The New Chimera

Lilith sighed in relief as she finished the last of her preparations. It was only around fifteen minutes before her meeting with the world leaders, and to say she was nervous would be an understatement. As much as Kali tried to drill into her that she was someone really important now, it had never quite sunk in, and the prospect of basically telling so many powerful people what to do was daunting.

She settled into the chair she had made, and Mae began to snake tendrils of flesh down through it and into the floor. The room was designed on top of a large, empty space meant for storing her considerable extra mass with Eldritch Abomination, with small channels reaching through the whole room to make sure just about anything was within a couple of feet of her flesh at all times.

It was grotesque, but it was effective. It allowed her to take advantage of the massive amount of extra HP she would get from her mass, while mitigating the downside of having all that mass out, namely the fact that it would hamper movement to an extreme degree. She was basically tethered to the chair, but she shouldn’t actually need to even stand up to deal with any of problems that might arise.

For this meeting, anyway. With everyone as weak as they were at the moment, she should be able to handle them even if they all rushed her at once. The only real threats at the meeting would be the other Perfect Chimeras in attendance. Kali had informed her that the system’s ‘catch up’ experience boost scaled according to how strong one was previously, and the other Perfect Chimeras were strong. Still, Lilith had a month’s head start and several rather unfair abilities on them, so she should be fine. Probably.

It took roughly ten minutes to finish getting all her mass out. Getting the large chamber filled was the fast part. She had left a lot of wiggle room for when her stock of mass would inevitably grow further, so putting all of the few thousand kilograms she had into the chamber wasn’t a big deal. The main time-sink was filling all of the small tunnels with tendrils in a way that wasn’t massively uncomfortable. Once that was done, she nodded at satisfaction at her nearly tripled HP, and settled down to wait.

After a tense few minutes, the mass teleport Kali set up went off, transporting a large variety of the world’s most powerful people right in front of her. And, it was at this point, that Kali began her broadcast, sending a live video of the meeting to anyone and everyone not in this room, translated into their native language. And, for those that were asleep or busy, she arranged for the video to be available once they were done.

Apparently, she also intended to upload it to the internet by the end of the day. Kali wanted to make sure this was seen, that everyone knew what went down here.

 Lilith gave them a few moments to read the prompt they would have been given upon entering her dungeon and told them to take a seat. She wasn’t particularly surprised when several people refused, so she put on her best displeased voice and asked again for them to sit. Elenoa, of course, sassed her, asking for a reason. Kali had instructed her to not take any of this sort of thing from anyone, So Lilith tried making a slight threat.

This time, Elenoa jumped straight to violence, instructing Winston to “take her out”. Kali had briefly explained the temperaments of Winston and Isa to her before the meeting, and Winston seemed particularly troublesome; Kali had chosen him as a Perfect Chimera for his strong sense of loyalty and duty. Unfortunately, Elenoa had saved his life after a particularly nasty injury in the war, and that same sense of duty led him to devote himself to helping her and her faction out.

And the attack he let off hurt. Mae immediately clamped down control of the nerves, preventing her from flinching, and the attack hit. Even with her defensive stats (which were over twenty thousand with the bonus from Pride’s Palace), the attack did almost one hundred damage, and Winston still had a sizeable chunk of Mana left. Of course, defense had diminishing returns the larger it was than the incoming attack, but it was still impressive.

Mae let a chunk of her body be blown off, and then shifted some of the mass away from the lump below them and reabsorbed the pieces that fell. It wasn’t necessary to have any of her body be blown off like that, but Mae apparently figured it would be good as an intimidation tactic, so Lilith let her do as she pleased.

Lilith then let a non-lethal Geas loose on Winston, fueling it with her own stats instead of Worship, as she wasn’t hurting for any of them. She had some limited control over the message given as well, so he ended up receiving something like this:

At this point, his maximum HP was around three thousand, so it was overkill, but she felt that a show of force here was warranted. Winston, likely thinking she was using some sort of magic to trick him, chose to remain standing. The moment he did, nearly all of his HP vanished, and he received another Geas.

Winston sat. Elenoa looked like she was going to try something, but Isa wisely made her sit as well. Isa was, apparently, only loosely aligned with the Protectorate; she was always looking after her wants first, and her number one desire just so happened to align with the Protectorate’s needs.

And for her, that desire was to fight. The defenses around Haven were weak in the beginning, so Kali had made a Perfect Chimera out of someone that would be suitable for near-constant fighting. And, it had worked. Isa was half the reason the cities of Haven hadn’t simply fallen apart by now.

And so, the meeting continued. Elenoa, of course, tried to make trouble the moment she opened the floor for questions. It was nothing too upsetting or even anything that bad or unreasonable until she tried to threaten Lilith.

Kali had already told Lilith what Elenoa’s plans were, but that didn’t make it hurt any less. Still, this was an opportunity for her. She let her eyes rest on Gabriel for a moment and let some of the rage she was feeling show in her disposition.

And, to her slight surprise, she was furious. She hadn’t been truly angry in…a long time, but this did the trick. She hated the fact that her loved ones were being used against her, people who were uninvolved in all of this until Elenoa decided that their rights were invalid, simply because they were close to Lilith.

As expected, Elenoa picked up on her movement and had Winston look into it. Winston had the ability to rip open just about anything, so opening up Gabriel’s pocket dimension was well within his abilities.

And, just as she’d hoped, Winston forced Gabriel’s space open, depositing the hostages unceremoniously on the ground. Lilith waved her hand for effect, activating a teleporter trap she had designed for the occasion. It was connected to one of her flesh tendrils, and she was able to manipulate it to catch only the people she wanted. It deposited them in a room deep within the dungeon, where a powerful sleep trap instantly activated, putting them out of commission for the next few hours, giving her more than enough time to deal with the situation at hand.

The rest of the meeting went as smoothly as Lilith could have hoped for. She made sure to place a Watch on any potential troublemakers, including Elenoa, Baern, Winston, anyone from the Society, and a few of the less scrupulous leaders from Earth.

When the meeting was over, Lilith opened the floor for questions. She had a rather pleasant talk with Gabriel, and met with a few world leaders, but the most interesting bit came later. Isa had been hovering about the area, and once Lilith had finished talking with everyone, approached. She was a tall woman, approaching nearly eight feet tall, and every inch of her seemed as packed with muscle as it could get. Her skin was tanned, and she kept her black hair short. Lilith couldn’t quite place what species she was originally, but that didn’t really matter anyway.

“Hey, newbie.” Isa said casually. “Name’s Isa, heard of me?”

Lilith nodded. “Of course.”

Isa looked past Lilith, locking eyes with Kali. “And I suppose you were the old lady who changed me, right?” She said. “I’d been meaning to thank you if I ever saw you again. Funny to think that you’ve been right there all this time and I didn’t even know.”

Kali gave her a smile. “Couldn’t let it get out until now, sorry. I’m glad to hear you’re happy about it, though. I figured as much, but it’s good to hear from the person herself.”

Isa nodded, then focused on Lilith again. “I’m going to cut to the chase. I want a fight. Nothing major, just a friendly bout to test your mettle. Not now, though, I want some time to get back up to full strength.”

Lilith frowned. “How long are you thinking?”

Isa shrugged. “I dunno. Month or two? I don’t know how long this is going to take.”

Lilith looked to Kali, who nodded, then looked back to Isa. “That’s acceptable.”

“Good. How can I contact you?”

“Here, put in your phone number.” Kali said, handing her phone over to Isa. “Give me a text and I’ll get the two of you in contact. Oh, and feel free to just text me whenever. I’m always up for a chat.”

Isa raised an eyebrow but entered her number anyway. “Alright then. Don’t expect much random chatting, though.”

“Yeah, I figured, just thought I’d put that out there.” Kali said, taking her phone back. “Anyway, you need anything else or can we send you home now?”

“Yeah, I’m good. I’m itching to go level up anyway, so go ahead. Later!”

Lilith and Kali said goodbye, and then Kali sent Isa back, before turning to Lilith. “Alright, you wanna go wake everyone up?”

Lilith nodded. “Yup. What are you going to do?”

“I’m going to go keep watch over things. Come say hi when you’re done, alright?”

“Can do.” Lilith replied, then turned to the gathered people. “I’m sending you all back now.” She said. “Remember what I said earlier.” She waved a hand and the room emptied, then she went to go reunite with her family and friends.

Lilith waited anxiously in the room as the occupants started to stir. Kali had taken the opportunity to reconnect Lilith and Carmen, as the latter would have fallen unconscious during the process anyway, so she felt it was best to get it out of the way when during a time she was already asleep.

Everyone woke up at close to the same time, and she clapped her hands in relief. “Good, everyone’s awake.” She took the opportunity to look over everyone, checking their statuses to make sure they weren’t damaged.

That didn’t seem to be the case, but Lilith decided to ask them anyway, only for Judy to near-instantly flip it back on her. That was to be expected, even with Carmen’s assurances, she had essentially vanished for a month or two, so Lilith made sure they knew that she was fine before continuing.

Carmen seemed to be processing their memories, so Lilith continued catching up with everyone else. She made sure that they were all fine with staying with her, and it seemed like they were all content with that for the time being.

She was also finally able to undo the contract Carmen had forced Alex into, and scrub any lingering effects of it from her. She was a bit surprised at how readily Alex chose to stay as she was, though. And…what was she going to say? Ah well, Alex would probably tell her when she was ready.

“Are you kidding me?!” Carmen exclaimed, interrupting Lilith’s train of thought.

Lilith wasn’t sure what Carmen was talking about, and it turned out to be about getting into a relationship with Kali. Lilith was afraid that something like this was probably going to be coming – Carmen was always…opinionated when it came to Lilith dragging her feet about…anything, really.

And she wanted Lilith to introduce everyone to Mae and Nuwa. She had been getting around to it, but Lilith figured she’d check up on everyone first. Once that was out of the way, Lilith left Carmen to show everyone around, and went to go find Kali.

On her way back to the Core room, she stopped by the room where Siph was currently training and let her know that everyone had woken up. Her mother had chosen to use the time she was waiting to level up, as opposed to just sitting around and doing nothing.

Lilith didn’t actually have to go down in person, due to her mental link, but she just preferred talking in-person. It was like calling the phone of someone who was in the same house as you – it just felt better to go find them.

Siph happily left to reunite with her spouses, and Lilith was soon back inside her Core room. She opened the door to Kali’s house, and began making her way back to her room. Inside, she found Kali sitting in their bed, watching TV.

“Oh, Lilith,” Kali said, pausing the TV, “did you finish showing everyone around already?” She patted the bed next to her, motioning for Lilith to sit.

Lilith sat. “Carmen’s doing it. But…I thought you were busy making sure there weren’t any problems?” Lilith asked.

“Yes, but that’s basically just sitting there staring into space. I might as well have some background noise.”

Lilith frowned, looking at the TV. “Why a nature documentary, though? I don’t think there’s much they could teach you.”

Kali held up a finger. “A cryptozoology documentary, thank you very much. I think it’s entertaining to watch them freak out over “evidence” that half the time isn’t even real.”

“So, the other half is?”

“Oh yeah. Blocking magic from Earth had some weird side-effects, and one of those was the appearance of Cryptids. It wasn’t realistic for the Protectorate to scrub all evidence of them, so they left some of the least convincing stuff behind. The problem was getting worse and worse as Earth’s population grew, too. Man, I wish you could have been at some of those meetings. Elenoa and Baern were freaking out, and it was hilarious.”

“Right.” Lilith said awkwardly. “So, uh, we need to talk.”

Kali grew serious. “Alright, what about? “

Lilith blushed. “Us. Um, I think…that it’d be alright if we, uh, officially start going out, you know? That is, if you want to.”

Kali froze briefly and then squealed in excitement, throwing her arms around Lilith. “Yes! Yes yes yes!”

She quickly released the hug, grasping Lilith’s hands and placing them between the two of them. “Alright, let’s decide on some boundaries, so I know what not to do. I’m fine with just about anything, so don’t worry about me. We’ll take it as slow as you need, alright?”

I’m ready for whatever mistress is ready for. Don’t worry about me. Mae said.

“Uh, right.” Lilith said, face growing even more red. “Um, you’ll have to check with Carmen and Nuwa for what they’re ready for, but I’m not prepared to…go all the way, but I think other than that I’m ready for most things. Like holding hands or…” She trailed off, working up her courage. “Kissing.”

Kali grinned impishly. “Like this?” She said, darting in and giving Lilith a quick peck on the lips before withdrawing. “Sorry, I couldn’t resist. You’re just so adorable when you’re like this.”

Lilith, who was at this point blushing about as hard as she could, nodded. “Y-yeah, like that. That…was my first, you know?”

“But I kissed Carmen before, surely you remember that.” Kali argued.

“Well, yeah, but…that wasn’t exactly me, you know? Anyway, that’s…all I really needed to talk about. I should get back –”

“No, you don’t!” Kali said, cutting her off and pulling her closer. “I’m sure Carmen’s got it covered. You can’t just enter into a relationship like that and waltz off, you’re going to spend a little quality time with your girlfriend, alright?”

Fighterman481

I cut out the Isa fight because I felt it didn't really...make sense here as much as it would to either come later or be cut entirely. I guess we'll see how I'm feeling about it at the end of the upcoming arc (note from the future - ended up being cut entirely).

Anyway, that's the main change here, so, as always, thanks for reading!