Chapter 10 – The Demoness released

Some people say that no plan survives first contact with the enemy. What I experienced has some close relation to that. After my... unplanned escapade, I stand up and notice that I am, quite reasonably, down for another round of cleaning myself.

So I do it once again, this time somehow... more aware, more conscious of my body. Rubbing my boobs, ass, hips and legs, it all feels wonderful in a way. I am also once again reminded just how wide my hips are and how firm, how feminine my ass and thighs are. Because, despite all the muscle, they feel distinctly different than what I'm used to, if only because of lack of hair and their... size. It's a bit funny that despite much smaller build I have wider hips than I'm used to.

My hips, now that I look at it, are visibly wider than my shoulders are broad despite all the muscle I have on the latter, and my thighs are close to being as thick as my waist is, which says a lot about my overall image.

Hot and gorgeous Demoness.

What I didn’t pay attention to before and now I see properly is that my ass is not as large as you might expect. It is large, wonderfully so comparing to my previous one, and I get to experience it firsthand, but it’s like… it’s overshadowed by my hips, and with the hips I have it could have been much larger.

I finish with my legs and stop at my feet with such silly thoughts, and I am a bit at loss as to what to do at this point. I mean, no matter what I do, I don’t have any boots, so my feet will inevitably get dirty soon. And my claws, no matter how you look at it, are something I have absolutely no experience in getting clean and taking care of. I don’t think using my hands for that would be a good idea.

Hmm, come to think if it.

I raise one of my legs and get my foot sideways to see it properly, and now that I look at it, I have no idea how I haven’t tripped yet. At all. First thing is that instead of skin on my feet I have something akin to cracked, black stone that looks more or less like you would imagine a stone elemental filled with magma, just that it’s smoother and colored in crusty black and vibrant yellow.

I attempt to move my heel up and down.

The spike or claw or whatever at my heel is thick for around third of its length and then quickly gets thinner, ending with a ninety degree pointed end, flatter on the downside and slightly pointed downwards. And it’s around, uh, four to six inches long counting from my ankle, depending how you look at things. The heel itself similar in size and looks to that of a human, but the claw reaches further.

Moving my heel… feels a bit strange, as if moving a muscle you are sure you didn’t have before but having no problem with doing that, which is, to be honest, almost exactly what I am doing now.

I succeed though, my heel moving… hmm.

First things first, my heel is independent from my foot, which is pretty damn important and different than in case of humans.

I experiment for a bit and conclude that the furthest I can move my foot upwards is around forty degrees from my leg, and in such case I can move my heel to be in one line with my leg, which is significantly further than what a human foot allows.

Then the furthest I can move my heel back is a bit further than perpendicular to my leg, which by the way makes the spike protrude straight out into whatever I might kick, and my foot in such case can move to be a bit further than in one line with my leg.

I’ve no idea how it even moves with my skin replaced by rock hard… plates or whatever, but they seem to bend and shift in a way that astonishingly doesn’t look at all bad, and instead gives my legs an interesting, rough demonic beauty kind of feeling.

Anyway, in short, there is a significant difference in how far I can move my foot and heel compared to what I can do as a human and thanks to the fact they are separated from each other I have a lot more flexibility.

The largest difference actually is that I have another joint in my heel, which I’m not sure I can call as such anymore, because the claw is independent from the bone attacked to my ankle. It’s like… between a human feet and the Earth’s prehistoric raptors, I guess? Or birds? I don’t recall anything it would actually closely resemble.

It will also need some time to get used to…

Or actually, how the fuck am I standing so steadily? For over a minute already without losing balance or even swaying to the sides?

I look down on my other foot and notice it is spread and planted straight on the ground with three… toes let’s say splayed wide to help me keep my balance.

Damn. I didn’t even notice I am doing that. Consciously at least.

But, hmm, speaking of toes.

I rotate my leg and take a good look at my toes, or maybe claws. It’s hard to say, because as I look at them properly now I notice that I have only two joints in them, or one even depending how you look at things.

My foot ends like human’s would and isn’t any wider or thicker than it, just with three strong tendons on the top, and shifts into three thick, short toes that each end with a large, wide claw in similar shape to the one on my heel, but shorter and significantly smaller. The middle fingers are slightly, but noticeably larger than the other two, and the... inside ones are a tiny bit larger than the outside ones. The middle segment of them is as long as it is wide, and the last is like, two thirds of it is the claw with the claw itself a tad shorter than it is wide.

My feet generally resemble greatly how birdmen’s legs are portrayed in many games, save for the heel of course. And the skin or whatever it is covering my feet.

I test it quickly and I can move my toes quite well. I can curl them up so that my claws almost face my heel, raise them ninety degrees upwards and splay them out so the two on the sides form a ninety degree angle with the middle one… well, in the middle.

Neat.

Now that I’m done with it, let’s test something much more important, because that’s something new and not just a change, however significant that change might be. Wings and tail.

I’m supposed to be able to manifest my wings and tail instinctively. True Demon form will wait a while longer, but this is already available. What does instinctively mean though?

I concentrate and try to imagine wings sprouting from my back, and it works much fucking better than I expected. I almost lose my balance and need to take a quick step back to steady myself as a large weight on my back appears as quickly as unexpectedly and almost pulls me down to the ground.

And I receive a huge influx of new feelings along with it that occupy a large part of my brain as I try to make sense of them.

I stand firmly on the ground, positioning my feet wider for additional stability just in case, and attempt to feel my wings.

And oh fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck.

I feel my wings.

It’s not like in some games before that the game says you have wings and you can feel being lifted by them.

I feel my wings, I feel the folds of stretchy skin as they brush against each other behind my back, I feel muscles straining on my back as they keep the wings in position, I feel the muscles in my wings as they make minute adjustments to stay in place, I feel how my hair is pushed aside by the firm muscles, I feel the gentle brush of wind on my muscles and my skin of my wings.

Just… wow.

It’s an incredible, liberating feeling, impossible to describe properly, but it just feels so fantastic, so beautiful, so right.

The closest equivalent that would be easy to understand would probably be growing another pair of arms you can suddenly feel and move, but it feels much better in the way I feel like these wings are exactly where and what they should be.

Like I suddenly got something I didn’t realize I was missing, suppressing even.

I slowly, carefully, attempt to stretch out my wings, and I feel them spreading wide, I feel my muscles working under the increased strain, and it’s such beautiful feeling.

I don’t even need to turn around to know that by now my wings are spread as wide as they can, and I distinctly feel the wind pushing my wings, although it’s too weak to result in any significant force.

I reach an arm to my back and feel the hard muscles on my shoulder blade, then I reach the base of my wings.

I feel as my fingers slide over the powerful muscles keeping my wings wide, and it’s a wonderful feeling.

I carefully reach with my arm from downside, and I feel the smooth skin on my wings as it stretches to the side, I can feel the slightly ticklish sensation coming from them.

The stretch of skin starts below my shoulder blade and goes upwards up to its highest point opposite to my collarbone, where a bone rounded by firm muscles sprouts into the wing.

I run my hand over my wing, feeling the skin giving in a bit as I feel it tickle, and just… wow.

I turn my head to the side to see how wide my wings are, and with surprise I notice they are at least two meters in length each, summing into a total wingspan of well over four meters, maybe even five, and they are around a meter wide in the widest point.

Wings typical for prolonged flight then, not really suitable for fighting due to excessive size, though it might be nice to slam someone with an opening wing. And they got to be really strong, so it should be possible to hit someone with the bone of the wing, not the fingers’, if I don’t have time or space to use my legs and hands.

They are a beautiful crusty, slightly yellowish black color, and let a bit of light through the membrane between the bones. It’s probably the same color as my demon form, and it matches how my feet look.

I attempt to move my wings slowly to my front, shifting my balance carefully, and succeed without much effort, bringing both of my wings to my view as they fold to the front, making a sort of screen around me.

I now notice that their tips don’t have any claws, just somewhat pointed... tips, and I take a good look at their structure.

I’m not sure how dragon’s or succubus’ wings are supposed to look, but mine, looking from their base, first have a visibly thicker bone that naturally rests slightly downwards. The membrane of my wing forms a triangle between the bone and my shoulder blade and a bit lower.

Then there is another thick bone, though this one visibly slimmer and significantly longer, and the membrane growing above the first bone connects to the upside of this one and ends on its tip, forming another triangle.

These two bones, stretched fully, that is forming a ninety degrees angle between them, make a bit less than half of wing’s length. The second bone is around one and a half times longer than the first and splits into five fingers, among which three, divided into three segments each, are very long, especially the third one that rests close to horizontal. They are quite thick with wing membrane stretched between them, and in closest to the second bone case also to said bone. They form a shape similar to a fan, to be honest.

Fourth finger is half the length of the third one and tops the wing with the membrane in very flat triangle shape, and the last one, if it can be called a finger, is actually a claw at the end of the second in the wing bone.

If my wings are closed, this claw rests on the side and to the back of my head and the rest of the fingers are folded resting by each other, the membrane between them folding to the inside.

I like it.

Now that I see wings, time for the tail. It was said it’s succubus’ tail, so it will probably a thin tail ending with a heart shape.

I concentrate and imagine a tail growing from above my butt just like I did with wings and don’t feel much, definitely something important though, and reach my hand to my butt.

And there it is, beginning where normally my spine would end, a thin protrusion.

It’s, hm, a bit less than one inch thick, more or less as expected, and it feels smooth to the touch. And it's sensitive. I trail my hand along its length, bringing it to my face to see it properly.

It’s black in color, similar to my wings but without the yellow coloration, and looks about as smooth as it feels.

And it’s long, dang it.

I stop holding it in place and attempt to move it by itself, and mostly succeed, merely I forget to take into account how long it really is and almost whip it into my face.

Apart from that it’s just like I expected in about everything, excluding color. Its thickness doesn’t really change along its… around five feet of length, and it ends with a four-inch wide heart-shaped tip, more on full, plump side than a thin spade, but still with sharp, pointed tip.

And that’s where there is a surprise, because for some reason the tip is vibrant yellow in color, but not the whole heart, just the inch at the end, in a delicate flame pattern.

Interesting.

No idea why it is like that, but it looks nice and isn’t as boring as it would have been without it.

If I had to say what I feel about my wings and tail, they are great things to have. The tail maybe not exactly great to have, but it finely compliments my image and looks fun. And feels just right, as it should.

I spend a long while, in tens of minutes at least, to get used to the feeling of my wings and my tail, and in the process I learn a lot of things.

First is that my tail is surprisingly responsive. It’s more like another arm than just simple tail, and I can do a lot of things with it.

It also often moves almost by itself and is extremely helpful with keeping balance.

Second thing is that I will definitely be able to fly, but I’ll need to learn that first.

I can move my wings well, which leads to another thing I will discuss in a moment, but flying requires very fine control over my wings and immediate adjustments to their position I’m not yet capable of.

The first few tries, by the way, didn’t end badly, but only because I didn’t manage to properly set off, so I dropped down from around a meter or two, and my tail helped me with my landing. I assume it would be much easier to try gliding first, then go to flying fast and eventually learn to take off straight up.

I’ll need to find proper environment to train, because, while I will technically be able to get reborn when I die from a fall and it won’t be anything very troublesome, I’d rather not experience slamming into the ground from a few tens of meters in the air.

It would most certainly not be enjoyable. If anything, it would be learning from trauma.

That one thing I noticed is that I can control my legs, or more like feet, as well as wings and tail with surprisingly little effort and training. And the only answer as to why is that I can give is that I’m working in different neural structure right now, which is a bit scary concept.

What I mean to say is that it’s impossible to link my human brain with these feelings and learn to move like that quickly without any feeling of weirdness. And it’s not just the problem of my perception, but it’s like giving a human another arm and expecting him to operate it normally within minutes of receiving it.

It’s just impossible, because the brain first needs to figure whatever the hell it is receiving, then adjust itself to understand signals from the arm and send them properly, and then learn to move it well.

On the other hand, if you have a neural structure that has these steps behind and put a human mind into it, it will be able to adjust much quicker and without so much problems. Which is, I assume, what happened to me.

A bit scary thought, but not like I can do anything with it apart from not playing VOW, which is not something I’m keen on.

Anyway, now that I have wings and tail sorted out, I’d like to finally properly test how flexible my body is.

First let’s do without wings and tail, because these might be limiting my flexibility a bit.

I imagine my wings and tail disappearing, this time having prepared myself for the sudden change in balance, and they flow back into my body just as they came out.

I take a deep breath and raise my arms, getting reminded of my boobs that rise up a bit, and then slowly bend forward as much as I can.

I once again am reminded of my boobs, and fuck I need to learn to ignore that, as gravity pulls them down, and I quickly and easily touch the ground with my hands, so I put them behind my legs and join them there.

I then bend further, and surprise myself as my boobs touch my legs and I freeze for a while, unsure what to do, because I still have a bit room to spare.

I decide to press on, quite literally so in this case, and bend further as much as I can, pressing my boobs into my legs, and just as I reach my limit, actually for two reasons at the same time, I suddenly I feel something tugging on my head.

I raise my head with surprise and notice two small, elongated holes in the ground before my eyes.

Uh, what?

My hand involuntarily finds my horn and I touch its tip, feeling some dirt on it.

I start giggling at the absurdity of the situation and rise up with a sigh that doesn’t come out this way because of the giggle, cleaning my horns of the dirt.

Damn, it’s so funny.

I just literally gouged the ground with my horn while standing on it. How does that sound? It’s like discovering you can poke a hole through a wall with a spring that stops a door from hitting said wall.

Thinking about it though, I thought that my flexibility should be between a bendy teenager and a professional gymnast, but it seems I underestimated myself a fair bit. A quite large bit.

I can’t wait to see what else I can do.

I tuck away a few strands of my wild hair and try to bend as far as I can backwards, and I almost fall over in surprise when still standing in the same place on straight legs I look at the world upside down.

I try to bend further, helping myself keep balance by grabbing my ankles, and this time I need to bend my knees, but I manage to fold so far back that my face, that ended up between my legs by the way, is pointed straight at the ground.

Holy shit.

That’s like, the highest level of flexibility a human without special modifications can normally achieve.

I stand straight up once again with a grin and think for a second.

I then raise my right knee upwards with left leg planted firmly on the ground, and I touch my right boob just like that, then start straightening up my leg. Without much of an issue I manage to get it straight upwards, and I grab it with my arm to keep myself in this position easier.

Then I try to get my leg further, with my hips being pushed outwards, and I finally stop at over two hundred degrees between my legs.

Damn.

With this flexibility a twine is a casual figure I can randomly pull off whenever I feel like it.

I wonder if I would be able to do something like what gymnasts often do, for example…

Actually, scratch that, I am able to do all that. The question is how well and if I will be able to keep it up properly, and that’s only to be checked. Later though.

I stand on two legs once again and prepare myself, then jump upwards to see how high I can jump, and immediately surprise myself as my folded legs stop at... over five feet from the ground. Considering my height that’s pretty impressive, or actually practically impossible for a human, but that's not an issue. The issue is that I jumped like a human would and I realize my legs allow me to do much better.

It takes me a couple more tries to grasp the correct technique with my different legs, and a few more to jump well, but eventually I manage to jump so high that my feet, after folding my legs, are at least ten feet above the ground.

And I’m getting fucking reminded of my boobs. I have long known the purpose of a sports bra, but feeling the reason yourself is another thing. My breasts are getting seriously fucking annoying, not like ‘I wish they weren’t here’, but more in the ‘I seriously need to do something about it’ way, and that’s even with my boobs being very firm and not bouncing much.

Damn.

It’s that feeling when something you generally like starts to be annoying and you are fed up with it and want it to stop for a while.

Anyway, after some tries, I learned to jump properly with my new legs, and the height of my jumps was not to be underestimated, and was ready to try something a bit fancier. A somersault, for starters.

I have always been unable to do it properly, because I was too heavy and wasn’t able to turn fast enough in the air, but I now I feel I’m able to do it.

So, I prepare myself and jump upwards, making sure to get some torque, fold myself in the air and turn around quickly, springing back to my legs as I fall down, and damn, I underestimated myself. A bit. A huge bit.

I don't even manage to land properly, because when I finally reach down with my legs and manage to touch the ground, my torso is already in parallel to the ground. The girly squeak I surprise myself with doesn't help matters, and completely without thinking I flare my wings and beat strongly, pulling myself to upright position.

And realizing what I did only after the fact.

Like, huh?

I look at my wings and think intensely about what just happened while dismissing them offhandedly.

It was me who flared my wings and steadied myself. It was not some game mechanic, neither some sort of automatic, programmed response, but… you might call it instinctual reaction. I just… did it without thinking.

I suddenly have doubts in my heart about my theory of getting my consciousness placed into a ready neural network, and have a much more terrifying idea.

If it’s just the neural structure, then there are no instincts to speak of, because it’s just the neural structure and not a working body.

But if it was an AI, or maybe even a living human or something else, who used this body before and learned to move it, then it would be possible to, like, carry over some instincts. But that's still not the problem.

The truly interesting idea is that... where am I? It's like... right now this game is not on the level of full immersion, but I might as well be completely different person inside. With completely different mental structure, instincts, everything.

And like, shit, that’s some scary idea.

What did they do to achieve something like that?

Isn't it just... playing with people's brains? If it is, then they should be able to do much more and very much worse.

“Don’t worry, little one. Let your instincts guide you. There is nothing but you in this body. Be yourself, Helia, my daughter.”

Holy...!?

As I hear Shiva’s calming voice I practically jump in place in fright, surprise and… happiness?

What’s this feeling? I’m happy to hear her? Relieved? Why am I so… happy to hear her?

Fuck, wait.

She said to let my instincts guide me? My instincts. Her daughter’s?

Mine. Hers?

There is nothing but me in this body. But is this body mine? It is.

She told me to be… myself.

I am… myself.

I am… Zenon?

NO! What? I surprise myself with the revulsion I feel at the thought and I reel back. Why am I so... repulsed by that?

Am I Zenon? Why does it feel so… hollow? So lacking, so worthless?

I am… Zenon.

No! That’s wrong. Again this repulsion.

I am...

Who I am?

Am I… Helia?

I am Helia.

That’s… right?

It's right.

Why didn’t I realize it earlier?

The time in my… real body? Previous body? In my previous body, it was so… hollow. So… bad, so lacking.

This body is… great, fantastic, relaxing, liberating. This is right.

I am Helia, Shiva’s daughter.

Helia, The Star Demoness, Shiva’s daughter.

That’s who I am.

That’s me.