(A/N) Kind of a long one today, and I am so happy to get this out because I love this chapter. So much plot, so much world building, so many questions answered. If I'm being honest with you, I know you guys are going to love it for that reason, but I love this chapter even more just because I am finally able to resolve the issues I've written about and can finally give you answers. Putting them down on paper was just so therapeutic.
I hope all of you Wholesome Hosts had a wonderful holiday, and I hope this chapter comes as an enjoyed belated Christmas gift for you all!
Chapter 16
My mom had been in the military she was younger. She was one of the first female members in a special forces unit called the "Slayer Force" that was only ever called on for elite jobs that she said she could never elaborate on. She said it was illegal, that her briefings were classified and that telling even her family was tantamount to treason. I never pushed her for answers. Sure, I had little respect for the law, but I loved my mother and would always respect her need for silence, whether it was legal or if telling me about her experience would harm her mental health in some way. She was a veteran, and most veterans suffer in some way after their tours of duty.
She and my dad had actually met on one of her missions. They explained to me that her unit was tasked with protecting his research team while they went on an excursion in the Amazon Rainforest, but they didn't elaborate on anything else after that. Yet again, I didn't push. If neither of them could legally tell me the details of what went on during their trip, then that was all their was to it.
Given recent events, however, her privacy was going to take a backseat. I had nearly been killed, my family and loves of my life had been put in danger, and the way Gloria put it, I was slowly turning into an Incubus, a supposed legendary monster. I suspected my mom knew something the way she interacted with Smith. That day in the hospital when the coordinator had come to visit me and how familiarly she and my mom had treated each other, as well as her sheer insistence on avoiding talking about their relationship set me on edge. How did they know each other? Not only that, but when my mom met Rachnera, Suu, and Papi and was able to fight them off with only minimal damage to her body- as opposed to my dad who nearly died of blood loss -wasn't something a normal soldier was capable of.
Arachne were some of the most dangerous monster species due to their speed, strength, and ability to spin webs to trap their foes and manipulate the battlefield. There wasn't a Navy Seal, a Green Beret, nor an Army Ranger that could reasonably take them on and win, and yet, she was able to defeat Rachnera using nothing more than a baking whisk and come out completely unscathed. She had to have been specifically trained to fight liminals to be able to accomplish something like that.
Maybe I was overthinking it, but the way I saw it was pretty simple: Agent Smith and my mom knew each other, Agent Smith worked in the Intercultural Exchange Program, and my mom knew how to fight monsters. Hey, it made sense to me.
The next morning after I got home from the gym, my mom took Papi, Suu and my dad to the grocery store to fill up our starving pantry that I had neglected to take care of recently, so I took advantage of their absence and snuck into their study. My mom had trained me from birth in martial arts and survivalism, and now I was going to make her regret that.
The door had three locks on it, and not just your basic chain or deadbolt but complex puzzle locks, and it took me awhile, but I managed to unlock them then stepped inside. Next was their safe. Finding a few items to make shift a tool, I listened closely to the tumblers and found the right combination, and yet even that wasn't enough. There were several lock boxes inside there. Aside from that, there were traps attached to each of them, some that would release gas, others poison darts, and some that would most likely kill me if I triggered them, but even this didn't pose any threat to me. I picked every single one.
And yet, I didn't find anything I was looking for. Most of those lock boxes had nothing more than pictures inside them, maybe a few letters, some dossiers, and I spent maybe an hour digging my way through them and reading every single one, but they didn't tell me anything I wanted to know. Those pictures were of dead soldiers, mug shots, or something similar. The dossiers only told me about the geopolitical situations in various different countries and environments. Some of them were placed in the desert, others in historical locations in Japan, some in the urban cities of the USA… I couldn't find a single common trend between them. If I could just find a single thing that linked these locations and mug shots together, these scenes of finished battles and crumbled ruins, then maybe I could find out more about the Incubus.
That was the inciting action for me. Just because I respected my mom's need for privacy didn't mean that I never wanted to know more about her, and I always suspected that given her status as an elite soldier that she had some ties in the government, and when the existence of monster girls was made known to the public several years ago, I often toyed with the thought that my mom knew about them. The fact that she and Agent Smith had history only compounded that thought, but still wasn't enough to set me on a mission to discover her secrets. Then, Gloria told me about the Incubus, about how they only reveal themselves on the rare occasions throughout history when humans and monsters regularly interact with one another, and how I was slowly turning into one. Maybe, if someone else had become an Incubus, maybe a celebrity or some random stranger, I wouldn't have cared. Heck, my transformation alone didn't bother me that much. Power was cool. The fact that I could probably tear down a building if I hit it hard enough, or at least that was my guess, was something that drove me wild.
No, it was the fact that the Incubus was a pawn of the Demon Queen. Gloria made that part very clear. The fact that her "boss" and several of her boss's lackies had come after me, even if that attack happened several months ago, was cold hard proof that my family was in danger. If they wanted to come after me, what was going to stop them from using Miia or Centorea to get at me? If my mom knew something about the Incubus race, on the incredibly unlikely chance that she actually had knowledge on it to begin with, and if that knowledge could somehow save the people I cared about, I was going to take it.
No one messes with my family. If the Demon Queen wanted to come at me, then by all means she was welcome to try, and when she did, I was going to be ready for her.
I put each of the documents aside and rubbed my temples. I read every single one of them through and through, backwards and forwards, and yet there was nothing there that told me anything I wanted to know. I was starting to give up. Those documents didn't contain a single thing related to monster species, nor the Incubus, nor did they detail what my mom did in the Slayer Force.
My head jerked up. The minute that thought crossed my mind, my heart began to race and I began searching every nook and cranny in the study once more to find something I may have overlooked. There had to have been something, anything that could tell me what she did on her missions. I wasn't entirely sure how confidential this task force actually was, but the lack of any information in the office of two of its very members didn't sit well in my mind, so yet again, the lack of any significant answers set my fire once more.
There wasn't anything in the desk. In the drawers or the room's closet, I only found loose printer paper and souvenirs from other countries that didn't hold any significance either. There weren't any secret compartments in the room either. Looking underneath the safe or on the underside of the desk didn't reveal any levers or pull strings to latch onto, and I was slowly running out of ideas of where I could search, and took a few deep breaths to think. I had to pause. I was running myself ragged and wasn't taking the time to think. I steadied my breathing and looked around the room once more.
No one took care of this part of the house. That much was obvious judging by the dust settling on the top of the books and the ink stains on the carpet. The paint was thin, the air was dry… it was like this was the land that time forgot judging by the cobwebs settled in the corners of the ceiling.
Then, my eyes caught it. On my parent's desk was a picture, an old family portrait I remember taking the year I turned ten years old for my grandparents who had retired in Germany. My dad looked happy and oblivious as ever, sporting a goofy grin as slinky eyes shook away from his novelty glasses, that jape contrasting harshly with his onyx suit and blue shirt. I was wearing something similar, but more churchy. Tugging at the blue tie, I tried to rip it and the collar of my lime green shirt away from my neck to give myself time to breath, my grey pinstripe suit unbuttoned and falling sloppily around me. My mom, on the other hand, looked rather angelic, looking as amazing as ever in a cerulean gown with long, lace sleeves.
Looking at this picture several years later, a grim smile crossed my lips. I didn't see it back then, and I never paid too much attention to the copy of it that sat in the living room since then, but behind that peaceful smile she was wearing, I could see the stress behind my mom's eyes. Her smile was forced, and her eyes were bloodshot. Her hair was tied in a neat bun, but looking closely, I could see loose strands poking around her head. I remembered the picture a bit better now. When I was ten, I sucked up my pride and was grateful when the whole ordeal was over, but now that I was an adult, I could remember just how much my mom went through to get me and my dad straightened out for such a nice picture. I had complained the whole time. The suit was suffocating, and the tie felt like it was choking me, and I didn't stop whining about how uncomfortable I was until I was home and in my pajamas. My dad had also insisted on putting his own touch to the photo, and to my mom's dismay, chose the googly eyes to be present his personality.
"Such a happy family. I can't imagine all the stuff you went through just to make me happy," I said fondly, choking back the pain in my chest, "And now look at me. I'm breaking several laws trying to uncover your secrets using the skills you taught me. I'm a mess."
I picked up the picture and looked at it nostalgically for what must have been several minutes, memorizing every detail that I had ignored over the years when I admired the one in the living room. However, the hairs on the back of my neck rose when I realized something wasn't quite right. This photo was the same but, the lighting was off. It was in the same kind of frame as its twin, but it was like it was pressing closer to the glass than the other one.
I had an idea. Carefully, I unlocked the back of the frame and let the contents of what it contained fall out, revealing not just the picture itself, but several other packets, scripts, letters, and photos. I rolled my eyes and slapped my forehead. All of that work, all of the security on the doors and safe, just to hide your most important documents in a picture frame? Well done, Mom. After going through the booby traps, which actually break federal law in terms of home defense, most thieves wouldn't think of something so simple. Only reason I did was because I've lived with her my whole life.
I read every letter and looked at every picture. Turns out I was right. My mom was hiding something from me. Folding everything together, I placed everything I found into my back pocket, making sure to save a single picture, the one I deemed to be the most important in my wallet for later, then stepped out and found Rachnera sitting alone watching the TV.
I said hello to her, and she looked up and waved at me, continuing to sip her late midday coffee. Confused, I furrowed my brow. Normally, she at least says one or two words to acknowledge my presence, even if those words are incredibly snarky and cutting, so I figured whatever was on the tube must have been pretty good to keep that distracted. Casually, I slipped my way past her legs and curled up in front of her, resting my head on her boobs as she looped her arms around my neck.
"Anything good on?" I asked, seeing a live reporting of something going on downtown, CNN's logo down in the corner.
"Not really," she said lowly, resting her chin on the top of my head.
"You seem kind of hooked," I noted, lacing my fingers through hers.
"Hmm," she mumbled.
I watched closely as the news chopper zoomed in a comic store I used to frequent before I had a family to think about, police and SWAT members surrounding the area. As I looked more closely, I thought I saw the pig shaped face of a liminal, an orc if I remembered correctly, and narrowed my eyes as the story unfolded, detailing the motives and demands of this terrorist group as they held up the storefront. I guessed this was why I hadn't heard from Smith or the MON Squad all day.
However, there was something about this whole scenario that stuck out to me, and I think that's what held Rachnera's attention so fiercely.
"Hey, Rachnee? Am I seeing this right?" I chirped.
"All of the orcs there are men," she said.
"I thought… Aren't all liminals girls?" I asked.
"Under normal circumstances," she said, "Sometimes, however, a group of monster girls will kidnap men and corrupt them until they become monsters themselves." I swallowed.
"Incubus?" I said, almost inaudibly and for a second, I didn't think Rachnera heard me, but then her claws dug into my shirt tensely, her voice coming as a hoarse whisper.
"No, no they're not. This kind of corruption only happens when liminals inject their blood inside a human male and then have sex with them, activating the now dormant monster traits in the blood that they've given the man that they've captured," she explained, but hesitated for a second, "Honey? Where did you hear that term?"
I was about to answer. I really had no desire to hide this from her. In fact, after hiding it for so long, I was starting to feel my sanity slip away and wanted nothing more than to spill my guts to Rachnera, telling her all my thoughts, insecurities and fears since my attack, but I never got the chance. We heard a scream. Jumping up, we started to run towards Miia's room, only to have Centorea meet us halfway and tackle us.
"Cerea, what the heck?" I grumbled, jumping up and helping them to their feet since I had the strength to do so.
"She's awake!" she shouted, her eyes darting wildly and her face flush with excitement, "Miia's awake! Come on!"
Rachnera and I shared only a single glance with one another before sprinting after her. Miia had been in her coma for most of the last year, and now, after all this time without her, she was finally showing signs of waking up? No, Centorea doesn't exaggerate. According to her, the Centaur race knows nothing about hyperbole and are always straight laced with their masters, honor coming far before hilarity, so if she said Miia was awake, then Miia was indeed awake. I don't know if she and Rachnera were surprised that out ran them, but given the circumstances, I didn't really care.
I crashed into the room, the door flying off its hinges in true semblance to the person who occupied it until it snapped in half on the other side of the room. My eyes immediately fell on the bed. Someone was checking her pulse, but I didn't see nor care who it was because sitting up in the bed, a tired look in her eyes, red hair falling far past her shoulders and a scarlet tail waving alongside the floor was my first love. Her golden eyes met mine. When she saw me, a small, weak smile spread across her lips to show off her sharp snake fangs, but she didn't move. Frankly, she didn't have to. I stood there in silence for a second, taking a brief moment to absorb every noticeable feature, relishing in the sight of her moving again before I finally stepped forward.
Pushing past whoever was checking on her, I felt the heaviness in my heart lift away from me, as if the weight of the sky had been lifted from me and dropped to my knees next to her. My hands found hers and I brought them to my cheek. Her thumb brushed against my skin, and I felt something wet wipe against my face. I was crying. Tears wouldn't stop falling down my face, and when I looked up at Miia once again, seeing her look at me with that loving smile I had missed for so long, they fell even harder.
I won't lie. I screamed, and I sobbed so hard that I knew I would lose my voice. Without any more hesitation, I launched myself into her chest, wrapping my arms around her neck as she looped her tail around me, and yet again, I cried even harder.
It hit me just then how much I missed her. It wasn't just her love that I missed, nor her smile, her hugs, her constant affection, or even the amazing sex, but when her tail threatened to snap me in half, I realized just how much I needed her. The last few months after her accident had been unbearable without her. The weight of everything following my attack, my transformation, my parents arriving back in town after their trip to Antarctica, and the unnerving paranoia that made me think I needed to hide my feelings from everyone came crashing down on me when I saw her. These tears weren't just from happiness. They were also from regret, from remorse, from fear, and from the utter relief that came with knowing that even though everything else was going wrong, there was always hope. She was alive. Miia, the woman I fell in love with and planned to marry, was alive and holding me close to her as she had done so many times before.
Even though I was feeling more and more pain the longer my tears fell, all of these bottled up emotions exploding outside of me, seeing Miia again, feeling her tail and kissing her again, it inspired me to keep moving forward. With everything else going wrong, seeing her face again was more than enough to give me strength.
"Stop crying, Darling!" Miia said in my ear, her voice coming as a croak from being asleep for so long, "Please don't cry. You don't have to cry for my sake."
"I can't help it!" I sobbed in her chest, "I just… I missed you, OK? I don't want to see you like that ever again. Please, don't ever do that to me. Never again, OK? OK?!" I gripped her arms tightly, making sure not to hurt her but I struggled containing my strength.
"I promise. I… I promise, Darling. I promise," she insisted, and as she spoke I could hear the sadness in her voice, my hair starting to feel wet as tears of her own hit my head.
"I love you…" I groaned.
"I love you too…" Miia returned.
We stayed like that for awhile, my sobs starting to die down into silent grunts but the crying had stopped. I didn't want to move. Unless Miia herself told me to get up, I wasn't about to let her go for anything. I felt as though if I lost my grip on her, she would fly away from me again, maybe fall into another coma or slither out of my life like she wasn't even in it to begin with. I didn't want her to go. Mentally, I knew that she wasn't going anywhere like that, but my body wouldn't let me regain control.
A huge weight tried to knock me away from her. I felt something hit me from the side, but I wouldn't be moved, so whatever tackled me wrapped its appendages around both of us, two strong yet slender arms finding their way around us. I didn't even have the presence of mind to feel that it was Rachnera.
Centorea was next and trotted over, leaning over and resting her head on Miia's, and when I could gather my wits long enough to feel their presence was when I heard their cries as well. I had been so selfish recently. Being stuck in my own mind for so long blinded me from seeing how much Miia's absence had been hurting them too.
"You- were gone- asleep for so long!" Rachnera whined through her own guttural wails, "How could you do this to me?!
"Rachnee, you're so pitiful! Get ahold of yourself!" Centorea snapped at her.
"You're crying too!" Rachnera shot back.
"I am? I…" Centorea clearly didn't know what was happening as she touched her face and pulled her hands back to see her salty tears, then let herself go and crashed into us and let the sadness overcome her.
Somewhere along the line, our crying turned into laughter. I had heard about something like this where a human feels emotions so strongly that their brain completely shuts down, and as a panic response, they start laughing, as if they have no clue how else to respond to whatever put them in that state. Just like a computer experiences a blue screen of death, laughing due to fear is the same thing for the human mind.
Miia was back, Rachnera and Centorea were holding us together, and here I was at the center of things. We were all together again. Something about seeing all four of us sharing a loving embrace like this, with the three women I loved sharing this moment with me, just seemed right to me. It put a warm feeling in my heart. I figured this was a moment of such intense passion and love that its effect would stay with me for years to come, possibly for the rest of my life.
"Well, ain't this a touching reunion," said the person who had been checking Miia's vitals. To be perfectly honest, I had completely forgot that she was there.
I looked up at her, unable to break off the smile and my cheeks starting to cramp up because of it, but somehow was able to wipe the tears from my face and give this person the attention she deserved. At the same time, I mentally kicked myself for being so distracted with my own business not to realize she was inside my house, but who cared? I was way too happy to care.
Looking her over once, I could see that she was a liminal, but couldn't tell what kind. Her features were impish and her body was completely humanoid, so the only indicator that she was a liminal were the pointed ears poking out from behind her sandy blonde hair, but of those noticeable points, I could say the same for a lot of other species. There were a lot of monsters that could take active steps to hide their nonhuman appearance and blend more easily in society, so I pushed my first ideas about her being a fairy or an elf out of my head and tried to focus on who she was, not what she was. If she was hiding her species in the first place, she must not have wanted me to know about it. In any case, she had a striking type of beauty about her. Matching her impish appearance, she had sharp cheekbones and a beauty mark under one eye, and as for her eyes themselves, she wore thick eyeliner around the entire orb but no other makeup. She was also noticeably thin, making me feel like I should make her a heavy dish like shepherds pie to bulk her up when my caretaker's instincts kicked in.
Then, my eyes fell on her outfit. Her dress had a short skirt that was fluffed with a petticoat, the majority of the dress shaped like black overalls with puffy white sleeves, matched with black elevator sandals striped thigh high socks. I recognized it immediately as the same gothic lolita style from one of my favorite video game characters, Margaret Moonlight from a game I hadn't played in years, but there was something more fresh about the style in my mind. I couldn't place it though. There was just something about her, though, that struck me as familiar.
I managed to pull myself away from Miia and rammed myself into the girl, wrapping my arms around her without even thinking to ask for permission, you know, like an idiot. I was just way too happy to even bother. Miia's smiling face from the bed was so deeply stuck in my mind that I was having trouble seeing anything that wasn't three feet in front of my face, borderline hallucinating as if her face was inches from mine. In any case, I ended up hitting the girl so hard that I made her stumble backwards.
"I'm sorry! I didn't mean to push you," I said through a laugh.
"Nah, you're fine," she waved off, giving off this goofy, high pitched chortle that hurt my ears, "I get it. I saved your girl. What are you going to do? NOT buy me a drink?" I blinked at her for a second and rolled my eyes.
"I'll see you in the kitchen then!" I said and led her out, making sure to give one last look to Miia who kept her eyes on me as I slowly closed the door.
Silently, the girl followed me towards the half wall in the kitchen that doubled as a bar counter, but the whole time, I felt needlessly on edge as if I was being watched. The hairs on the back of my neck were standing on end. Now that I wasn't in the same room as my fiance, my body was starting to wake up a bit more and become aware of its surroundings, and with a start, I realized what this woman's deal was. Something about her was setting off some red flags. Before we had even gotten out of the hallway, my shoulders had tensed up at the hole she was burning into the back of my head with the look she was giving me.
That raised a few questions. The blood thirst she was radiating was so palpable that even without my incubus instincts, I would have been able to feel it, so why was she here? Not only that, but what was she doing with Miia?
The one thing I knew for sure, though, was that even though she clearly wanted to hurt us, she wasn't going to go through with it. If she wanted to hurt any of the girls, she would have. What was really keeping me on edge, however, was that we were alone now. The only people in the house were all in the same room together, so me and this girl, whoever she might have been, were alone. It was the perfect opportunity to make a move. Come to think of it, I didn't even know when or how she got into the house.
Silently, I let off a humorless laugh. I was in danger. I poured the girl a glass of whiskey and coke and kept my eyes on the glass as she stared at me unblinking. I slid it down to her, meeting her eyes. For a second, I processed her heterochromia, one eye being a bright teal and the other a sharp amber, but held eye contact with her as she downed the drink in one gulp. We sat there for a bit, staring one another down. Her jaw was set, and I could see each and every one of her muscles tensed up as she tried to keep her focus on me, but the sweat piling up on her forehead showed a different story. I smirked, sensing her unease. That formerly bloodthirsty energy from before was slowly dying away being replaced with submission.
Just like her, my own skin burned. I felt a blazing fire envelop me, tearing me up from the inside and spilling out of me, and I just couldn't help but feel the fury of a dragon roaring within me. It truly felt like I could breathe fire if I really wanted to. I think she got the same impression since the moment I realized just how much power I had over her, she broke eye contact with me, showing me full well that I was in charge.
"I guess what they say about you is true, innit?" she asked, brushing a strand of hair out of her face with a toothy, crooked smile. I smiled slightly at the slang.
"Guess it is," I said, "Question is, do you know what that really means for you?"
Feigning intelligence seemed like my best bet, as if that would get her off kilter and take any control she might have had away from her. I she thought she had any cards to play, I would lose the ground I had already gained. My goal was to get her talking about why she was in my house uninvited, what her goal was, and anything else she might have felt like telling me, and it felt like the best way to do that was to make her think she couldn't hide anything from me.
"Better than most, I'd like to think," she turned back to me again, running her hands up and down my forearm, "How have you been? I'm glad to see all those cuts Lala gave you have healed up."
"Does that surprise you?" I asked, my smile dropping immediately. Off the top of my head, I had no idea who Lala was or how this girl knew about my injuries, but it helped me figure out who this girl was.
"For an incubus? Of course not, I've heard the stories," she dismissed, cackling and running her hands up to my bicep, leaning over the counter. I narrowed my eyes, glancing at her hands then back to her.
"You would think I would have," I responded, firmly pushing her fingers down. She mockingly put her fingers up to her lip sand gasped.
"And here I thought your concubines might have told you!" she intimated, "I figured that slag of a mother of yours might have mentioned something!" I bit back my anger.
"Is that all you came here for?" I joked, crossing my arms loosely and bringing one hand up to my face to softly set my chin on, "To insult my family? Don't get me wrong, I understand a good verbal lashing just as much as the next guy, after acting as a nurse to one of those supposed 'concubines,' I figured you might have something more of worth to tell me."
"Is that what you think I was doing?" she said coyly, "Just checking on her? Making sure she was well? Playing nurse?" She was joking, of course, but when she said that last part, she seemed genuinely surprised, "Actually, no. That sounds fun and kinky. I wasn't doing that."
I tilted my head and gave her a dumb look. She returned it with a flirty smile and started trailing her finger up my arm, tickling the skin.
"You should be thanking me right now," she said simply, biting her bottom lip.
"And why is that?" she said. She got serious all of a sudden, and I didn't know whether that was scarier than her sly flirts.
"Because Miia was clinically dead," she said.
"That…" I started, but I couldn't continue. It was like someone had knocked the wind out of me and I stepped back, running my hand through my hair as I tried to not let that statement get the best of me. It wasn't true.
"The only thing the monster governments are interested in is peaceful coexistence," the girl continued, "They would never share any information about our physiology with human governments because if they knew how to fight us efficiently, then our leaders believe that humans will attack us. Does that make sense? Maybe not to you because you live with five of them, are banging three of them, and and have four more hanging on your arm- I still have the scar from that stupid doppelganger whore, by the way -but most humans still view monsters as MONSTERS. If word got out about our weaknesses, there would be a genocide in the streets every day. I mean, you live in the freaking home country for the KKK! Did you think the hatred stopped just because most of the world wants to avoid a major conflict?"
"Shut up!" I yelled at her and slammed my hand on the counter, tearing down the structure entirely from the impact, "You don't know anything! She wasn't dead! Doctors would know something about her condition and would have helped her if there was anything to be concerned about!"
"Do you think lamias are closer to humans or snakes?" she asked calmly.
"Snakes!" I said immediately, then growled, "Humans! They… they're like snakes but…"
I shouted at myself to calm down. My heart rate was rising and I had already broken a major structure in the house. I was so mad that I just couldn't think. When she asked me that question, I acted on impulse and answered without a single ounce of thought, so I needed to calm down. I tried breathing, but I couldn't get a deep breath in. Plus, with this girl looking at me with that pitying face, I was so ready and willing to take her down, to break her, to snap her in half and do… something. I wasn't sure on what that last desire was but my body wanted to act on it.
I paced around the room. My fists were shaking at my sides and I tried to will myself to be still, only to suffer more of that same anger as it told me to jump at this intruder. I could feel her eyes on me. She was watching me like I was her prey that she had just captured, like I was a small animal that she was leading into a trap, and if I was being honest with myself, she was right. I was falling for whatever trick she was playing at.
And I didn't care. I wanted her gone, even if that meant I had to throw her out myself.
"Lamias, just like all monster girls and their male counterparts, have traits of both humans and animals," the girl continued, her voice never raising to a yell.
"I know that," I growled, the pictures on the wall shaking.
"Master?" came Centorea's voice, and I looked up to see a concerned, almost terrified face.
"Honey, if she's bothering you, I will make her leave," Rachnera was next, baring her fangs and playing cat's cradle with some of her webs as she threatened our intruder.
"Darling… your eyes," next was Miia who had crawled out of bed to see what I was freaking out over, leaning on the centaur for support, "What… what happened while I was out?"
I had no idea what she was talking about. My eyes? Yeah, I knew they were gorgeous. What was she getting at? I couldn't possibly fathom why she was so scared until I looked in one of the pictures behind her, seeing my reflection in the glass. My eyes had changed. Before, they were a wolfish gold or silver depending on the light, but now they were replaced with the same sharp crimson like the blood pumping in my ears, my formerly round pupil now a thin slit like a cat's, and the whites surrounding them a faded black.
That was some kind of change. A smirk came to my lips. I liked what I saw. Those were the eyes of someone who could protect those he cared about, someone powerful who could defeat any foe that came his way. A low chuckle escaped my throat. Then, I saw the look of utter fear on Centorea's face as she watched me, even Rachnera matching it when she saw me. Even Miia… I couldn't stand to see them like that and closed my eyes, turning away from the picture.
"Who knew that the cute little boy in that photo would turn out to be just like me? A demon," said a voice in my ear.
I perked up when I heard it. Looking at my reflection one more time, I stared passed the glass to the faces behind it. It was the same picture from Mom and Dad's office. If that didn't sour my mood enough, I slowly realized that the voice in my head didn't belong to anyone I had heard before. It wasn't either of my parents, the girls, my friends or their homestays, Smith, the MON Squad, and by no means did it belong to the girl sitting behind me. It was purely in my mind, echoing off the walls of my skull. Maybe I was hallucinating, but the energy from that tone, the pure malice and evil behind it made me think otherwise. I had felt that darkness before. It was the same type of darkness that had made me accept Miia into my household, made me charge into danger every chance I got, fight off Centorea's attackers, and even what made me accept how much of a pervert I was as if there was no other option for me.
I was trash. I was the lowest of the low, and just to prove I was a garbage human, God saw fit to turn me into a monster. I really was one, wasn't I? That voice just knew it far before I did.
"Darling," said a firm voice.
Nothing was going right. Miia had left me, Mero had nearly destroyed my family, my Mom and Dad had been lying to me my whole life… How could I ever take care of anyone if I couldn't even get my own life together?
"Darling," it repeated.
I shouldn't bring Miia and the others down with me. They didn't deserve someone like me.
"Darling!" Miia finally snapped and brought me out of my own thoughts. Her hand gently pressed against my cheek, brushing against the burning streams of tears that had dried against them, but held me close so I was forced to look at her. Her smile had returned. It wasn't lascivious, excited, nor energetic in anyway like normal. This one was more pure.
"It's OK," she said simply.
At that point, I couldn't help a smile from crossing my own lips either. Miia had been in a coma for nearly a year only to wake up to drama and conflict, something that she by no means deserved, but she didn't let that bind her. She saw me struggling, but didn't know why. Regardless of anything else, she decided to help me. She had maybe been awake for thirty minutes, barely able to move and having to use the others to get out of her room, and before she had even bothered to get to her full strength, she put everything aside just to help me.
I had no choice at this point. I had to make her my wife. If she was really willing to choose me over her own medical stability, then she was the very definition of a keeper. Silently, I turned to the girl behind me who had a very sincere look as if she would rather have prefered to be somewhere else at the moment.
"You really are an incubus," she proclaimed, clicking her tongue, "For a second, I didn't believe it, but only one of your kind could have withstood my mind control."
"Darling, what is she talking about?" Miia asked, her tail wrapping around me protectively. On instinct, I pushed her away from me, completely removing her constriction and stepping out of her like she wasn't even an obstacle much to her surprise.
"Cerea, Rachnee," I stated, the feeling of power from when this conversation had started returning to me, "Get Miia up to speed. I'll see our guests out."
I heard them scurrying off. Miia tried to stay, complaining to the two of them about wanting to make sure I was safe but they managed to pull her away thanks to how weak she was after her coma. When they were safely out of harm's way, I put on the friendliest of smiles and gestured to the door.
"After you," I ordered.
The girl stepped out onto the porch and turned back to see if I was following her, but I had already sidestepped her and was walking backwards towards the street, my hands in my pockets and my gaze following her movements very carefully. It was the middle of the day, so no one was around since the kids were at school and parents were at work, and with our street being kind of secluded anyway, this was perfect. Looking back on it, I had only fought for fun or to defend myself; never for the right reasons, but now? I felt like I was doing something worthwhile.
"So, before we begin, tell me something," I offered, and she gestured for me to continue, "You said you fought Doppel, right? I'm assuming you're the Fallen Angel who tried to kill me."
"Yep," she said.
"And were you trying to kill me or rebel against the ICEP like Agent Smith suggested?"
"No, we were trying to kill you," she answered, "We've been watching you for awhile, ever since you rescued Miia from drowning, which by the way, is the only thing that kept her alive in case you were wondering. The water was cold and deep enough to freeze a poikilotherm to death, but since you got her out of the water as fast as you did, it just turned her into a vegetable."
"That raises two more questions," I said.
"You've earned the right to ask them," she said, "You not only fought off Lala, but you treated me as a guest, fought off my mind control, and fulfill every aspect of an incubus to a T. Ask me anything."
"I'll ask the easy one first then," I said, my voice dropping to a growl, "How did you save Miia?"
"Oh, so you figured it out!" the fallen angel said with a grin, pointing to her now glowing eyes, "The same way I made you hallucinate her face and that voice in your head is the same way I tried to mind control you. You know how demons are a big thing in human religion? Well, it's for a good reason. All monsters have a small amount of magic within them, but what you call the theory of evolution and natural selection gave some species more magical abilities than others, and that gave fallen angels the abilities to create illusions. All we have to do is focus on a weak point."
I looked down on the ground, laughing sourly as I shook my head.
"So, you focused on my depression?" I asked the obvious question.
"Yes I did!" she said cheerily, "It helped that you've never told anyone about it! What was your second question?"
"Being an incubus," I said, "You already know I don't know anything about it, so I want you tell me a little more about it."
I noticed how her demeanor completely changed at that, giving off a totally different energy than before. Any amount of sass she had was gone.
"I can't tell you about that," she said.
"Then, tell me what you can," I snapped.
"Fine," she sighed, "You know I said we had been watching you? And how incubi are inherently demons? You started giving off a very noticeable energy that we picked up on, so we started paying closer attention to you and noticed how you were able to do things that went beyond human physical ability which made our Boss decide to test you. She knew you were friends with that monster girl task force that Agent Smith works with, so she figured that if you could survive an attack against the three of us, then maybe your energy wasn't just oddly enticing. Maybe you were actually an incubus."
"What even is an incubus?" I hissed, getting tired of this back and forth.
"Simply put, it's a human turned into a monster in a very specific way. They have powers equal to that of the strongest liminal champions, so we know you're an incubus because of your physical abilities and your magical ones like your quick healing ability and how you can completely dispel my illusions." My shoulders tensed up when she dipped her head forward, her jet black wings extending behind her, but she still had one more thing to say before she did anything else. "If you want anymore details, ask your mother!"
Then, she charged me. When she got into range to attack me, the first thing I did was put my hands up to block a punch or a kick, but I wasn't expecting her wings to slap me a few times. I went flying into my neighbor's car, totalling it out with a big dent. She dashed towards me again, feinting with her wings then pivoting to kick me, but I blocked it, sending a shockwave out from the impact and cracking the pavement beneath us.
We started boxing from there, trying to gain ground on the other. She threw one punch after the other, trying to find the angles to get behind my guard, but I could spot her weakness from there. She didn't clinch. I wrapped my arms around her and whipped her around, pinning her against the car and sending a knee into her stomach. She grunted so hard that spit flew out of her mouth. I threw a few punches to test her, and she blocked them easily, so I switched to my elbows and hit her hard enough to cut her, blood spilling down her face, forehead and chin.
Then, I grabbed one side of her head and tripped her. Instinctively, I straddled her waist and went to throw a punch, but then she opened her eyes and flashed me with a bright light coming from them. Next thing I knew, I was airborne, falling straight down to the ground. The girl had my arm and was ready to slam me down, but I rolled around her and grabbed her leg with basic, albeit airborne jiu jitsu and made her hit the ground face first.
She hit me away with her wings again and charged me once more. She tried hitting me with her wings over and over, bringing up her legs sometimes, and I had no idea how to guard against it. I needed to think. I moved in and tried to clinch her up again, but she was expecting it and got me in my stomach, sending another shockwave out.
That should have hurt more than it did. I took the hit like a champ and looked up at her, feeling the fires of Hell roar within me and I saw the fear in her eyes. I growled at her. The sound that came out of my throat was guttural and inhuman, and it doubled down on the force from her last strike.
"Please don't hurt me…" she muttered.
"Die," my inhuman voice snarled.
I grabbed her head and slammed it into my knee. Blood started spilling from her face and onto my jeans as she fell back onto the ground. The blood didn't dry immediately, so as she scuttled away in fear, I wiped the fluid up in my finger and tasted it. I spat it out almost immediately.
"So, that was stupid," I groaned. I was trying to be cool and intimidating while testing out to see if devouring blood would do anything for my monstrous half, but evidently, the only thing it did was put a bad taste in my mouth. Apparently, I wouldn't belong in Riverdale.
I began storming over to the girl. She got back up and tried to fight me again, but when I got inside the reach of her wings one more time, she wasn't able to land a hit. I blocked and parried everything. I pushed her away, flipped her over, treated her like a punching bag, and after I fight had lasted several minutes, the neighborhood looked like a long abandoned dystopian battlefield.
She wasn't down and she wasn't trying to run. She held her ground. She was battered, bruised, blood trailing down half of her body and had several broken bones, but she was still willing to fight. How could I possibly deny her?
"You aren't giving up?" I offered.
"No!" she claimed.
"Why are we even fighting?" I asked flatly.
"Orders, innit?" she spat, "The Demon Queen told me to do this and I will not go back to her until I complete my mission!" I pinched the bridge of my nose.
"You know why I don't like that answer?" I said, stalking towards her one last time, "It's because orders don't justify evil. Just because you're a soldier, or a knight, or a fallen angel, doing what you're told regardless of who it's coming from doesn't make your actions any more justified than mine. You're still trying to kill an innocent man, and you know what else? It's also turned you into an overripe avocado. You're queen led you wrong, babe. Do you know what's going to happen to you now? No matter what you do, no matter what you say or who comes to save you, you are going to die here, and all because you had to follow orders."
"You… you wouldn't… actually kill me, right?" she stammered, a hopeful but scarlet smile coming to her.
"Oh, please. You saw what was in my head," I said with a cheery grin, "I don't know if it's because of the depression, the loneliness, the overwhelming despair, or maybe if I'm just that screwed up in the head, but you know full well I'm more than willing to kill someone who I deem as a threat to my family."
After that long winded speech, I finally reached her. She was much smaller than me at this point, having to hunch over to keep herself from falling to the ground, and yet her eyes were still filled with that crazy defiance even though she didn't do anything to hold me off. Maybe she didn't have the energy. Maybe she didn't even have the will to fight me any longer and had given up, allowing me to reach out and grab her throat if I wanted to.
Then, I leaned forward and got in her face. I showed her a coy grin and flicked her forehead affectionately the same way I would have done to any of my girls.
"Just kidding!" I said happily.
"Wha- but- why- what?! Ugh…" she fell to her knees and stayed there for awhile, the relief flooding over her entire body.
"I couldn't kill anybody," I said, dropping to the ground with her with just as much physical exhaustion as emotional, "I don't like conflict, you know? I've been training to fight since birth thanks to my mom, and I know how to do it if it ever becomes unavoidable, but I just can't bring myself to do it. I hate conflict, you know? I love to fight when it's for fun, but even though you're doing everything you possibly can to end my life, I just want it to end." She looked up at me and smiled.
"You're sweet," she said, "Are you sure you don't want to kill me?"
"Yep," I said.
"What makes you think I won't come back and finish you off?"
"Feel free."
She blinked at me in confusion a few times, her expression trying to decide if it wanted to be angry or dumbfounded, then finally decided on surrender. She gave me that psychotic laugh before saying one more thing.
"I think I can see why those girls fell in love with you," she said at almost a whisper, "I guess I'll go home. If I got beat this bad, I don't think I'll get into too much bloody trouble."
"Don't be a stranger," I offered.
I watched her stand up and walk away. She looked over her shoulder and smiled at me, giving me a polite wave as a ring of fire enveloped her body, leaving a floom of dust where she was just standing. I guessed that she returned to Hell. More exhausted now that the immediate threat had gone, I fell onto my back and closed my eyes, trying to fall asleep. After a fight that incredible, there was no way I wasn't going to sleep for days, but the shadows behind my eyelids grew darker as someone decided to stand over me and wake me up.
"Centorea texted me that Miia was awake," said my mom, and I could hear my dad trying to wrangle Papi and Suu in the background.
"Master, what's wrong?! Why do you look like you just got beat up?!" Papi yelled.
"Master, please don't be hurt!" Suu chimed in.
I felt the two crash into me and looked up to see them curling into my sides. On my left was Papi who had her hair styled into a thick french braid with flowers in it, and on my right was Suu who hadn't finished dissolving a combo meal from the local fast food chain, paper wrapper and all. They checked me over. Papi pecked at my clothes and made sure they didn't stick to my body, then used her wings to guide Suu as her slime body swallowed all of mine, healing my wounds.
"Over here too, Suu!" Papi said, "He uses his legs a lot when he fights."
"All of his pain is in his face," Suu explained, "The rest of his body is just sore."
"So this is new," I mentioned, looking up at my mom, "Do slimes have medical properties?"
"How should I know?" she shrugged off.
"Hey, Suu? Can you hand me the slip of paper in my back pocket?" I asked and in a few seconds, I pushed my arm out of Suu's body with the photo in my hand, my mom's eyes widening when she saw and snatching it out of my hand, "You know, you really seem to have evened out since your Slayer days."
"I remember this," my mom said nostalgically, "This was when my troop had to fight off an orc horde in the alps."
"I understand why you've been so secretive on your military career," I said tightly, "You were in the army the minute you turned eighteen, and the existence of monster girls was only revealed to the public about four or five years ago."
"That was the war that started the peace talks," she explained, placing the picture very gingerly in her purse, "Your coordinator, Kuroko Smith and I, led the final assault on the elf queen's palace at the very end of the war, capturing her and forcing all of her forces who hadn't surrendered already to do so."
"Mom?" I said tightly, "I need to ask you something."
"Just one thing?" she teased, her eyes starting to glisten with a thousand yard stare.
"Many things, but all coming from one," I said, "What's an incubus?"
I might have told my mom that I only had three hours to live with the shock on her face. I didn't know that the question would hold that much weight to her, only asking it on the passing mention of my mom from the fallen angel girl, but she started to look at me with the same face that you would give someone who you knew was going to die, like you were already planning their funeral. Given how much my mom probably knew about this topic, for all I knew, she might have been.
The smile fell from her face again. My father stepped over and gave her a supportive look, wrapping his arm around her shoulder and linking his fingers with hers when she rose them to meet him. Then, he looked down to where I was still laying.
"Come inside, Kayo," he ordered, "We have a lot to talk about."
I didn't argue. After all, he was right, and I had no counter to offer. I had questions that needed answering, and since the only woman I knew who could had returned to Hell, my parents were the only people who could answer them for me. We really did have a lot to talk about, and I was prepared for a long conversation.