Becoming Monsters: in the Mirror 40

Once more into the breach! Welcome, welcome, welcome to Book Two of Becoming Monsters: In The Mirror! There is still a lot of story to tell with Jay and his crew, and given I've literally had dreams of the ladies of the Guild sitting me down to ask when I was going to keep going and tell them the rest of what happened, I decided not to keep them waiting.

This is still a story of the Becoming Monsters series, by Ai Loves, setting used with permission. All canonical and mechanical errors are my own. If you haven't read her works, you really should go show her some love. It is both an excellent read on its own, and will fill in a lot of the setting details I lean on here. The yarrb is the exceedingly cute creation of FelisRandomis, used with permission.

-

Chapter 40: New Beginnings

Last Saturday, sitting in my hospital room, I asked someone not to curse me with the wish of more story to tell. That I had enough to last a lifetime already. She replied that she would be shocked if I got a week off. Let it be known that I do not like being wrong in conversations like that.

Four days. That's all it took.

Lucy, my wife and the light of my life, was sitting with me in the doctor's office once again in her vermillion glory. A joyous time, this time, getting the basic health checks done for our child on the way. It was a bit early as such things went, but one month to the day from when we knew for fact Lucy became pregnant was enough for the latest magical applications to be able to catch critical information. Especially in the realms of Racial medicine, massive strides had been made recently.

"Now, Lucy, we are securing you not due to pain. These tools are the latest developed by Dr. Akisame Honda, he was here not long ago to train us in their use and spoke about a recent case of his using them to analyze a Succubus, like yourself." This was, of course, following a long battery of intensely personal questions. Those were expected, however, especially considering our Races' infamous proclivities. So, of course, was the semen sample he needed me to give (which, of course, Lucy was very happy to help me provide, within the limitations set by the nurse). What was not expected was the restraints. Cuffs attaching the scarlet Succubus to the examination table, like they expected her to thrash.

There was a lot of equipment set up in the place. A lot of information sources, both magical and mundane. A lot of meters, a lot of readouts. Everything from a blood oxygenation monitor on her finger to magical field images. Central Cascadia Hospital was, above all, a

research hospital

. Given that the both of us believed strongly in the advancement of the sciences, we volunteered for all of the research to be done as able, and that meant a lot of data being collected. I, for one, couldn't see how something with so many unique factors going into it could possibly make for good data points, but then again I was an IT guy who happened to also lead a guild of Surface Hunters. There was a lot going on I didn't know about, and I knew enough to know I didn't know it.

The doctor approached, holding a crystal the size of his fist. "Have you ever had a Thaumian Echo Resonator exam before? Your records do not show one, but I do need to ask." Lucy shook her head. "Alright. This will tingle at first, but the sensations are going to become extremely... intense... before long. I need you to remain as calm as you possibly can, but I am used to that not being an achievable goal. Thus the restraints."

"Doctor, no offense, but I am a Delver and Surface Hunter. I've helped with multiple major demonic takedowns in the last month. I don't think anything the Hospital would allow you to do would faze me."

"You say that. Still, let's proceed." He fiddled around a bit, attaching a couple of crystals to her abdomen along with a couple of other major chakra points, made sure the restraints were in place, then began to slowly move the larger one in his hand around her body.

Lucy's first reaction was laughter. "Okay, that tingles a bit. Kind of tickles. What are you even doing?"

The doctor kept a cool, calm, and professional bearing. Under the surface, though, I could directly feel what he was feeling. A potent mix of glee, curiosity, and mischief. Not a combination I was used to feeling from doctors, and one that had me a bit nervous. He looked into the crystal as he spoke. "Though we have Succubi baselines from this kind of exam, you are an uncommon sub-Race. What I'm doing is baselining you, in particular. I need to examine your new little one, but I can't do that without picking you up. So, basically, that examination minus this one makes one of your child. You seem to be tolerating this part well, it's time to move up the more intense scans."

I felt a flash of much different feelings from my wife. Even if I hadn't been able to read her expressions like an open book, I would have known she was putting up a stoic face. It didn't look like pain, though. The expression was one I'd seen before, when we were playing at trying to be the first to make the other orgasm. She was holding one back, a really big one. What even was that crystal?

It was then that the doctor brought it closer to her body, and I figured out fast how good of an idea those restraints were. Lucy didn't exactly have the highest Strength score in existence. She was a Sorceress, and their priorities lay in other areas. Even so, her body flexed so hard I thought they might break anyway. I could see her abdomen flexing in an absolutely MASSIVE orgasm, one that seemed to go on and on and on. After 30 seconds of it, the look went from boner-inducing to one which I started getting worried about. The examination lasted nearly five minutes, and by the end Lucy looked like the orgasm had her in active pain.

"You did well, ma'am. Held out, didn't ask me to stop. Everything's normal from what I can see, with both you and your child, but then again I am one man. You can rest here for a bit as I run the data through the processors." He undid my wife's restraints before leaving the room, though I could track the feel of his soul as he went next door. It made sense that this place only had one of these setups, I could not imagine that they were at all common. When I reached out to hug my wife, she shook her head.

"Please, Jay, just... hold my hand, for now? That did not feel good, and a lot of my body is not wanting to be touched right now."

"That's fine, love. I can do that." Our hands intertwined, cherry red and stone gray together. Five years together, leaning on each other and learning about each other. If she didn't want to be hugged? So be it. I could be patient.

She was nervous, though. Scared. What that did to her shook her pretty heavily, even if the doc's reactions said it was all well within expectations and normal. "That was intense love. But... I'm worried. About our child. Everything in the area was flexing and hurting, it just went on forever. Did that crystal hurt the baby?"

"Don't worry, love." It was all I could do to reassure her. Anchor her when situations had us adrift. "Even besides knowing the doctor is good at what he does, I have an advantage. I can check on our baby directly. She's fine, her emotions are content after that excitement."

Lucy's expression calmed down immediately, most of the nerves and worry leaving her. She seemed to accept it, until her head snapped upward. "Wait a second, you said 'her emotions'? Our child is a girl? Jay, how long have you known without telling me?"

"Uh..." Smooth, Jay. Real smooth. "Honestly, about 30 seconds. Ever since I checked on her to make sure she was alright. She feels a lot like you while you're having a nice dream. Much, much simpler, though. Barely there, but definitely present."

Lucy's smile finally returned, a genuine and powerful thing. "We are going to have a daughter..." It suddenly went from joy to excitement, her emotions dancing around like an internal ballet. "We're going to have a daughter! Oh, love, I'd say you have no idea how happy I am about this, but you do. Even without having to cheat, you always did." Now, she practically pulled me into the hug she hadn't been feeling up to earlier. Another grin. "Well, this certainly makes the registry easier to take care of. And naming. Only have to come up with one. Any ideas?"

"A couple that I'm not going to suggest out loud. Wouldn't do that to her. Remember, I'm the guy who named our yarrb Nibbles, so I might not be the best person to be the sole arbiter of our daughter's name." The feel of our daughter's soul was a calm and steady thing, really, no matter how light and faint it was. It felt... pure. Untainted. Unfortunately, it was about then that I felt the doctor's emotions shift from next door. His were nowhere near as calm, and he got worried. Worried doctors make me worried. "Love, I think the doctor is coming back."

It would turn out to be another fifteen minutes before he did any such thing. Fifteen minutes that each stretched to infinity as I felt him scramble a bit. The worry faded a bit, the curiosity rose. He finally came back. "You two had a very specific timing for when the child was conceived. Before we continue this, I do need to ask how sure you are of that timing."

I felt my eyebrow rise. "Extremely sure, Doctor. It was early evening exactly thirty-one days ago, the same day I took down the Karackt attack at the park across the street from the bus stop."

"Ah, that would be a precise timer. Celebrating, I assume." His tone was deadpan, his emotions nowhere near it. "So. I do have good news to start. Your Thaumian insulation layer has come in nicely, indicating that the child is a strong but non-Legendary Race. I cannot determine what they are precisely through that layer, but they seem quite healthy."

I of course caught the catch. "You mentioned the good news was just a start. What's the rest?"

"The embryo is perfectly healthy and developed... for one at three weeks. Not four and a half. I had to call Dr. Honda to verify, because yours is the first case I've seen of it. Concubal Development Syndrome, or CDS for short. Oh, don't be that scared. The child is not harmed, merely taking longer to get where they're going."

Lucy's head quirked. "Um. Care to explain what that is?" I was holding her hand, she was gripping mine hard.

"In short, it is a condition that sometimes affects those carrying a Racial child, who have regular sexual contact with Incubi or male Succubi. Obviously not a common population, so CDS is quite rare. The child is doing just fine, but something about the mechanics of Feeding in that way and under those conditions slows down the rate at which pregnancy progresses. The more frequent the contact, the slower it goes. How frequently do you two have sex?"

It was a direct and very personal question, but one I had a direct answer for. "Every two to three days, minimum. Usually daily."

He brought out a calculator and input some numbers. "Given what we know, if you want this pregnancy to proceed at a normal rate, that needs to stop or at least slow down a long way."

Her hand gripping mine suddenly had another feel about it. One I was familiar with, a shimmering force she had used to devastating effect in fight after fight for the last several years. I had seen that Telekinesis press demons into the pavement hard enough to crack it, and this time my wife was

mad

. I rapidly called upon a powerful cast of Combat Disenchant to target the threads to the working before it could manifest, blowing it away. The doctor was blissfully unaware.

I covered it by asking another question. "That would be impractical, I'm afraid, given how my Hunger works. If we do not, and the child is as you predict, how long will the pregnancy last? A 25% slower process still means less than a year, total."

He started inputting numbers. "It isn't very consistent, unfortunately, the greatest slowdown would be right at the end. It is difficult to estimate, but this indicates it would take three to four years. Most of that would be spent gravid, as though right at forty weeks."

The next Disenchant I launched took a LOT more power to succeed, but prevented a Fireball from being launched in the office. "Doctor, I think I need to talk to my wife for a bit. In private, if we can?"

"Of course. I will look up a few relevant details while you do so, and will be back in about twenty minutes." He got up and left. I Disenchanted another Telekinesis as he did so. The door closed. "Love, please stop. I'm almost out of mana, so the next one will be a tranq from my Aura."

"That man just told a SUCCUBUS to NOT have SEX with her HUSBAND! How did you think I was going to react?"

"Notice how fast I was off the mark dispelling it. I feel much the same way, but I'd rather not leave the OBGYN office with a rap sheet, thanks."

She started to cry. "We've waited for so long, Jay. Struggled so much. With everything we have gone through this last month, we can finally support her, and she came. I want to be with you more than ever, but I want to hold our daughter in my arms, love! What are we going to do?"

"We'll figure something out. We always have, we always do. The problem has been in front of us for less than five minutes, and the medical professionals haven't had much of a chance to learn about it yet themselves." I had to keep my own emotions under absolutely iron control in the ensuing silence. It would not do for her to feel my own fears through my Aura, or to lose the confident facade. She needed someone to lean on, and I was it.

"Jay, I can tell you're faking that front for me."

Welp. The whole thing about being married to her and being able to read her goes both ways, huh? "You're right. Still, I am confident we will find a way through that does not involve you going through the longest dry spell of your adult life, or waddling around ready to pop for five years. We have resources now. Teammates, networks, treasure."

"We can't spend everything getting to the starting line, love. When our daughter," she still glowed a bit when she said that word "arrives, we need to be able to take care of her."

She was right, of course. Feeding our daughter and clothing her was just as important as bringing her into the world. Defending her, we definitely had covered. Couldn't be any more difficult than chasing the Glasya halfway across Seattle on foot the day I got out of this exact hospital that one time. Surely.

The doctor returned, then, but the conversation wasn't nearly as dire. An embryo at three weeks of development was nowhere near something that could be shown off to the parents-to-be, the various charts and meters only holding vague meaning for us who worked alongside the medical professionals. I took notes, but I knew that they would be... insufficient. He eventually left to see his next patient. September is a very common month for births, winter being boring, so we were left to a couple of nurses to wrap up and get moving. It went by quickly. We both worked here, after all, and knew the drill.

Standing up was an unexpected torture. Easy to forget, really. I had acquired an intimidating array of scars from our latest adventure. Our Guild's healer, Emily, estimated that between all of them, more than 15% of my body was covered in relatively fresh scar tissue. Biceps and forearms, thighs and ankles, abdomen and upper back and spine, rings around eight fingers, even a lattice of them under my hair on my scalp. The appointment, combined with the preliminary paperwork and such, had me sitting in one place for a while. This predictably led to them seizing up slightly. They did not appreciate being made to move again, and I did not appreciate their protests.

The pharmacy waiting room was quiet, the bag we got from them full of supplements meant to support both mother and child. Another booklet of diet recommendations, with a couple of pages added for unique obscure dietary needs of her Race. I'm sure Gloria would have a bit of a laugh over them, but you never know. The walk home was a pleasant and quiet thing, the stretch and exercise good for the both of us. As we got close to the apartment, two things greeted us. Up high, from the window we knew was ours, we could see a flash of light. Probably our Enchanter, could be anything. Down low, on the ground, was something more welcome. Nibbles the yarrb, our team's companion. Knee high, mottled in green and gray and brown, with four ears, fangs and quills... also intensely cute and friendly. He trotted up with a couple of squeaks and clicks, begging for pets.

In the last week, he had gotten familiar with almost every person living in this building. Every man, woman, and child among us was happy to give him pets, without exception. I was just happy to be the one who gave him a home.

The apartment we came up to was a family-sized one, meant for a couple with three or four grown children. We had eight people housed there, plus the yarrb. It was a good thing we were, ah, exceedingly comfortable with each other. At the moment, though, only a couple of the others were home. Sarah, our soft and pale Enchanter, was predictably picking up the pieces from something she had been tinkering on. Her scales had a couple of smudges on them, this one must have been entertaining. Wonder of wonders, she noticed us coming in. "Oh, hey guys! How did it go?"

Lucy was headed to the shower to get the last bits of gunk off from where the monitors and crystals had been attached to her, so I was the one to answer. "Let's call the news 'mixed'. Do you know when Whitney and Emily are going to be home? Need to get your three heads together on an issue."

"That's a bit of a concerning combination. Emily's going to be back in about 45 minutes, she went to get supplies for her kit. Whitney is with her in case they find something unexpected." Emily, the Kitsune Nurse, was our party healer. Paramedic-certified Delvers were unbelievably rare (so, for that matter, were Delver-certified paramedics), and she frequently worked hideously complicated cases in the Curse Annex. If any of our team had the immediate knowledge of the ins and outs of a rare Status-based pregnancy delay, it would be her. Whitney, our mighty Berserker, also happened to hold a much more conventional degree in kinesthesiology. There was a chance she might have a random detail Emily missed, and would need to be in on the application regardless.

Sarah? Well, when you have a magic problem, an Enchanter couldn't hurt the solution.

Our tiny Huntress, Gloria, was set up in the sleeping room, coordinating our social media presence and our menus with equal ease. She, of course, heard me come in. "Jay, welcome back. Lucy's face said it wasn't the best trip you've ever made, but I can wait on that. Anything I need to know right now?"

"Couple of dietary notes, and the whole process might go longer than expected. Long story, there."

She accepted the packet with a raised eyebrow. "I can look this over in a bit. Something you need to know. The Guild Hall is not leaving you alone. While you two were out, you got five different messages from five separate Guilds asking for you to come to something this Saturday morning, ten thirty at the Officer's Hall."

"Five of them? Sounds serious. Which ones?"

She began looking through the messages. "

Stormbreakers

,

Mallus Malice

,

Caballeros, Guns and Ships

, and

Pantheon

."

"Huh, that's a lot of smaller ones. What could they be up to?"

"They didn't say, Jay. I know you said we're taking a break until Monday, but this sounds important."

"Alright. Reply to them, tell them I'll be there. Probably either alone or with Nibbles, you all still need to rest." Nibbles, on cue, padded in and rubbed against my leg. I got the hint and gave his shoulders a scratch, right between the spines. "Do you know where Amber and Paige went off to?"