Chapter 13 – Newfound resolve

I wake up with a small electrical jolt to my brain and get up straight away, deciding that it’s better to get to doing something than lying unproductively in bed. Not like I’m in the mood to do anything, but it’s always better to do something than lie and do nothing past thinking with nothing distracting me from my body.

I pass smoothly the breakfast and classes as I did last four days, so paying hardly any attention – no attention, no problems, smooth sailing – and by the end of classes I would be zooming around the room if I was a fox, that is how excited, impatient and nervous at the same time I am. To log in to VOW, that is, and for much more than one reason.

Impatient to get back into my body, excited to do a lot of things there, and nervous to meet Levia. I’m somehow managing, but I’ve got a lot of time to think lately and that made me overthink things, especially those connected to Levia, leading to such results.

I barely even registered how the lessons ended and what I did afterwards, collecting myself somewhat only before my pod. I quickly set everything up, much more so than I would normally, and lie inside, watching the pod close over me with a glare signifying it’s not fast enough.

I wait for another while as all the systems turn on, and then black out.

The next moment I am properly aware of I let out a whimper in relief, pleasure, satisfaction and happiness as the sensations my Demon body has to offer hit me all at once.

The weight on my head I didn’t realize how much I was missing, the softness of my skin and lips, how my shoulders are narrower than they were before, the large weight on my chest and another on my back that set my balance properly, the wide hips, nothing gross between my thighs, smoothness of my skin once again, the sensation of something above my ass that is much more of a relief than I thought it would be and at last my feet that finally feel as they should.

I don’t even register the place I am in and immediately fold myself on the ground, crying tears of happiness with a smile I can't suppress.

I really did care that much, didn’t I? I really did bottle up everything inside that body.

I takes me good ten minutes to calm down properly, minutes during which I can’t help but marvel at how right my body feels, but I need to get up at some point.

So I stand up, taking in the sight around me. The same road as before, and I am sitting at exactly the same rock as before.

Oh, as a side note, when you log out, your body disappears, but leaves a Spirit Mark, which is a sort of marker that there is a person here. I think it was mentioned in lore overview that the mark signifies spiritual rest of a Wayfarer in this place, and apparently how it looks depends on the person.

Come to think of it…

I look to my side and sure enough, a meter to my right is… well a mark, but it looks really… unique.

I’m not sure why that is, but all marks are something floating inside a mostly transparent orb. In Levia’s case the orb, it’s more like a small… cloud? It’s really hard to put into words, but it’s like you got a transparent ball and filled it with tiny lines pointing outwards, so that it is transparent as you look in the middle and it gets more blue closer to the edges. Anyway, the inside in Levia’s case consists of two parts.

First is something that looks like a small white cube covered in tiny circuits in various colors, mainly black and violet in her case, and that appears to constantly shift its shape slightly. It looks very futuristic, you don't get such mechanisms even now on Gaia, and on second thought it might be like her core or something, not like I know how her core looks.

The second part appears to be a swarm of nanobots. It’s the only thing I can think of that a cloud of swirling, black and slightly sparkly dots can be. They rotate around the cube like chibi asteroids around a chibi star. I mean how disproportionally close to each other they are comparing to real ones.

It looks nice in general, though I’m a bit baffled as to why it looks like that. I mean, it does represent Levia, be it her colors or her mechanical nature, but these things are supposed to be more like marks, like an indicator or something, not this complicated and this specific.

But well, as much as it is interesting, I don’t think I’d get anywhere past blind guesses, so I give up the topic.

I wait for a while, spending time by doing some light exercises, and a few minutes later I notice the mark floating above the stone light up somewhat in the corner of my eye, and just as I look at it starts expanding rapidly. It starts changing shape at an extremely rapid pace, forming various shapes one after another, and within a few seconds it morphs into a humanoid shape that quickly gains definition and colors.

I watch in amazement as metallic bones are formed and placed in their places, as muscles and tendons grow and get attached to the skeleton, as various shapes of mostly unknown functions form and worm under the cover of others or in between like eyes and lips, as the white skin rolls out and beautifully covers the whole body, and at last a huge fold of cloth materializes and wraps around her, just barely preventing me from seeing anything more than either Levia or I would be comfortable seeing.

It causes my imagination to go wild though, and I catch myself blushing and turning my head while still watching in gaping amazement as Levia’s whole body is created within no more than five seconds like in a science fiction film. Because this level of technology isn't something you can get even now, at least not anywhere public.

I then see the figure blinking and looking around, which is when I realize Levia is already logged in.

“Hello…” I say a bit uncertainly, looking at her straight, and she turns her head to me and frowns.

“Uh, hello. What happened? You look…” She asks with concern in her voice.

“No, nothing! It’s just… I saw your body being created from that mark, and it was…” I start, and pause when I see Levia’s face heating up very rapidly with her mouth in a thin line and eyes wide open and her chest expanding as she seems to be taking in a deep breath.

Ooops. Not that I don’t like it, cause she’s suuuuper cute right now, but that was almost as misguiding as her cuteness is overwhelming.

“Nope, I haven’t seen anything! It wasn't visible!” I quickly say defensively and she deflates, covering her face with her arms. “It’s just my imagination, okay? The cloth covered your body. It looked amazing how your body was forming, and I can’t help but have some thoughts, okay?”

I then see Levia turning away, with her face still hidden, and she visibly takes another deep breath to calm herself. Ufff, crisis averted. Could be solved better though. I calm myself down and look back at Levia who throws her arms down.

“How can you make it so awkward? What do you expect me to do now?” She accuses me in weak voice with her face and now ears still red.

“Well, you can consider this event to have never happened, you can confront the situation and make it in your favor, or you can do the deed you’re concerned about so there will be no uncertainties on your side.” I say sagely, just barely restraining my embarrassment, urge to laugh and a growing need to leap over and embrace this cutie, all at the same time.

As I say that I notice Levia freezing for a long while and then pulling the cloth covering her head upwards till it covers almost her whole head leaving only top visible.

I grin at the sight. Complete victory.

I silently walk towards her and sit on the stone on her left side quietly, then wait for a while till she turns around and looks at me with a pout and accusation in her eyes.

“What?” I ask with a grin. “What’s so embarrassing in being seen by another girl?” My grin twitches and I force it to stay in place as I remember I am a girl here, but my body out of the game is not.

Come to think of it, don’t tell me she’s a lesbian? If she’s not, she’s got to be really unusually shy.

“It’s weird!” She flails her arms, agitated, with her eyes in an 'x' shape. “It’s… It’s weird and embarrassing to be seen by a girl like that, okay? I mean… uh… we don’t know each other well… and…”

“Welp, we can change that if you want, hm?” I look at her with playfully narrowed eyes.

“Huh?” Levia looks at me without understanding.

“I mean, if we see each other more, or if we talk about each other, we’ll be closer and it won’t be weird to see each other naked, right? Is that what you’re concerned about?” I ask innocently and the Mechanical girl instantly blushes and turns away.

“N-no… I mean yes! B-but…” She squeaks out in response. “Um… I- Hyaah!” She jumps in fright as I pull myself closer to her and stretch my arm, wrapping it over her shoulders, then glances at me with unreadable expression and instantly looks away.

“What’s wrong?” I ask as innocently as I can, but at this point I almost lose control of my voice.

“N-n-nothing.” Levia stammers, her face beet red.

Fuck, she’s a lesbian and she seems to be unaware of that herself, right? If she’s getting so red from a woman getting close to her, then she’s most definitely a lesbian, unless there’s a factor I don’t know about. A straight girl would freak out, ask to keep distance or accept after a bit of thought if I did such thing, but it’s damn impossible for a straight girl to be so flustered.

“Well, if there’s nothing wrong, then we can stay like that for a while.” I smirk with only right side of my face she can’t see. “Have you been well? What have you been up to?”

“Um.” Levia takes a deep breath to get herself together. “Good. I’ve been learning, mainly, and training. I didn’t have much time to play VOW, but instead researched a bit. You remember the Space-time Linking Crystals, right?”

“Yep, I do.” I glance inside my inventory and see it has almost one week remaining to activation. “What about them?”

“So, I checked in many places, and there are some people who also have them, but not many. I’d say at most one in a hundred players, maybe even less, but I can’t be sure. And I'm not sure, but I think everyone who has them rolled random characters. But there hasn’t been anyone who has them set to two weeks, everyone has either three months or six months.”

“I see.” I nod. “Though it’s possible no one revealed it. No one knows what it does?”

“I don’t think so.” Levia shakes her head and looks at me with a bit of concern. “That’s the problem. The devs are quiet, and there are theories, but nothing confirmed.”

“Well, not like we can do anything about it, can we?” I smile lightly, shrugging. “We’ll find out in a week, it shouldn’t be anything bad at least.”

“Mhm.” She nods and looks at me, then seems to fight with herself for a while as she looks at me with a frown. “Um, how about you?” She finally wins with herself, though not with the blush creeping up her face.

Come to think of it, why does she even blush? She should be able to control herself much better, like a robot, shouldn’t she? Maybe Mechanical are even closer to humans than I thought.

What about me though?

I open my mouth and … I realize I have nothing to say.

What should I tell her about…

That disgusting body?

That...

“Hey, what’s wrong!?” Levia asks distressed, almost panic in her voice. “I’m sorry! I’m sorry, I didn’t…”

“What?” I ask, my voice brittle from… tears.

In surprise I reach with my trembling hand to wipe my eyes quickly and only now register what Levia is talking about.

“S-sorry, it’s not your, fault. Don’t be, sorry.” I say quickly, my voice faltering between small hiccups. “It’s just my…”

My life.

I barely register as I curl up with tears streaming from my face and I feel something pleasantly warm and comforting wrapping around me and stroking the top of my head.

Fuck.

I don’t even have one thing to say that wouldn’t hint Levia how awful life I have.

It was only in VOW and with her that I found something to be happy about. It was only then that I was alive, not just living.

But… I do have to tell her, don’t I? If I don’t…

It will be even worse if I tell her nothing and hide that I am transgender, that my parents are bigots, that I can’t do anything to be myself, that only in VOW I have found life, and the dysphoria I have out of the game.

Sometime later, I can’t properly count time in the state I’m in, I take a deep breath and lightly pull upwards, indicating I want to rise up, and Levia lightens her grip, letting me move freely, but still keeps her arms on me, one on my head and another… on my waist.

I take a deep, still a bit shaky breath to calm myself, and rise my head, now realizing we are both still sitting on the stone with Levia very close on my left.

“I… want you to listen to me for a while, okay?” I ask, my voice completely lacking the confidence I had before and instead weak and brittle.

“You don’t have to-.” She starts, concern in her voice, but I interrupt her.

“No!” I say, much more sharply than I intended. “No. I… need to tell this to someone. I just… please listen to me, okay?”

“Okay.” Levia nods, this time confidently and reliably.

I take another deep breath to prepare myself.

“I’m transgender.” I start right off the bat. “I discovered it a week ago when I started playing VOW. When I logged out, I had such dysphoria… I almost had a panic attack, I just told my disgust to shut the fuck up and I was just… only waiting to get back here.” I take another breath. “It wouldn’t be much of a problem if not for my parents. They are Church bigots and if they learned I’m transgender it would be good if they only assigned me a therapist. Not the worst if they threw me out of the house. And I just… I’m just… I don’t have a life out of the game anymore, I’m just waiting to get back to VOW there. When I logged in for the first time, I felt so good, so alive, and out it’s just… Sorry for… unloading my problems on you, but I just…”

“Shhh…” I hear a soothing voice that snaps me out from my ramblings. “It’s alright. I understand.”

I feel my heart leaping in my chest and only my quiet sobbing caused by both pain and relief can be heard in the silence until she speaks again.

“I don’t care if you’re trans or not, I see you as Helia, and it won’t change. As for the rest, I’ll try to help you, but I don’t know what I can do. We’ll see, alright? I definitely won’t abandon you here.”

“B-but it’s like… I don’t… it’s like exploiting you-.” I attempt to say between my small sobs.

“No.” She strongly cuts off my attempt to reject her help I make despite wanting to accept. “You’re not. If I want to, I’ll help you, if I don’t then I don’t. It’s not exploiting me if I do it willingly while knowing the full scope.”

I stay silent for a long while, my swirling emotions trying to make me do all different things, putting aside the lightness, the weight lifted off my shoulders after I said all this to someone.

Relief and comfort. The girl I love hasn’t abandoned me after that, which is good. I have the chance still, and as long as I don’t fuck up something, I’ll definitely confess soon.

Guilt. Because… no matter what she says, she just can’t be aware of my feelings and situation well enough to know full well if I am using her or not. It’s not just the issue of my parents, but also the fact I have no job, no income, no knowledge to start working anytime soon at a decent place. If I lose my place to live now, I’ll be left with nothing. This part of me says I should get the hell away from her, but I shove this as far away from me as I can. I’ll not be wasting what is between us now.

Love and warmth. I can’t help but be conscious how she is holding me right now. Right hand on my head, covering me gently and weaving through my wild hair slowly, making me relax and giving off the feeling of safety, left on my waist, holding me closer to her, and her relatively small, soft boobs pressing into my side as well as hips touching. How much I’d like to kiss her right there and tell her how I’m grateful for her words, but I can’t just do that.

Not yet.

It’s not yet time, my love.

Did I really find my love though? Shiva has told me that when I find the right person, I will know it’s the one. Is it Levia? How do I know that?

Going by my burning feelings it should be her, but…

“Don’t worry, little one.” I suddenly hear the voice directly in my head that seems to instantly wash away the worry and fear slowly building up where I didn’t even notice them. In my surprise I manage to remain in place only because I couldn’t have been more relaxed than I am in Levia’s arms. “If you have doubts, don’t let them control you. If you need answer, ask your soul, ask your Flame. Look inside yourself, not only at the signs outside, Helia.”

I don’t wait even a second. I focus on my magic sense, usually only working in my subconsciousness, and look at the flame inside me.

It… doesn’t behave as it usually does. Not in a bad way though.

While it is normally spread uniformly around my body, and it is as such now, the core, the Demonic Flame, seems to be much gentler, much more content and much happier, as much as it doesn’t really sound right to describe it with these words.

And it’s not spreading through my body as it was before. Where it was flowing like through smooth, perfect riverways, now it seems to be much livelier and dedicated, motivated. How do I even know how it feels like?

But most importantly, when I focus on my core, it’s not exactly in my whole body at once. It appears like that if I try to pinpoint its location, but, if I just look at it, it doesn’t sit in my center. No, it snuggles to Levia pressed to my side. To her boobs actually, pervert.

I almost burst out laughing when the core twitches and gives the impression of glaring at me, then snuggles even closer to Levia.

Before I realize it I have a wide smile on my face, and it’s not the smile of excitement, of satisfaction, but a bright smile of happiness and relief. And anticipation of what is to come. What I will get to come.

I rise up slowly from my position of being embraced by Levia while slumped down and finally look properly at her face, my heart flipping when I see her look at me with a faint smile and concern in her beautiful eyes. I wrap my arms around her for a moment in a hug and pull away, looking her into the eyes.

“Sorry about that… and thanks, Levia. I really needed that.”