming more turbulent, in a way that had indicated trouble in the past more than once. It wasn’t around a person. It was the one emanating from the Hunger Battery.

 

There was no way for this to end well, was there? I needed an expert opinion fast. When I spoke, it was quietly but with urgency. “Sarah? What is going on with the Battery?”

 

I’ve never once seen her eyes snap open that quickly. She looked over at the Battery, sitting on the side table, indicator lights blinking. Her eyebrows suddenly furrowed in concentration, then widened again in alarm. When she spoke, it had just as much urgency as my own words… but none of the quiet. “Lucy! Shield dome the Battery NOW!”

 

Several things happened at once. I jumped towards Lucy and turned my back towards the Battery, hoping to cover both her and the baby in my arms. Lucy, unable to move from the bed quickly, immediately called her power and dropped a dome of force around the unstable Battery. Everyone else? They dove out of the room as fast as they could.

 

The Battery shook, it sparked, the rippling aurora around it spilled into the visible spectrum… and then it stopped. The only sound in the room was the giggle of Lily in my arms, enjoying the sudden movement. Lucy leaned a bit to the right to look past me at it. I looked over my shoulder at it as well, wondering what in the actual heck had just happened. Sarah’s inventions had a habit of surprising me in several ways, after all, and…

 

Suddenly, I found out what it was doing. The ripple of Aura returned, as strong and dense as any I’ve ever seen, but it was tightly contained within the Shield. With a flash of bright light, the Battery vanished. It didn’t leave an empty space behind, though. Crackling with electric sparks, what was perhaps the last item on the list of things I expected appeared. It was blue, for one. A light, crystalline blue color, shot through with veins of gold. Its head was cute, its dog-sized quadrupedal body furred and with many short spines along its back. Its golden eyes were large, its face unreasonably cute, and all four of its ears pointed in my direction. Its head tilted, and it let out a slightly squeaky and quizzical-sounding “yarrrrrb?”

 

A yarrb. A yarrb, like Nibbles (if ever so slightly smaller). What in the actual heck was a yarrb doing in the place of the incredibly expensive piece of equipment that was supposed to let us Feed our newborn daughter? I turned to face it, it looked back at me. What else was there to do? “Love, I’m not exactly sure what just happened, but it seems that you have a living being trapped in there.”

 

“I…” Lucy looked puzzled in the extreme. I couldn’t blame her, I was feeling it right with her. “Should I… release the Shield?”

 

I considered it briefly. “I think you have to. On my mark.” I now addressed the yarrb under the dome with one hand raised placatingly, as it was still crackling with power. “Easy there, sparky. My wife is going to let go of the dome that’s holding you, we want you to be able to breathe. Do you remember us? Do you know us? We are friends.”

 

The blue and gold yarrb cocked its head to the side, looking at me inquisitively as I addressed her then craning its neck to the side to look around me. It was looking at something past me. Or someone. From behind me, I could feel Lily’s shifting emotions as she went from curiosity to joy, and her giggle came along with the sound of movement. Suddenly, there was a blur of motion. It jumped forward, obviously trying to get past me. With a shout of warning, I dove in its path. Its claws were short but sharp, and when it collided with me I could feel the electric tingle of potential power before it bounced backwards off of me and fled the room. Sparky, it seemed, was an accurate name.

 

“Lucy! Keep Lily here and safe, I’m going after it. Nibbles, help me!” I sprinted out the door, took one glance at my own yarrb, and followed the hallway where he was pointing. Other pounding footsteps sounded out behind me as at least three of my teammates figured out what was going on and quickly followed. No time to look behind me as I barely caught a glance of the blue blur streaking off around the corner ahead.

 

Another blue blur was beside me, Abbey, running as hard as she could to keep up. I had no idea the real capabilities of Marids (if that’s what she was, but I could think of little else that fit), but they had to be significant. “What the heck is that?” she asked between panting breaths as we kept running.

 

“Long story, tell you later. Where is it going?” I leaned into the turn as it hooked left.

 

“Stairs, it’s probably trying to get outside. We can’t let it, communities nearby!”

 

No telling what would happen if Sparky got somewhere with people who couldn’t defend themselves. That simplified the options a bit, as soon as I got to the stairs I didn’t bother running down them. As the blue yarrb spiraled towards the ground, I jumped down the center and landed seconds later on the ground three stories down. Fastest way to get there for the people who can do it, but as I stood and turned toward the bottom of the stairs I was just in time to see what looked like a streak of blue lightning leap and wall run directly around the path I’d put myself on. A reflexive Lightning Net was too little, too late. All it left was a spider web-shaped scorch mark on the wall.

 

Sparky’s glow was thankfully enough to follow, and what little I managed to delay her… not sure why, but the new yarrb definitely felt like a “her”... let Nibbles catch up by the time I got to the hall and hooked left.

 

“What’s that?” I heard May call out.

 

“No time!” As we passed her, I saw May carrying little Alex back the way we came. Good, it meant that if anything untoward happened they’d be out of the way. Plus Lucy might appreciate the New Mom talk. Either way, seconds later, Sparky found that she had chosen wrong.

 

We got to the front door in very short order. A door that was locked, with no windows in easy reach. Just one very scared-looking crystal-blue yarrb, looking for options she didn’t have. Nibbles took a few careful steps forward, sniffing as he padded towards her. His body language was as non-threatening as I’ve ever seen from him. Inquisitive. Almost protective. He let out a soft “yarrrrb,” and Sparky locked eyes with him. For just a moment, there was understanding. It was like she knew he’d been the one to watch her as a battery.

 

… Seriously, even for me that sentence was weird.

 

The moment ended abruptly as a stampede of people caught up with us, the sudden noise shocking Sparky out of her tentative calm. With no appreciable time taken to accelerate, she was again running at full speed and leaving a trail of blue glow behind her. Before I could even react, she ran straight between my legs, around the others, and back towards the kitchen. I’m not slow, and turned to pursue as quickly as I could, but still felt like I was falling critically behind. “Everyone! Stay calm and don’t stampede! Friendly!” With only those shouted words, I took off running. Nibbles was well ahead of me, enough so that he was following her glow. He was the first to see that the back door was cracked open, and cried out to me as he saw Sparky dart outside. He followed, and the spin I had to perform to shove the door open with a wing and get outside without slowing down much would have looked way cooler if I wasn’t in a hurry. I could see in a blur as I did so that I’d been wrong about which way May had gone. Not upstairs, just outside to enjoy the sea air, and apparently she’d left the door cracked open. Understandable. Just really freaking awkward for me personally.

 

Hitting the sand at a full run works way differently than at a calm walk. At this kind of speed, the sand felt like it was soaking in all of the power I was trying to use to move towards my fleeing target, dragging me back. With another prayer of thanks for my changing life circumstances, I snapped my wings open and took the path of least resistance: the air. Much better, now the sand that had been hindering me so badly was affecting Sparky instead. Four solid flaps and I was directly over her. Three more and I dropped to the ground directly in her path. Sparky stopped as fast as she could, scrambling in the sand to turn around only to find Nibbles. The brown yarrb had seen what I was doing and slowed down much more gradually, he was ready for her by the time she was facing him. Both froze again, staring each other in the eyes. They both sniffed again. Then the yapping started.

 

Both of them started chattering rapidly at each other, a combination of squeaks, “yarrb” sounds, head and ear flicks, and for all I knew their quill bristles. It felt remarkably like being the only person in the room who didn’t speak the language when everyone else was talking a mile a minute. I could tell it was meaningful, serious, and complex. I couldn’t tell anything else. A moment later and without warning, both suddenly stopped. Nibbles gave one last nod, slowly. Sparky looked over her shoulder at me, she also nodded slowly and deliberately then walked over to stand beside Nibbles. Whatever had passed between them, it seemed that I’d acquired another ally at least. Possibly another member of the family.

 

Two in a day wasn’t something I was used to, but I could work with it.

 

Sparky spoke a quiet “yarrb” at me. Nibbles nudged her, and when he got her attention he shook his head. The meaning was clear. They could speak, but not to me. The most I’d be able to understand is the intent, the broad strokes. Some body language. They could understand me just fine, but the reverse just wasn’t true.

 

A sound shattered the quiet air, one of the most distinct and alarming sounds on Earth. A baby crying, loud and desperate. My eyes snapped towards the source, up through the open window on the third floor of the mansion. Lily! Without thought I took a few running steps to get a start, Nibbles and Sparky jumping into my arms as my wings snapped outward. I repeated the maneuver from the day before, but in much more haste, and we were into the Guild suite moments later.

 

The cries were much sharper and louder this close, still seeming to come from the medical room. All three of us scrambled forward and out of the suite door, but almost ran face first into May. She was looking down the hallway, very carefully not approaching and looking concerned. “May! What’s going on?”

 

“Jeremiah! You didn’t tell me the baby was a Greater Succubus like me.”

 

“I just found out a few minutes ago myself, been busy.” I wasn’t stepping forward until I got what info I could from her.

 

“Something made her angry enough to throw a tantrum, and apparently she’s managed to inherit a good Charisma score from you two. Her Feeding aura is massive for a baby and she’s activated it, I can’t approach without either getting drained or risking killing her.”

 

Oh. That would do it. Whatever set her off, she was still crying, but if the Feeding Aura was active then the others in the room were presently disabled. I had an edge, though. “Nibbles, stay put. Sparky, can you still Feed her?”

 

The crystal-blue yarrb nodded once. It would have to be good enough.

 

The two of us walked quickly forward to the medical room, and even before I reached it I could see the telltale shimmers in the air. Hunger energies were moving. Swirling towards a central point, like some kind of Thaumic whirlpool. It left me untouched. My nature would not let any Demonic Feeding work on me. Sparky seemed outwardly fine as well, though I could see a tendril of that power being drawn forward, towards the source of the continuing cries. When I opened the door, the scene should not have surprised me. All of the women there were unconscious, twitching on either the ground or the bed. As the energies swirled more thickly towards a central point. Lily, still on Lucy’s chest despite everything, reaching for a nipple and unable to get to it to feed herself. Lucy was holding her closely and safely even in her unconsciousness.

 

The child either couldn’t quite tell her hunger from her Hunger yet, gotten out of reach of her food source, or both. Either way, the solution was straightforward even if Sparky and I were the only ones remotely able to do it. “Sparky, Feed her.” As I strode forward to gently pick up my daughter again, to move her a few precious inches, Sparky lived up to her name. Her bristling short quills glowed white as she shot a beam of Hunger energies forward, one which curved slightly to connect to Lilly. Combined with me placing her gently in reach of her mother’s nipple, letting her latch on and drink deeply? The tantrum stopped. The others regained consciousness almost instantly and started struggling to their feet.

 

“Urgh…” Whitney was unsurprisingly the first one to get there, her wings unfolding a bit for balance. I could see her Hunger levels noticeably lower, but at least they were leveling off with the network and stabilizing. “What happened? All I remember is Lily starting to cry.”

 

“It looks like she either got hungry or Hungry, and could fix neither.” I shook my head, watching as the others stood. Sarah was the only one who stayed down, but a very quick check showed me that she was still perfectly fine. Just asleep. Made sense, our resident Sloth Demoness had been pushing herself hard recently and her nature was catching up with her. I nodded over at Sparky. “Looks like our Battery still works, but has a lot more of a mind of her own now. Everyone, meet Sparky. Sparky, meet the family. Well, most of it. I think you’re most interested in Lily.”

 

Sparky leaped up to the railing at the side of the hospital bed, steady despite her precarious perch, and leaned in closely to sniff at my daughter. Lucy shifted herself slightly more upwards, paying close attention to the new yarrb. Lily, sensing that someone’s attention was on her, turned away from her snack to look back. One tiny, chubby hand reached out, and her palm touched Sparky’s nose. That boop was enough, apparently, Lily giggled and snuggled back into my wife’s comfortable cleavage.

 

I liked that sound a lot more than her crying, it should be noted.

 

Ghata, standing tall in her tiger-like Rakshasi form, shook her head. “This kind of thing happen often around you? No wonder you needed a new place to live.”

 

Emily, standing next to her in Kitsune shape, shook her own head right back. “No, even for us this was a weird one.”

 

I coughed gently. “Okay, hate to be a party pooper, but it looks like we need to find some new Hunger sources, and fast. Lily just took a massive bite out of the reserves I can see, and there are all of four people in this building we can Feed off of.”

 

Lucy sighed. “We can do that tomorrow, love. This time? Let it rest. We have enough for that.” The tension began to leave my shoulders a bit. She had a point. She always did.

 

Whitney picked up Sarah from the ground and carried her out of the room, presumably to deposit her in her own bed. Most of the others followed, leaving Lucy and me with our newborn. The only exceptions were Emily, who was still puttering around the room and fussing over mother and daughter, and Sparky, who was still watching Lily intently. I sat back down next to the bed, reaching one hand to touch my wife. Just a touch, some light pressure. Just because I was here, so she could feel me there.

 

The door swung gently open again and May walked in. Nibbles followed her, and Alex was still in her arms. “Everyone else left and they seemed okay, so I guess it’s safe.”

 

I nodded. “Yeah. File this one under learning how to be a family with a particularly exceptional child.”

 

“That’s one way to put it. Obviously, I was never a baby Greater Succubus and Alex here doesn’t have the same quirks, but maybe I can give some relevant advice while you’re resting up.”

 

“Sounds good.” Lucy shifted a bit to get herself and Lily comfortable. “I think there’s a chair over on this side, too, if you want to sit.”

 

“I’m fine standing. Wouldn’t want to get between Emily and the monitors.” Even Lily giggled at that, though it may have been something unrelated. Babies are complicated like that. “Alex? What are you doing?”

 

The infant in her arms heard Lily’s giggle and was pushing away from his mother, trying to get towards her. He was vocalizing “ah” sounds, reaching towards where Lucy and Lily were on the bed. Lily heard his efforts and turned her own head away from the boob in front of her (which, coming from experience, takes willpower and motivation). She was trying to vocalize right back at him.

 

Lucy’s eyebrows rose. “I think the babies have opinions on who they want to be with. May, I guess the only question is if you want to come pick up Lily or if you want to put Alex down on me right with her. No sense making them fight for it.”

 

Emily coughed gently from the other side of the room. Everyone looked toward her. “Give me thirty seconds and there’s a double-wide bassinet I can wheel in. Hopefully, Lily lets me attach monitors to her. Maybe if Alex gets the same ones…” She turned and scampered out of the room, returning incredibly quickly with a wheeled baby bed that I KNOW I had not seen before. The children graciously consented to being gently lifted from their mothers by a fluffy fox nurse and set side by side on their backs. Both were chattering away happily with each other as she got her equipment set up and reading things properly. Emily sighed again. “Nothing about this is anywhere near normal, even for the last few years of postnatal practice. The data is going to be fascinating, confusing, and probably cause fistfights among medical professionals who are trying to figure out what it all means.”

 

“Thankfully, it looks like those two have figured things out. At least for them.” I stood, taking a couple of steps forward to get a better look at them as they chattered at each other, along with the beeping monitors. I didn’t have nearly the knowledge base that Emily did, but from what I could tell that fact was shielding me from comprehending the precise depths of how confusing this was going to be. It was like opening a quantum physics textbook that was written entirely in Cuneiform script.

 

Emily, her back turned to me and staring intently at one of the screens, suddenly let out a quiet “eep.” Her back stiffened, and she looked down at something. What it was, I couldn’t tell.

 

“Emily? What’s wrong?” I wasn’t sure my heart could take many more shocks today.

 

“Be right back!” I’ve seen that woman in combat. Reacting to heal us in crisis, diving into melee against monsters out of literal nightmares, fighting a literal ninja ambush. Never in all of our time together had I ever seen her move as fast as that moment. She did get back only a moment later, though again I wasn’t quite ready for the state she was in. Topless, for one, not that I minded that part. She was dragging behind her another contraption on wheels, one that looked like the mutated offspring of a particularly ambitious vacuum cleaner.

 

With clearly practiced moves, she plugged it in and hit some buttons, attached a couple of hoses and what looked like suction cups, then held them to her… oh. Milk pump. Why would she… oh. Power network. Same reason her boobs were presently a couple of sizes larger than normal. I looked over at my wife, and saw there that she already had beads of white starting to show at her own nipples. “I’m assuming that you are about to ask me to go tell Song and Ghata that we need six more pumps, and the other ladies to get ready to put them on?”

 

“Read my mind, but we need seven. This one is technically May’s.” Emily hissed a bit as small streams of off-white milk started collecting in the bags. “I was not ready for that, and I should have been.”

 

“Going to cheat for a moment, then.” I reached into my Extradimensional Space and pulled out my Guild Leader’s Saber. It let me send messages to the others in a crisis. Now probably qualified. Seconds later, I got messages back. All five of the women of my Guild that I didn’t have eyes on were rushing to get to where dripping milk wouldn’t ruin things if it happened. Amber was praying incredibly hard that neither child cried where she could hear it, and given the size of her boobs at the moment I couldn’t blame her at all. Whitney let me know that Song and Ghata were running for the portal closest to the Hospital. I breathed a bit more easily. We were past the dangerous part and into the one that was merely awkward. Which reminded me. “May, I have a Scan ability and I’m going to use it on Lily to check for anything we need to know and haven’t caught yet. Do you want to pick up Alex so I don’t accidentally get anything from him?”

 

“It’s alright. I don’t expect anyone his age to be hiding any big secrets, and if he is I want to know about them.”

 

I shrugged. Good enough for government work. Without any further conversation I turned to the bassinet and activated Scan. Sure enough, Alex’s information was the first to pop up. He was older, more established in his identity and self-awareness. “May, did you know your son is a Werebear?”

 

“We figured it out a few weeks ago. Full moon.” Her tone was dripping with sarcasm. You know? Fair.

 

“Well, he’s also a Paladin. Initialization Ability is Smite. The generic one. If he ever starts play fighting you’re going to want to be careful. Just because it’s the weakest Smite doesn’t mean it’s weak, and he can use it on anything. I don’t see any status conditions on him.”

 

“Thank you, Jeremiah. That’s good to know.”

 

I focused on my daughter then, her own Status screen coming across my vision. “Looks like we were right, love. She is in fact a Greater Succubus. Hunger meter is full, so is her Health though her Stamina is low. Nap time soon. Her Ten is a bit fuzzy, but the actual Racial modifiers look like a highroll. If she trains when she grows up, that’s going to be big.”

 

“You would be talking about your newborn daughter’s stats like that,” Emily interjected. “What’s her Class? From what I’ve seen she’s a lot more aware and focused than most children who still have their vernix on them.”

 

I chuckled. That particular bit was hazy, but as I focused it snapped into place. “She’s a Bubble. I’ve heard of it, there are a couple of prominent people with the Class, but I can’t say I know the abilities offhand.”

 

Lily, my daughter, the precious light of my life who I was willing to protect against all the forces on Earth who might harm her, grunted. There was a disgusting squelching sound. Lucy smiled. “Glad we got that diaper on her while you were chasing Sparky around. Seems like some other things are working normally.”

 

Lily frowned. If the inside of that diaper resembled the sound in any way, I could see why. Just as it looked like she was going to start crying, though, she stopped. She got focused. All of a sudden, a glob of what looked like tar emerged from her diaper, forming into a sphere in the air and encased by a sheen. Almost like… a soap bubble. I was VERY glad I’d identified her class a moment before. With another grunt from Lily, it sailed quickly away from her. Unfortunately, this meant it flew at me, striking my chest and popping there. I was suddenly splattered in disgusting-smelling goo. I’d read about meconium before. What I’d heard had made me not ever want to experience it in this particular way. Needless to say, my focus on the Scan spell was broken just as I saw her MP dip a bit.

 

There was silence in the room, broken only by the proud giggle of my daughter. Lucy coughed gently. “I guess this would be a bad time to mention that between your immunities and the rest of us pumping plenty of supply, you’re on the schedule tonight if she wakes up?”