Becoming Monsters: Tidbits 14

Becoming Monsters is the creation and property of Ai Loves, setting used with permission.

—

Chapter 14: Heads or Tails

Todd and May walked slowly back to the dormitories. This evening had not exactly been the best, but the quiet was a nice change of pace. They were out on a public sidewalk, but nobody was really around. Either in class, eating, or back in their own rooms. Not here. May was uncharacteristically quiet. Her walk, though attractive and eye catching as it always was in the waking world, wasn't directed. She wasn't trying to seduce him in particular.

Todd also noticed one more thing. Her long tail was wrapped around his waist. It wasn't tight, she wasn't pulling him close with it, but it was there. The only time he felt it squeeze, like a belt pulled too far, was when his steps went one or two feet too far away from her. Even to someone as oblivious as Todd could be, the meaning was fairly obvious. Even more so when he stepped closer to reach out for her hand.

May's return grip was rather tight. He'd put up with a bit of pain if it meant she got some comfort.

They got up the stairs, into Suite 222. The door clicked shut, and Todd found his arms full. Full of a sobbing Succubus, clinging to him as if he were the last solid thing on Earth. "Shh, May, it's okay. We took a loss today, it isn't the end of the world."

Her hands clenched harder, her head shook. Tears still streamed down her face and into his shirt. "My head hurts where he hit me, but that's not it. What am I going to do, Todd? I've been with Alpha Omega since we started. Since this school opened."

"So... a year ago. You're a Sophomore, right?"

"They... they're all I had. My parents give me money, but they never understood me. Not like Wendy and Aria and... and all the guys who kept me Fed." Her words drifted into wails. She cried like a lost child. Like someone who was at their end. "It wasn't even worth going home this summer. Family went to Vegas, I stayed here and partied with my people. I can't go back. All my friends, all my study partners. They know if they help me it's the end for them, too."

"Not all of them, May. In case you forgot, you've got at least four of us right here. Probably more, soon as we get a chance to sit down and talk like people."

"Really? You think the Weasel is going to help make up for things?"

"Now you're just being catty."

"No, that's Ghata's job." She smiled a small bit at her own pun. To Todd, it was a triumph.

"Maybe Martin. Definitely Tiny and his bunch. Maybe we're not one of the big Orders. And maybe I don't care. Pretty sure the others won't mind keeping you Fed, I know I don't."

"You would say that. Still shy around the 'sex' word? Come on. Admit it. You want to take me and pound me into your bed until my screams can be heard from my old dorm room."

Todd REALLY wished he had more Mana right about then. Alas, three deeply satisfying orgasms would have to do for today. "Not the point, May. I mean, it's perfectly true, but not the point. Life isn't going to be the same, I don't think, but it's not over."

"But..." her tears were still flowing, but at least those sobs had calmed. "But what if this... all of this... doesn't work out? They won't take me back."

"I, for one, hope it does. But you know, if it doesn't? I'm sure you'll do fine." They were sitting on the couch. She leaned into him, still clinging, still crying, but the tears were slowing. Calming, bit by bit. Todd remembered something. "May, you said you need to Feed twice a day on average to stay healthy. I only know of one today, are you doing well there?"

"Oh, that. Yeah, I am. I was riding high when I got to you, and I did Feed again after you. I'll be fine even if I have a dry spell for a couple of days. Rather not have a dry spell, but that doesn't have anything to do with feeding."

Todd's penis agreed with her. Todd's head had to tell it to calm down, this wasn't the time. She needed a friend, not a dicking. That was why, about twenty minutes later, the others arrived to find them still sitting together on the couch, leaning on each other as she calmed. Jem, predictably, was the first in the room. Spotting them, immediately looking at their positions and smelling the lack of sex in the air. She paused and shook her head in disbelief. Because really, getting left alone with a Greater Succubus for over a half hour and NOT doing anything is a bit of a stretch.

Immediately behind her were Song and Ghata, followed by the boys... and Martin. He seemed nervous to be here. To be fair, even besides the room being rather full, he was the odd one out. Two groups of friends were here, seated on the couch and the floor or leaning against a wall. He was a member of neither. "So... ah, this is awkward. You all don't look exactly joyous."

"Not your fault, man." Tiny, the Gargoyle, shook his head. "The information was good. It's what we found that wasn't. We all got three points. And bruises, but that wasn't you."

"Bruises? When you were working together?"

From the couch, arm still around May, Todd filled him in. "Protogen by the name of Lucas. Working with Alpha Omega. Dude's a freaking

monster

, he wrecked us like he was swatting flies."

"Lucas? Heard of him, really shy guy. Private. Goes to class, goes to his room, studies and eats. Got no friends that I know of." Martin's nasally New York accent was doing the assessment no services.

"That knowledge is out of date, I'm afraid. Like I told the others, those blades of his made me see more stars than even I'm used to." The Ravenfolk in the corner was rubbing the back of his head with one wing. "Defeating him in a fight is going to take a combined and concerted effort."

Chester, making room in a considerate way, was a floating mouth and nothing else at the moment. "Yes, but as we seek to make lemonade from this particular lemon, is the juice worth the squeeze even before we seek sugar for it?"

"You know, believe it or not, we're still

college students

." Song was the voice of reason here, clarifying Chester's cryptic wisdom. "Defeating Lucas is probably possible for us, but I don't think it's going to be worth the time and effort to do it."

Absolute silence fell on the room. Right. That. Grades, degrees, education. Not knights errant. Despite one of them being a Knight. Todd sighed and stood, to May's clear disappointment. "That's a really good point. Let me get my notebook, let's see if we can get some actual studying arrangements together. There's nine of us, so I know we have to have a good spread of majors and specialties. Games and Leagues have to come second place to passing our classes." One pencil and a pad of graph paper later, and Todd was doing his best to chart out who was good at what. Who would be in which classes together. Who (like Martin) was willing to admit they needed help.

Corey pulled out a deck of cards, somehow able to grip them with dextrous wingtips, and anyone who wasn't answering Todd's questions was either playing or watching card games. Rather competitive ones, it must be said. Chester reacted worse to getting unexpectedly trumped in one particularly critical spades hand than he did to getting knocked across the rooftop by Lucas. It was hard to tell he was mad (and not in his usual way), but his responses to questions suddenly became monosyllabic for the next minute or so.

Martin... despite everything, he'd done them a solid. And he was good at poker. It was enough to at least let him exist in the group's vicinity until they could double check what he'd said. Seven out of the eight observers seemed more than willing to give him a chance. May, in particular, couldn't exactly throw stones about infidelity. The others at least felt it deserved investigation.

Jem? She wasn't as ready to forgive. While the others played and chilled and planned, she excused herself to her room. The way she did gave the impression of fatigue, that she needed to rest. The reality was not quite that simple. She was certainly tired, but actual sleep was about third or fourth place in her mind. A rapidly-cast augurie about the wisdom of assisting Martin revealed nothing of note. Whether the spell failed or whether there was no wisdom to be had, she couldn't know.

Jem considered her options as the noise in the common area began to wind down. Martin needed to be nearby in order to target properly with most of her spells, and while she could hear his voice that wouldn't last for long. A simple truth-telling might tell what he was feeling in the moment, but might not reveal what he was thinking the night he cheated on his girlfriend and got caught. She didn't begrudge him the sex. What had her mad was the broken oath. An expectation of loyalty that was defied. A whisper of power, a request of her Patroness the Moon Above, and she had her request. As expected of the Waning Crescent, the communion asked much of her. A demand to bring things to a new start, whether that meant a relationship ended or a bond reforged.

With no immediate means of directly assessing his guilt, that meant that whatever she wanted to do to him would have to be contingent on what her investigation into the evening found. Along with his current emotions. The wordless question floated in her mind, the urge. He wanted to get back together with his girl. The issue was if he deserved it. She had to know. With what amounted to a mental handshake, she suddenly had two tasks before her. The first would take moments. The second would take days. To perform both would give Jem her answers and bring the world further into its proper course. To fail either was not to be tolerated. She stood, and strode back out to the common area. Todd and May were already gone, probably asleep. Chester was nowhere to be seen, but Martin was still there making light conversation with the others as they wrapped up one last game.

He seemed to feel her eyes on him. The Weasel turned to face the Amazon, looking up into her hard expression. "Heh, thought you were asleep. What's up?"

"Martin. I need to cast a spell upon you. A truth-finding. It comes with a compulsion, to make right what is wrong. Answer my three questions, and tomorrow I start in on what you asked of us. Fail or lie, and I ensure your lady knows you do not find her worthy of the truth. Understood?"

He nodded, visibly swallowing hard. "I'd do anything to get back with Megan. Gimme your worst."

The others turned to look, recognizing that what was going on amounted to much more than a game. Jem nodded at the Weasel and invoked her power. A spell she had not cast in a while. Just one time in this last week. A favorite, one that let her catch liars out and bring them to task. The light in the room faded, the pale gray radiance of the lunar glow replacing it.

And how did that one turn out, Jem? You get what you expected when you began that spell?

She took a breath. The first one would be important. "Knowing that your relationship was intended to be exclusive, and that faithlessness would hurt Megan, did you have sex with another woman?"

Martin's shoulders slumped. Everyone in the room knew the answer to this question. That wasn't the point. He was forced this time to say it again. To confirm it. To feel that pain again as he laid his soul bare. To publicly admit wrongdoing. "Yes, I did. No two ways about it, I cheated."

Jem nodded. "Do you sincerely regret this action, and intend to make right all the of damage that this has done to the utmost of your ability?"

His eyes closed as he considered her words. More than an admission, this required action. Whatever it took, and there was no way to know just what that would be. Fixing things was always harder than breaking them. "I do. Megan's worth it, no matter how tough."

"Last one, and I hope you mean what you say. For both of your sakes. Do you swear to never repeat this transgression, regardless of Megan's response?"

His answer came quickly. "The past couple of days have been the worst of my life since the Change. Being without her is not worth all the riches and women in the world. I swear it, I'll never cheat on her again!"

There was a hush in the room. "It is no longer for you or I to judge the value of your words; the Moon will see through any deception or reservation. Let her light show how much you truly want this." The oppressive pressure of anticipation lay upon them under the wan gray light. Suddenly, it shifted. Wavered. And then, it was blue.

Martin was, it would appear, serious about wanting to make up for what he'd done.

Tiny and Cory, Song and Ghata, all congratulated him for his determination. Martin, for his own sake, seemed stunned. No matter how convinced a person is of their own desire, nobody is a hundred percent sure of what magic might reveal about them. The doubts and fears they hold, deep down below conscious thought.

Jem merely nodded. She had her mission, now. He had proven himself worth putting out the effort to help. Begging off fatigue, she went to bed.

Unlike Todd and May, who were already fast asleep. The Succubus walked into his mental classroom to find Todd staring at the whiteboard. The notes on it this time were not mathematical equations. At least... not entirely. She spotted the names of the group of friends, numbers and notes beside each. What looked like a weekly schedule, spanning the board top to bottom, scribbled densely with more notes.

"Todd? What's this? Thought I'd be walking into another math lesson."

Todd looked over. Unlike the skintight and revealing clothes she wore in the light of day, May was in loose khakis and dark blue hoodie. "The equations weren't on my mind, I guess. This is the result of all those notes I was taking about our schedules, majors, and needs. Honestly, the quadratic equation is easier, but I think I managed to work out something approaching optimal."

May looked the board over. It was incredibly complex, but given how many inputs it had, what was there was a work of art. Scheduled tightly, sometimes to within five minutes. Constant and consistent. It would let them help each other, maximize their learning and leveling. Strings on magnets denoted attachment points where they would be helping each other, making it look almost like a spider web. She looked at her own more closely. It took advantage of a lot she hadn't thought of, often overlapping activities the others couldn't due to her being able to stream her classes. Every moment of every day was mapped, even in dreams when she and Todd would be able to study together.

May's hands came to her pockets. She slumped a bit. "It's incredible, Todd, but unfortunately it's not going to work. Only thing you can do with this one is shove it into a spare room around here somewhere to use as a reference later."

He turned sharply towards the lovely woman who just delivered that bit of bad news. "What do you mean? I've been checking this back and forth!"

"Two things. One's obvious, one not so much. I can start with the obvious one. What happens when more League things pop up? Or if one of us gets sick? Or has something unexpected pop up? You have all of this packed so tightly that it could all unwind if it comes even slightly off the rails."

He smacked his forehead with his palm. "Oh. Yeah, that is a problem. What's the other one? Can't imagine it gets bigger than that."

May looked back at the board, this time at the five-minute slices of time marked "Give Buff" on Todd's own daily chart. "Oh, it's probably worse. This might work for a few days or a week before we start to crack. Thing is? It doesn't let us LIVE. Come on, Todd, nobody likes having every second of every day be strictly on a clock! There's no fun in here, no joy. It would be absolutely miserable. Even the sex is put into tiny pieces of rushed time. That's no way to live!"

He looked back at the whiteboard, and this time he tried to imagine what actually going through it all would be like. It... wasn't pretty. Todd knew he'd be exhausted and miserable every day of the week before he got through reading three fourths of Monday. "Oh... you're right, May. It all just... looked so beautiful. It fit together so well. Even knowing this one would only be good for this semester."

She walked over and hugged him. "You love math, Todd, but people aren't equations. We can't really be reduced to inputs and outputs like machines for very long."

He sighed, but May could feel there was more there. In that space that didn't exist, he cried a bit. Not shaking or sobbing, even if someone else could see they might not know, but she could feel the tears on the cloth of her shirt. She could hear the slight hitch in his breath. "I can't let something like today happen to you all if the stakes are high, May. What happens if Lucas or Bradley come after us for real?"

"We'll figure it out. This just isn't the solution."

As the two of them shared a moment, the dreams of another were no less active. No less turbulent, either. Jennifer Lyons, called Jem, knew when the dreams she had were going to be rough. Those times, she found herself to be Human again. Just barely over five feet tall, rail thin and mousy. She had on her old, ratty pajamas, too. As she walked on with bare feet, she realized that the gray stone she stepped on was not comfortable. It wasn't cutting her, but it was painfully rough and harder than it seemed should be possible.

She came to a statue of onyx and silver. Upon a low pedestal of the same stone she was treading, a disk seven feet across. The size of her Amazonian body. A crescent of silver showed, the rest polished black onyx. It was immediately obvious what was causing this dream, and she sat before the statue of the Moon to meditate. The message did not take long to come to her.

We cannot judge what we cannot know, but we know your intent. This evening's magic was cast with the hope of placing a finger upon the scales of truth, and for that you will be judged. The Balance must be maintained.

Her eyes snapped open, gazing in dread upon the cold and unfeeling lunar disk before her. She felt a twist inside of her soul, the consequences of her actions. What it might yet mean, she did not know. Only that it was important, and that she likely would not enjoy the experience. Jem's eyes snapped open again, this time back in reality. She felt shaky, a headache nagged at the back of her head, a cold sweat upon her skin. It was barely past midnight, according to the clock she'd hung on the wall. She had not been asleep long, though it was long enough that she could not hear any noise from outside of her door. She got out of bed and went for some water. It would be a while before she could sleep again.

Of course, she wasn't the only person awake on campus. In the Admin Building, there were a couple more lights on than might be expected. The conference room table had six people at it. Three Humans, one Bat, an Otter, and one truly odd person indeed. The last member of the little group was significantly larger than the others, being both nearly nine feet tall if he'd been standing while also being nearly twice as muscular as the rest. Half of his body was void black, the other bright white. Even if you didn't know who and what he was, he'd stand out in almost any room. Knowing those did not lessen the impact at all.

Michael Deleon. Nephilim, Warrior both spiritual and physical, and both the founder and leader of Alpha Omega. And still a student, but nobody in that room had any doubt that this was strictly a technicality. When he spoke, his voice was cultured and compelling. "A midnight meeting is unusual, sir. Other than Mr. Neil, of course," he nodded at the Bat, "but I feel that is not the point. What is going on?"

Professor Ruddertail spoke up. "You are correct, this is not normal. I called this meeting at the only time we had available, but it is urgent. Mr. Deleon, several members of your Order participating in this evening's Development League event coordinated to interfere with others outside of the scope of the game, and in doing so caused a number of injuries. In particular, Lucas Graves sent four students to the hospital, with concussions or broken bones."