Chapter 20 : Early Evening
"...Stop fidgeting, Mica." mumbled Anton as he slowly shifted the tiny dental mirror back and forth as he looked over the backsides of Mica's teeth in her top jaw.
Holding her mouth open for him, Mica had a miserable looking expression on her face as she tightly closed her eyes and went rigid in an attempt to remain motionless.
Having already been introduced to the Whitehead gag and subsequently saved from having to experience it due to Kianna's intervention, the grateful kiochi had resolved to be as compliant as she could in order to both avoid having to wear the sinister looking item, and to make sure that the dark elf's efforts weren't in vain.
Although she was making an effort to remain as still as possible, her discomfort was made obvious by her tail, which continued to coil aimlessly in the open space behind her body, and her wings, which kept faintly quivering in unease.
"Much better..." soothed Anton as he used the metallic depressor to gently shift Mica's long, thin tongue to the side so that he could then go over the teeth on her bottom jaw.
Though he was loath to admit it, Anton had the misfortune of being intimately more familiar with the teeth of Infernals, and the damage they could do, than he'd ever like to have been. And as such he was surprised to find that unlike the teeth of every other Infernal he had seen so far, the shinoccubi actually had a set that was nearly identical to a humans. In fact, the only obvious differences that he could see were that Mica's fangs were both longer and sharper looking than what a humans would normally be, but only just slightly so. Funnily enough, the dark elves actually possessed fangs that were even longer, and Anton couldn't help but find it comical to think that both Kianna and Fiona had teeth that would give them a bite that was far more formidable than this actual Infernals.
"Hm, alright then, you're done." said Anton as he stepped back and turned around towards the counter "You can close your mouth now."
Mica sighed in relief as she immediately closed her mouth and began to run her tongue between her teeth as she re-moistened her lips. Keeping her eyes on Anton she made a conscious effort to try and ignore the watching dark elf that was standing just to her left.
"...You know....It's so weird that you actually have a tail." mused Fiona as she lounged against the vanities counter-top and followed the length of Mica's tail back to where it sprouted out from the base of her spine "...It literally just pops right out above your ass."
"Wha? Excuse me!? It's not weird!" declared Mica as she turned to the dark elf in affront and coiled her tail in close around her body "Shut up!"
Standing with his back to them, Anton chuckled at the exchange as he set about cleaning his dental instruments with alcohol and laying them out to dry.
"All Infernals have tails, though shinoccubi are the only one of the cubi that have a sharp spade and barbs." he explained as he glanced back at Mica "So I suppose that does make them a little weird."
Mica grimaced and hunched her shoulders in irritation.
"...Cubi....Cube-bye....That's such a weird name." mumbled Fiona as she gazed at Mica's small but sharply pointed horns that although covered in a fine layer of dust were still shining as they reflected the glow from the bathroom lights "Where does that even come from?"
"It actually started out as a derogatory slang term for concubines." explained Anton "And when the demons created the original cubi, they named them that in an effort to degrade them."
"Really? Damn!" laughed Fiona "Well that sucks for you!"
"Shut up!" cried Mica as she glared at the dark elf and then turned to Anton "That's not true!"
"...I'm sorry tell you this, Mica. But I'm afraid it is." said Anton as he grinned and shook his head.
"So how did the demons even create them anyway?" asked Fiona "I thought only Gods could make new races?"
"They didn't create us!" exclaimed Mica as she spread her wings out wide over her head "Nobody created us!"
"Well, technically they didn't create them so much as they bred them into existence." explained Anton as he ignored Mica's outburst and glanced to his side to check on the small swirling mana vortex that was sitting on the counter-top to his left "What they did was breed imps and cambions to enslaved demons to make hybrids. They then cultivated those hybrids into a race of sex slaves they named conccubi, which is a bastardization of the word concubine. You'd probably know the conccubi better as the incubus and succubus. It's from them that through selective breeding, the demons went and created other varieties, including the shinoccubi. To make things easier they then gave these new races the collective name of cubi. And now at this point there is at least a half a dozen distinctly different kinds of cubi. And honestly, I really wouldn't be surprised if the demons weren't still working on creating new ones."
"Huh, wild... So wait, they just bred them until they existed?" questioned Fiona as she gave Mica a sideways look "How does that work?"
"It's not that difficult really. You just breed for certain traits." explained Anton "It's essentially the exact same process that was used to create different domesticated animals, like the various dog breeds. Only in this case it was done with people."
"Oh, okay... So is that why you hate being called a dog?" asked Fiona as she tilted her head to get a better look at Mica's face "Because you were basically bred like one?"
"Shut the fuck up!" cried Mica as she arched her tail up and over her head "I wasn't bred like anything, dammit! Don't talk about me like that!"
"What's going on in here!?" asked Kianna as she came into the room while carrying a set of towels and bathrobes in her arms.
"Mica's in denial." explained Fiona as she smirked at the fuming kiochi "She doesn't like the fact that her ancestors were little demon pet projects!"
"Pet projects?" questioned Kianna.
"Shut, up!" growled Mica "Stop talking about shit you don't even know about!"
"We do know about it though, Mica." said Anton as he packed away his stethoscope "There are still plenty of people alive today that are old enough to remember when the cubi were first created. And even without their testimony it would still be possible to follow your ancestry through DNA. You're an established race now, but your ancestors were intentionally bred from hybrids. You may not like that idea, but your opinion isn't going to change reality, so you might as well just accept it."
Mica went to argue but stopped short and hung her head as she sighed in frustration.
"Why are you guys still bullying her!?" exclaimed Kianna as she dropped the stack of towels and bathrobes on the counter-top "Just leave her alone!"
"Nobodies "bullying" anybody!" declared Fiona "I was just asking questions and she didn't like the answers."
"You wouldn't like them either!" seethed Mica as she glared at the dark elf "How would you like it if people were saying that your kind was nothing but somebodies fucking breeding project!? Huh!?"
