Chapter 44 – Hello again

"So? What now?" I ask softly as I and Letty cuddle in the den, almost laying on top of each other.

"Mmm." My girlfriend lets out and raises her head lazily. "I think we should go show ourselves to my parents. And then to VOW."

"Mhm, sure. Do we do it now?" I ask.

"...Hm, you know what, let's get this over with." Letty says and rises up from the soft furry blob she has been laying on. "We'll talk with my parents, and then to VOW."

"Sure." I say in agreement and pull myself up with a kinda weird combination of Energy affinity and putting strength into my legs that lifts me straight up from my laying position, and Letty snorts and starts giggling. "What?" I glare at her.

"N-nothing." She waves her hand, still giggling. "You looked so cool just now. Like, standing up while casually ignoring the basic laws of physics, you know?" She says with mirth in her eyes and grabs my hand, interlocking our fingers, bringing a wide grin to my lips.

"I think I'll be doing that a lot." I reply and she nods her head with a giggle.

"Need to get used now, huh?" She says and spins around, pulling me with her. "Let's go."

...

"Um, hello, mom." Letty squeaks out as she stands frozen in the door to the main hall.

Dragha meanwhile takes her figure in, looks her from top to down, and finally looks at her daughter's face with a twinkle in her eyes. "You got prettier. I like it." She says finally and Letty, just about to step forward and make way for me, freezes once again and averts her eyes. I don't need to look at her to know she's blushing after that comment.

"Um..." She begins, but her mother interrupts.

"No, don't try to explain yourself now. I was going to ask when will the time be, but seeing you here, just come to the living room and we'll talk it over." She says and turns energetically on her heel, indicating with her head to follow.

We do as said, walking into the main hall, and she waves her hand. A holographic panel appears in front of her and she taps it a few times. "Come to the living room, please. It's about Letty." She says, and I assume she's talking to Proton.

"Sure, I'll be there in a minute." His voice comes from the ceiling and Dragha swipes the panel away.

"I'm going to assume everything's alright, Letty?" She asks a moment later, glancing back at us. "There are no problems with your body?"

"No." Letty shakes her head in response. "Some uncertainties, but no problems at all. Have I told you how I felt about it in VOW?" She asks uncertainly and shakes her head a moment later, at the same time as Dragha does. "No, I haven't." She takes a deep breath, intent on explaning.

"Wait a moment with it, maybe?" Dragha raises her eyebrows. "You won't need to repeat yourself."

"Alright." Letty gulps visibly in nervousness and nods, and I squeeze her hand tighter.

We walk a while in silence till we reach the door to the living room, and Dragha opens it, letting us go first before she herself comes in. I and Letty sit just next to each other, a bit awkwardly, on the same sofa as before in the middle of the room, and Dragha startles me as she almost jumps onto the sofa opposite of us and lies on it sideways. She catches my gaze and grins with a small giggle. "I get this is a serious talk, but we're family in the end. I'm not going to sit stiff like with a broom up my ass." She says and I fight my lips curling up into a smirk.

"I don't think I'd be sitting straight with something in my ass, but okay." I say and glance at Letty, who is looking between us and visibly trying to say something that wouldn't be completely awkward. "I'd probably be laying down with my back arched." I add in lower voice and I see Dragha blinking a few times in confusion before snorting loudly and starting giggling.

Letty meanwhile gets beet red on her face and I smirk as I lean more into her.

"I hope you're not into this sort of thing?" Dragha asks, and I can't really tell if she's serious of not. "I mean, I don't have anything against it, but I also can't say I like it."

"I'm into just about anything as long as it involves Letty." I say in purposefully sultry voice, narrowing my eyebrows, and Letty shifts in place as she looks at me, and immediately turns her head away. Ehehe, I wonder what she just thought about to get embarrassed. Maybe I'll get to knew one of these nights.

"Well, okay." Dragha wiggles her eyebrows with a grin, and at this moment the door on our right opens.

As I look there, I see Proton going inside and freezing at the doorstep. He visibly hesitates for a while, but in the end closes the door behind him and looks at Letty with uncertain expression. He walks up to the sofa in silence and sits down after giving Dragha's position a side glance.

He looks at Letty seriously. "I'm going to get this out of the way now. You were called Levia in VOW, right? How would you prefer us to call you now?" He asks and I see Dragha looking at him with a small frown.

"Letty." My girfriend says without hesitation and glances at me. "Helia's case is a bit different, but the only thing that has changed in me is my body."

"Sure." He nods. "Is there anything you'd like to tell us about your... transformation? Can I call it that?" He asks uncertainly.

"Yup, transformation." Letty nods and looks down on herself. "So, like mom asked, I have no problems with this body? Though there just some things I'm uncertain about, and, uh, this body is... I'm not sure how to say it, but I feel just... better in this body?" She says with an uncertain grimace.

"What do you mean?" Dragha asks curiously. "Is it about your senses?"

"That too, yes, but it's not just that." Letty shakes her head lightly and looks at me, then leans on my shoulder with a sigh. "I think it's a similar issue as Helia had with her previous body, just much less severe? I wouldn't call it dysphoria, but it's just a general feeling, how it all shapes out. I think the fact that I can control my body however I want also plays a factor." She says and I look at her with both concern and curiosity.

"You mean you can control how it looks?" I ask and she nods.

"This is what I'm most comfortable with though. I'm pretty sure it's a mix between the face I had in VOW and the one I had here."

"Yup." I nod. "You had a bit different face in VOW."

"Hm." Dragha hums, which brings our attetion back to her. "So long as you feel better, it's good. You said there are some uncertainties?"

"Yeah." Letty nods. "The main one is that we don't know yet how the system in VOW plays into the whole thing. We don't even know what it is and how it works."

"My skills in VOW started disappearing a while ago. I believe what I was capable of doing by myself was removed from my skills." I quip in when she pauses for a while and all three look at me. "I had no way to check since all my skills disappeared, but it's likely that they don't work out of VOW."

"Yeah, that's one of the things." Letty nods. "Mine also started disappearing a while back, and most are a garbled mess now."

"If we're on topic of your skills, what can you do?" Dragha asks curiously. "If you're comfortable with sharing, of course."

"Um, hm..." Letty starts and stops uncertainly, and I squeeze her hand tighter. "Um, I'll begin a bit, earlier, maybe?"

"Sure." Dragha nods without hesitation.

"So, I'm not sure if we explained that properly, but in VOW we have talent trees from which we create skills, but they all work with system's help." She says and looks at me with a small smile. "But Helia told me that it's possible to control the energy I have by myself. It took me a while, but I learned how to do it and now it's like... I can do anything as long as I know how?" She says uncertainly. "But I'm still learning. My energy is called Nihility, and I'm not exactly sure how it works, but it's a bit similar to nanobots. For now I know how to consume things and how to make constructs from pure Nihility, but I haven't had time to learn much more."

"Alright." Proton nods with a frown. "Going by the name, I'm going to assume it's something powerful? More so than mana or Qi, because those two seem to be the most popular in fiction?"

I glance at Letty questioningly, since it's me who knows the most about this topic, and she nods and leans lighlty on my shoulder.

"Nihility is, in fact, extremely powerful." I say seriously. "It's the second most powerful energy I know of, and it's incomparable to mana. I have an ability I call magic sense that allows me to sense supernatural energies, and in terms of pure amount of power it carries, Nihility is twenty times more powerful than mana, and sixty times radiolarian fluid. I don't know about Qi though as I've never seen it." I say that and both Dragha and Proton look between me and Letty with shocked expressions.

"...So much?" Dragha asks finally and frowns. "Isn't this a bit... I don't know, unfair? I mean, for other players... or not players. How do I call them?" She asks uncertainly and we both shrug.

"No idea. They can be players as long as you know what you're talking about." I say. "As for if it's unfair or not... well, I don't think there is anything about fairness here. It's just what everyone receives at birth or character creation, just like wealth, position, or genetics."

"...Fair enough." Proton nods as Dragha frowns and he and looks at me with raised eyebrows. "What about you, out of curiosity? If you don't mind sharing, of course."

"I said Nihility is the second strongest I know?" I raise my eyebrows and Proton nods while Dragha freezes with her mouth open. "My Primordial Energy is the most powerful." I finish with a smirk and hear Letty giggling on my side.

"...That even sounds like it's stupidly powerful." Draghs comments in deadpan tone and shakes her head. "Eeeh, alright. I won't be trying to understand you girls. It's your playground now, we did our job during Mechanical War." She looks at us with a smile. Hm, alright. To me it seems like she doesn't want to think about it, but alright. It's our playground, as she says, and I don't inted to drag Letty's parents into our problems. "What are you planning to do now?"

"For now we'll be going to VOW again, check some more things and meet up with my friends." I say. "By the way, I already tested my True Demon form, I can assume it anytime I want and as far as I know it's completely safe."

"Okay." Dragha nods and pauses for a while. "Will you be out in five cycles?"

I look at Letty and we both shrug. "We haven't planned anything this far. We can, I guess. Why though?" Letty asks.

"You do realize your trip to Gaia needed a detour from our planned route, right? It's nothing bad, but we're sheduled to arrive at Tau Ceti in five cycles with a large shipment, and we didn't have a break at Little Wolf as usual. If you want, you could go ashore for a while when the shipment is being processed."

"...We'll think about it." Letty says, glancing at me. "For now the only thing we have planned is meeting Helia's friends today, but we have pretty many things to do we can do anytime."

"Sure." Dragha nods and we lapse into silence.

"By the way." I start, thinking about something nagging my mind since a long while ago. "I'm pretty sure it's possible for you to get a transformation similar to what we went through. Would you like that?" I ask and all three look at me with surprised expressions.

"Is that really possible? How?" Dragha asks with a frown, though I'm pretty sure there's a large amount of curiosity and even excitement hidden underneath.

"We're not completely sure, but the cause of the transformation seems to be an item people receive when they randomize their character. I can't guarantee anything, but there's a good chance you would also receive it and transform in some time if you went this way." I explain and she bites her lip, thinking intensely.

"Would that be safe?" Proton asks. "How does the randomizer work?"

"I'm not sure how it works exactly, but I'm certain it isn't entirely random, if only going by mine and Letty characters. As for if it's safe, well, I can't guarantee anything." I shrug with a wry smile. "For us it was completely safe, but I don't know what could even be dangerous there."

"Hm. Alright." Dragha nods slowly and looks at Proton. "We'll definitely think about it. Maybe we should also have some fun. No one says we've got to be heroes." She says with a twinkle in her eyes and Proton nods slowly.

"I'm not sure if I really want it, because I got pretty used to this body and I don't really want to replace it, but we'll see." He says with a wry smile, standing up."You certainly gave us a lot to think about. You caught me in the middle of a project, so if there's nothing else from important matters, I'll be going back to my workshop. If you need to talk, you can always call me." He says with a smile.

Dragha remains in her place, watching her husband go out of the living room after giving us a small wave, and looks back at us with a thoughtful expression.

"Would a character from the randomizer be as strong as yours?" She asks.

"No." Letty shakes her head. "I mean, it might be, but I doubt it. I checked on forums and most people who randomized their characters were just above average overall. Our two seem to be really unusual in this matter."

"Alright." Dragha nods with pursed eyebrows and sighs. "It all reminds me so much of my dreams when I was young." She mutters and leans back in the sofa.

We stay in silence for a long while, waiting for her to continue.

"I never described my childhood to Letty in detail, but it was pretty shitty for a long while. During this time I was mainly interested in engineering, but I also read a lot of fiction." She chuckles. "Maybe not so fiction, with what's happening recently. Anyway, in between learning and trying to make ends meet by working as an engineer on Mars back at Sol, I often daydreamed... I don't know, about something supernatural happening to me that would make my problems go away, like it was in books. And about adventuring, like, flying freely in space without a care."

She sighs again, but then glances at me with amusement and grins. "Maybe not anything as supernatural as you are, but just some magic would be enough for me. What Proton gave me by turning me into a Mechanical was a step in right direction, but in the end it's mostly science and machinery. Honestly, if what you're telling me is possible, my oldest dreams could be fulfilled within a few months, or even weeks. That's pretty surreal." She finishes and sits up, then looks at us seriously, though not without an excited spark in her eyes.

"Would you mind if I joined you in VOW? Not now, but maybe next week or something?" She asks with an embarrassed grin.

"Huh?" Letty lets out involuntarily. "Um, well, we don't mind... But are you sure? And what about dad?"

Dragha shrugs in response with a small smile. "I'm a hundred percent sure. I'm not going to miss that chance, and frankly, I was going to ask if that's possible even if you didn't mention it, Helia." She looks at me and nods lightly. "As for Proton, he knows me well enough to know my answer to your question even without asking. I'm not sure if he will be going the same way, because he was always the scientist type and he wasn't interested in any power past what's necessary, but you definitely got him interested. Magic is not all about the unknown, after all."

"Can't deny it." I nod. "If you want to join us, just let us know when you're ready and we'll take care of it. Though I think I should warn you that I have not the faintest idea as to what you'd get from the randomizer. It can be a machine, a demon, a monster, a human, a ghost, anything, and you've only one chance you can take or toss away." I say seriously, looking at her with raised eyebrows, and she makes a small smile.

"That's exactly what makes me so excited for it." She says in a small voice.