The New Chimera

Lucas rolled over in bed, trying to get into a more comfortable position. Something was poking him, and it really wasn’t comfortable. But no matter which way he turned, there was always something that was just making things frustrating. So, in the end, he chose to sit up, yawning hugely as he rubbed his eyes.

“How long was I out?” He asked. His voice sounded a little different, but he wrote it off as just being some sort of morning voice.

“Lucas?!” Judy exclaimed, pausing the TV. “Are you OK?!”

“Yeah. Actually, I feel great, better than I have in years. But, seriously, how long was I asleep?”

“Three hours. But, um…” Judy floundered, not looking Lucas in the eyes. “I…um, I really don’t know how to tell you this. You should…probably go look in the mirror. Be careful on your way in, though.”

Lucas frowned. “I’m…OK, right?”

“You’re fine. You’re more than fine.” Vithi said. “Just…different.”

Lucas made his way to the bathroom, instinctively tucking his wings in so as not to hit them on the door as he made his way through.

His reflection…was not his own. Instead there was a girl who looked a lot like him. She had black hair that reached down to her lower back, bright blue eyes, and he could see bits of his mother in her face. But that was a side note, the real eye-catching things were the wings and tail; she had a set of angel’s wings and a devil’s spade-tipped tail. Hesitantly, he reached back and touched the tail, only to feel both his hand and the smooth surface of the tail. The girl in the mirror, of course, mirrored his movement.

She gingerly left the bathroom, walking back to the bad she had woken up on and sitting down. “This is…really bad.” She said. “How am I going to hide this?!”

She nearly jumped off the bed as a window appeared in the air in front of her.

That made things easier, but…why did she just get a window? She wasn’t supposed to be able to see her abilities without an identification spell, right?

“Lucas, are you listening?!” Judy was waving her hand in front of Lucas’s face. “You zoned out; you’re really worrying me!”

Lucas shook her head, snapping herself out of it. “I’m fine. I apparently have an ability that lets me see all of my abilities at any time? It gave me like this…window in front of me that I was reading. Apparently, I got a Skill that lets me suppress my Domains, so if I…” She briefly focused on using Suppression, and she felt her wings and tail suddenly vanish.

She also felt…weak, physically. Like she had instantly gone from a body that had been working out daily to one that hadn’t in months. “Handy, I suppose. Though, I feel kinda iffy now that I’ve done it. Don’t have as much energy and I feel like I’ve lost strength or something.” She said, undoing the suppression and smiling as she felt...normal again.

“Well, if you have any Traits that affect your physical strength then suppressing your Domains is going to do that. I don’t know how you would have any right now, but this whole situation is way out of the ordinary so I can’t say for sure.” Vithi leaned back in the chair she was in, rubbing her chin thoughtfully. “Anyway, you said you have a Trait that lets you look at your abilities? I’ve…never heard of something like that, does it tell you what Domain it’s from?”

“One called Perfect Chimera, if you’ve heard of it.”

Vithi lost her balance, falling to the floor as the chair toppled over. “Did you just say Perfect Chimera?!”

“Yeah, is that a big deal or something?”

“It’s kind of the biggest of all deals.” Vithi said, standing up and dusting herself off. “There are four Perfect Chimeras in all of recorded history, and they’re far and away the most powerful beings on the face of the planet. Perfect Chimeras have every Domain at once. Even ones that directly conflict with each other. As a result, they have the ability to gain a lot more power than anyone else and are…well, really important.”

“And…I’m one?”

“I…give me a moment.” She recited some sort of spell, presumably an identification spell from the chant. She waited, paling as she processed the information the spell fed her. “Yeah, you’re a Perfect Chimera alright. We need to go. Now.”

Judy began packing things into a suitcase that Lucas hadn’t noticed earlier. “On it, but…why?”

“Well, I’m pretty sure the making of a Perfect Chimera outputs enough raw magic to be traceable from a long way away. The Society probably already knows where we are and is on their way, so we need to leave. Perfect Chimera or not, Lucas isn’t going to be able to stand against them at this point, she’s too new to everything.”

Lucas was about to protest to the use of ‘she’, but found that, to her surprise, she just…didn’t care. In fact, she already seemed to be considering herself a girl, and she wasn’t sure she liked that feeling. She should care, right? She shouldn’t just…accept a huge change like this immediately, right?

She pondered that for a while until she was snapped out of it by Judy talking. “Vithi, can you mend Lucas’s clothes?” Judy said distractedly. “We want as little information about our whereabouts as possible leaking out and given that we could see that tail and those wings I’m assuming they’ve got some conspicuous holes.”

Vithi opened her mouth to speak, but Lucas, who had been checking the back of her clothes, beat her to it. “They’re…perfectly fine, actually. No holes or anything. Dunno how that happened but…”

“Oh, I have a Trait for it. Never mind.”

“Yeah, most magic transformation accounts for clothing.” Vithi said. “Shouldn’t be a big deal.”

“Handy, that.” Judy grunted, zipping up the suitcase. “Well, fortunately, this doesn’t change the plan too much. We were leaving this morning anyway and I’ve already gone through check-out, so we just need to get in the car and go. I’ve got a safe house we can go to.”

“You do?!” Lucas asked, shocked. “Since when?”

“We can talk in the car. I don’t want us to be overheard or caught on camera or something somehow.” Judy said. “Now, let’s go.”

Vithi went back into her lair, and Lucas and Judy went back to the car. Once they were on the road again, Judy began explaining. “It’s not exactly the kind of safehouse you’re thinking of, it’s just our cabin. I went ahead and stocked it up so we can lay low there for a while. We’ll need to find a way to get you to practice magic without being found, though. Vithi, what kind of place would we need to escape the Society’s notice?”

Repeat this to her for me, would you? Vithi asked. Basically, the answer is…I have no idea. I’ve been cooped up in that lamp for a long time, and I’m not privy to what the Society’s information network is like or what range they would be able to detect you from. The more in the middle of nothing we are, the better.

Lucas repeated the information, and Judy nodded. “Well, the cabin’s in the middle of the woods like three hundred miles from the next major town, so I think it’s as good as we can get on such short notice.”

The conversation ended there, and a tense silence filled the car for the next hour, Lucas and Judy keeping a close eye out for any suspicious activity from the cars around them.

And then, when they were on a particularly empty stretch of road, Vithi came out from her lair, materializing in the back seat of the car. “So…what are we going to call you now that you’re like this?” She asked.

Lucas paused. “Do we…have to change what you call me?”

“Yes.” Vithi said firmly. “They almost certainly know your name now and having someone so feminine-looking insist they be called Lucas is going to draw the attention of anyone looking for us right to you.”

Lucas frowned. Unfortunately, she made something of a good point, but she wasn’t quite convinced yet. “Aren’t we just going to be in the cabin all the time? Does it matter?”

“Eventually we’re going to have to leave, I think it’s best to get into the habit now. How does Lilith sound?”

“Look, Vithi, if he doesn’t want to –” Judy began to protest, but Lucas cut her off with a raised hand. Now that she was thinking about it, she…really wouldn’t mind being called Lilith. It was much better than “Lucy” or other similar alternatives, which all felt too similar to Lucas for her liking.

“I think…Lilith is acceptable.” She said. “And while we’re at it, you can use she and her for me, I suppose. I honestly…don’t mind as much as I thought I would, which I think is a little weird. Like…I dunno, the wings and tail all felt completely natural, and this sorta does too? I know I should be freaking out but I really just…don’t care.”

“Might be a result of your transformation?” Vithi ventured. “A lot of standard transformation spells have in them ways to make the transformed body feel normal, so you can actually, you know, use the new body parts instead of having to learn how on the fly. I don’t have the foggiest idea how what happened to you works, but that’s a possibility.”

“That makes sense.” Lilith agreed. “And I suppose it’s better than having dysphoria so…whatever, I guess.”

“That reminds me,” Judy said, “we’re going to need to get you a new wardrobe. I had Vithi grab some of your clothes before she left, but those…probably aren’t going to fit you now.”

“Shouldn’t be that much of an issue, actually.” Vithi said. “she should be able to unsuppress her Domains and then suppress them again and the clothes should resize themselves to fit her. Might need to get her some bras, though.”

“Oh. That’s…good to hear.” Judy said. “We’ll get you measured at some point so I can get some.”

“Um…” Lilith began sheepishly, scratching the back of her neck. She had just taken a look, and, to her surprise, she was wearing a bra. “I think they come with the transformation too? I mean, I’m wearing one right now and well, it matches the design of my underwear, so I’m only left to assume that’s where it came from.”

There was an awkward pause before Judy spoke. “Oh. That’s…convenient.”

Vithi shrugged. “Magic often is. Anyway, that’s all I wanted to say, and I didn’t want to have to burden Lilith with being the go-between for this particular thing, so I’m heading back to my lair now. I’m going to get some stuff ready that should hopefully help secure the home. It’s not going to help against someone looking directly at us, but it should at least keep us from getting immediately spotted by wide-area searches if Lilith doesn’t have her Domains suppressed.”

With that she once again entered her lair, leaving Lilith and Judy alone in the car.

There was another minute or so of silence before Judy broke it. “So…how are you feeling? About all of this, I mean? You’ve got to be pretty overwhelmed, right?”

Lilith nodded. “A bit, yeah. I mean, I knew people were tailing us, but it didn’t really…click until last night, and even then, I never expected it would end like…well, this.” She said, motioning to herself. “I mean, I’m not…human anymore, I don’t think.”

Actually, you are. Vithi interrupted. You’re a human, but you’re also literally everything else too. Not like half-breed type everything else, you are a full blown…everything. Including mixed races. No, it doesn’t make sense, but Perfect Chimeras don’t really make sense anyway. So, proportionally speaking, you’re less human, I guess, but it’s not like your humanity has been erased. You just have a ton of other stuff, too.

“Um…Vithi says I’m still a full human, I’m just…a full everything else too.” Lilith said. “So that’s comforting, I think.”

Judy smiled shakily. “Human or not, you’re still my precious little nephew…err, niece.” She sighed, shaking her head. “How are we going to tell your parents about this? Jessica will probably take it about as well as I am, but Mike…” She trailed off.

Lilith knew exactly what she meant. Her mother, Jessica, had always believed in the supernatural and told Lilith to keep an open mind, but her father, Mike, had insisted it was all make-believe. He would likely freak out when he learned what had happened to Lilith, as it would handily disprove his skepticism.

But that would have to wait. “They could be being watched or our phones could be bugged or something.” Lilith said. “We’ll just have to wait to talk to them until we know it’s safe.”

“You have a point.” Judy admitted. “Hopefully that won’t be too long, but I’m prepared to wait this out however long it takes.”

“I just have to get strong enough to protect us, right?” Lilith said. “I’m supposedly going to be one of the most powerful things alive given some time, so we should be able to come out of hiding once I am.”

That’s right, but I don’t know how long it’ll take. Vithi said. There’s not really a lot of documentation on Perfect Chimeras, so I just don’t know enough to say.

“Vithi says that’s right but she doesn’t know how long it’ll take.”

Judy nodded. “In the meantime, I’ll see if I can’t get some other hiding places set up in case this one gets compromised. I would really rather it didn’t, but you can never be too careful, right?”

Nothing else of importance happened on the car ride, and after twelve hours they made it to the cabin. It was a cozy little place in the woods, secluded from just about everything else. Judy had bought it using the money she had made from her properties and had often taken Lilith on vacations there during their youth.

Inside Lilith found that it had recently been heavily stocked with food, firewood, and fuel for the generator in case the solar power wasn’t able to cut it, like if it was snowing. They took a few minutes to unpack Judy’s trunk, and then Judy forced Lilith to go to sleep.

“First thing tomorrow you’re going to work on magic, and I don’t want you so tired you can’t focus.” Judy said. “So, sleep. Grab a snack if you need to, but sleep.”

“Alright.” She wasn’t about to argue. The day had been long and low-key stressful, so grabbed a snack, went to bed, and prepared herself for the day to come.