Author's Note:
Inspiration to write the majority of this chapter didn't come until 10:00 PM, and I've been writing for hours when I should be going to sleep. I have work in the morning, for fuck's sake! Don't do this to me, stupid brain!
Anyway, this chapter is slightly shorter than my others, but I hope it's enjoyable.
***
Standing in the ankle-deep water and looking around the chamber with amusement was a kitsune around the height and apparent age of Kitsu. Her hair, which reached down to mid back, was a brilliant shade of gold, as was the fur on her tails and ears, with white tips at the ends of the tails. Her emerald green eyes with vertically slitted pupils held an endless well of wisdom, as well as the mischief her race was known for. Her skin was pale and flawless, the only thing standing out on it being what looked like a red tattoo just above her flat chest whose thin lines snaked up to wrap delicately around her neck.
As for her wardrobe…well, Kevin's mind couldn't really process the exact nature of it. After all, if his System was programmed to show all of his basic stats, his Vaporeon form would exhibit a massive increase in wisdom, but an equally proportionate decrease in intelligence. All he could really process about it was that it looked Japanese in origin, looked like either a dress or a long skirt with some kind of large-sleeved shirt-type-thing that didn't cover her shoulders, and was a mixture of white, purple, black, and gold. His brain almost overloaded trying to process just that much.
(Side Note: The main reason for this lackluster description of her clothing, despite how spot-on I usually like to think I am, is because I honestly don't know the words to describe Tamamo's outfit. I'm just gonna end up attaching a picture to the paragraph and call it a day. Never said I knew anything about Japanese culture beyond anime.)
[Heavenly Knight Tamamo]
[Type: Rock/Fire]
"Hey there, little dudette," Kevin decided to call out, bringing the full attention of the most powerful kitsune in the world to him. "You're Tamamo, right?"
Tamamo smiled brightly. She had been called many things over the course of her incredibly long life, both positive and negative. However, she could honestly say that this was the first time anyone had ever referred to her as a 'little dudette.' Despite her instincts screaming at her that the individual before her was dangerous on a level she hadn't encountered in hundreds of years, she found herself looking forward to the conversation they were about to have.
"Yes, that would be me!" she giggled. "And you must be Kevin, right?"
Kevin's eyes widened. "Woah…you got it right on the first try! Do you have some kind of…psychic abilities or something?"
Tamamo laughed loudly at that. "Maybe I do, maybe I don't. But I can say that I didn't use any magic to deduce who you are. I just compared the power you're radiating and the state you left the cave in with your battle to the descriptions given by Granberia of your battle with her. The fact that I can see Alice standing behind you solidified my conclusion."
"Ooooooooooh," the blue haired boy said, nodding in understanding. "I gotcha. If you know Granberia, then she probably would've told you about the big fight back in Iliasburg. Is she doing alright?"
The kitsune wasn't expecting him to ask that, but answered anyway. "She's definitely training more, for sure. She didn't really take the loss well, or the fact that you would've killed her if Alice hadn't intervened."
"Well…I can't really say I'm sorry, because she definitely was asking for a beating," he shrugged.
From behind him, a voice suddenly spoke up. "Are you just going to ignore the fact that she told you that I'm standing behind you?"
Turning around slowly, the Vaporeon finally noticed that Alice had reappeared. Her arms were crossed under her sizable bust as she stared at him with an unimpressed glare. It was obvious to anyone with eyes that she was irritated, but Kevin's current state of mind couldn't register it that easily.
"Oh…Alice? When did you get back?" he asked, happy to see she stopped hiding.
"Around the time when Tamamo stepped through the door," she deadpanned.
"…why do you seem so angry, bro?"
"Oh, I don't know," she stated, her voice dripping in sarcasm. "Maybe it has something to do with you telling the kitsune over there that I'm 'a big wimp who's scared of other monsters.'"
Kevin tilted his head to the side. "But…that was hours ago. How are you still mad?"
That was not the right thing to say, as Alice's eyes narrowed and bloodlust seemed to radiate out from her. "If you value your life, I would suggest changing the topic, because I am seconds away from smashing your head through that iron door."
"Oh…" Kevin replied, tilting his head to the other side. "That sounds like it would definitely hurt. Can you not do that?"
Their back-and-forth was interrupted by Tamamo piping up. "It looks like you've found yourself an interesting travel companion, Alice," she stated with a chuckle.
The Lamia turned her gaze to the kitsune leader, her anger fading but her irritation remaining. "Unfortunately, I agree with you."
It was then that the small fox resting in Kevin's arms, whom he had been idly petting since he picked her up, finally regained consciousness. Nanabi looked around in confusion for a moment, her eyes stopping on Tamamo for a few seconds before she recalled the events that led to her passing out in the first place. She then registered the fact that she was being petted, and looked up to see the one who'd knocked her out.
Her instincts seemed to be split on what course of action they wanted her to take. Part of her was screaming to get away from him as quickly as possible and hide behind Tamamo for safety; another part was urging her to stay put and enjoy the somehow-calming sensation of his hand moving back and forth from her head to the base of her spine; and yet another part of her wanted nothing more than to curl up in a ball in embarrassment and hope that nobody would ever mention the utter disaster of a battle that had led to her being sealed in this form.
Kevin, noticing the sudden movement in his arms as the seven-tailed fox readjusted her body, looked down at her and smiled. "Good morning, little bronette. Sorry that I had to do this to you, but you were kinda asking for it, ya know?"
She…couldn't really refute that. Sure, she was charged with guarding the door by Tamamo, but she should've conceded the moment she felt the amount of magical power the boy radiated upon transforming. Instead, when he actually wanted to wait a bit and just listen to whatever hallucinations he was having, she'd taken offense and immediately attacked him. This was entirely on her.
"Is that Nanabi?" Tamamo asked, looking at the form of her subordinate trying to hide her face in the crook of Kevin's elbow. "It looks like you sealed her. Hm…it'll definitely take some time for me to provide her enough energy to return to normal, but I guess this will serve as a lesson to know her limits and not provoke individuals with more power than her."
'I was just following your orders…' Nanabi thought, burying her face even deeper.
"Don't be so hard on her, little dudette. She tried her best, and that's what matters, ya know?" Kevin defended her.
Alice groaned. "Could you please change back already? I can feel myself losing braincells the longer I hear you speak in this form."
"Oh, yeah! Thanks for reminding me, Alice!" he thanked her with a chuckled. "I totally forgot that I transformed in the first place to fight, but now that everything's calm I don't need it anymore. Hey, Tamamo? You mind taking this little lady off my hands?"
The kitsune leader audibly chuckled at the fact that Nanabi, who usually towered over most human beings, was being referred to as a 'little lady.' "Why? Have you gotten tired of how soft her fur is already?" she replied, stepping forward to retrieve her thoroughly embarrassed subordinate.
"Nah," he replied with a lazy smile as he handed the fox off. "It's just that I know myself well enough to know that the moment I shift back, I'll probably drop her in the water in a moment of petty revenge for her instigating the fight in the first place."
Alice perked up at that. "All the more reason to keep holding her, in my opinion," she interjected.
Rather than wait for the Monster Lord to somehow convince the teen to drop her subordinate, Tamamo quickly took Nanabi into her arms, before setting her down gently in the shallow water. The seven-tailed fox was visibly disappointed at not being petted anymore, but she too at attention next to her master nonetheless.
As usual, the transformation back into his base form was less dramatic than his evolution, consisting only of a slight obscuring of his form rather than the blinding flash of light. The change in mindset was a little bit more jarring, though, as the near-high state of happiness he'd been riding since the battle started was snuffed by his usual apathy. He didn't let it show, though.
Tamamo was slightly surprised to see the toned hunk shrink down into a shota that was at about eye-level with her, though not as much as she could've been had Granberia not given her a report of the events that transpired in Iliasburg. The dragonkin had described the appearance of the boy both before and after his transformation into his Ice form, but Tamamo thought that she'd been exaggerating with how short and adorable he was. Nor did she expect him to resemble a one-tailed member of her race so closely.
With an expression of intrigue, she stepped forward and proceeded to walk slowly around him, sniffing him every few seconds. His smell was close to that of a kitsune, but lacked the subtle hints of earth Magic that were usually woven into the scent. Instead, he smelled of multiple elements, ranging from the basic Fire and Water, to the more complicated Ice and Plant. Her other senses corroborated this with the Elemental Energy the boy's body was giving off in such small quantities that most monsters wouldn't be able to detect them.
Concluding that he was, indeed, a male monster – and the first in the history of the world, to boot – she stopped in front of him and gave him a cheerful smile. "You're so cute! You'd make a good mate."
The tension that had been building in the room over the course of the impromptu inspection was shattered in an instant, with the other two kitsunes gaining expression of exasperation. It was well known in the Kitsune Village that Tamamo was incredibly whimsical and prone to saying and doing things that seem ridiculous, so her suddenly propositioning the only male monster in existence wasn't exactly surprising.
Alice's expression remained neutral as she watched the interaction unfold. With how unpredictable her both her old mentor and Kevin were, they were just as likely to get along right off the bat, as they were to have one of them unintentionally offend the other and trigger a battle that would inevitably collapse the cave. You'd think that the lamia would want to prevent this, but the knowledge that such a battle would end with one or both of them getting the tar beaten out of them was too good for her to pass up.
As for Kevin, he raised an eyebrow at the heavenly knight. "Is that so? I had no idea. Most monsters skip the compliments and try raping me the moment they see me."
"Fufufu," she chuckled, as if he'd told an amusing joke. "Considering how you manhandled Nanabi, I can assume it didn't end well for any of them?"
"I can say with almost one hundred percent certainty that the majority of them came out with new phobias and copious amounts psychological trauma after our encounters concluded," he admitted, his eyes taking on a glint of nostalgia as he remembered the last week or so in this world. "It's not my fault they don't know the meaning of 'no.'"
Tamamo's own expression shifted slightly at that, but didn't lose its perceptible mirth. "And the way you handled Granberia in Iliasburg? From what she reported, she didn't make a single sexual advance toward you."
"I'm guessing she didn't tell you why I tried to shove an ice spike through her throat?" the teenager asked with a hint of annoyance.
"No, she only said that you started attacking her after she accidentally provoked you," the kitsune replied, tilting her head to the side curiously. "Any further attempts to confirm what exactly she did were met with her looking away in embarrassment and discomfort."
Kevin narrowed his eyes. "If she's too much of a chicken to admit to her own faults, then I'll do it for her: she knocked my only chocolate bar out of my hands and onto the bloody streets while trying to take over Iliasburg."
That…wasn't what Tamamo was expecting. With how much of a brute the dragonkin was, the kitsune expected her to have insulted the boy, or possibly injured him while using too much force on another opponent. But knocking the chocolate out of a child's hands? Did she really sink so low? And how would that result in him deciding it was okay to try murdering her?
"I see that you don't understand, so I'll paint you a picture," Kevin continued. "Do you have a favorite food?"
Tamamo smiled brightly. "Of course! Thin fried tofu is the best food in the history of the world!"
The boy nodded at her. "Good. Now, I want you to imagine that you have been sent to a place where you recognize almost nothing. People are different, the animals are different, and more importantly, the food is different. You're given a bag that has food in it, but only one small serving of thin fried tofu is inside."
It didn't take the kitsune long to realize where this 'hypothetical' was going.
"Then, when you finally decide to eat the tofu and sink into happy memories of the past, someone smacks it out of your hands and renders it inedible. As far as you know, that is the only piece of thin fried tofu in the entire world, and you may never get the chance to taste it again. How would that make you feel?" he finished, the mere memory of the event making him slightly more irritable.
"I would probably lose all pretense of decency and do my best to kill the one that took that happiness away from me," Tamamo answered, closing her eyes and nodding her head. "Although, I would probably do that to anybody who messed with my tofu without my permission, even knowing that I could easily get more."
Upon opening her eyes again, she was surprised to see an expression on his face other than the one of apathy he'd had since he transformed: a slight smile.
"I couldn't agree more," he stated. "You know, you may be the most tolerable monster I've met so far."
Off to the side, Alice realized that the worst case scenario had been reached. 'Oh no…' she thought in fear.
"And you're the most interesting boy I've met in a long time," Tamamo grinned back.
'Nononono…' the Monster Lord continued to think in dread.
"I don't know about being your mate, at least not yet," Kevin said. "But I can definitely say you seem like you'd be fun to hang around."
A glint of…excitement appeared in the blonde's eyes. "We can start from there and work our way up. I love a challenge, after all."
'They're getting along! Abort mission! Abandon ship!' Alice screamed in her head, though all that reflected on the outside was a slight look of uneasiness on her face.
With the two coming to an understanding through the silent conversation being held between their gazes, Kevin moved on to the reason he was here in the first place. "So, my new fox friend, do you mind if I ask you for a favor?"
"Getting ahead yourself, aren't you?" she teased him, giggling a little to herself. "But, considering how you helped escort Kitsu here and spared Nanabi's life, I guess I do need to repay you. How do you want me to thank you? Maybe some delicious thin fried tofu? Or a chance to touch one of my special fluffy tails?"
Both of those definitely sounded tempting the teenager, especially the tofu if it was as good as she said it was. Unfortunately, he needed the object she was holding in her left hand. "I'd actually like to have Poseidon's Bell. It's the only reason we're here in the first place."
Tamamo held it up. "This? Honestly, it doesn't really matter to me. But Alma Elma is so annoying."
"I'm guessing that's the name of the monster causing the storms out in the oceans?" he questioned.
"Yes," Alice spoked up. "She's one of the Four Heavenly Knights as well."
"I wanted to travel to Sentora by boat, but her storms are indiscriminate. It's such a pain," the kitsune shrugged. "So, I decided to come here and get a quick artifact that would let me, Nanabi, and Kitsu sail without having to worry about her."
Kevin tilted his head to the side. "Can't you teleport? I'm pretty sure I heard Kitsu say something about you being able to do that."
She gave him a look of pity. "Where would the fun in just teleporting be?"
"…point taken," he conceded. He concluded that, to someone who could just instantly appear anywhere in the world with a single thought, teleportation would get boring after the first few hundred times. "To be honest, I could've used my Vaporeon form to make the trip without even rising above the surface of the water, but a hunch told me that I could get a power up from that bell."
Tamamo looked interested now. "A power up? How would that work?"
"If you hand me the bell, I'll show you."
Seeing no point in keeping it any longer, she handed it over to the Eevee. The moment his hand touched the slightly rusted surface, the System spoke up just as it had when he held Angel Halo.
[Attention Host: two Pure Energy Types have been detected within the object the Host is currently holding. The Host is only in possession of one of these Types. Would the host like to assimilate the energy into himself to unlock one new evolution?]
'Yes,' he mentally confirmed.
[Commencing Assimilation]
Before everyone's eyes, a bright light shone from the bell and grew steadily brighter until it was almost blinding. Then, the bell turned to a fine stream of dust that flew through the air and passed through Kevin's clothing into his chest. Despite having seen it before, Alice was still intrigued by the process, while two out of the three kitsunes in the room were wide eyed in shock.
Tamamo was just as shocked as her companions, but was able to keep the depth of her surprise from showing on the surface.
[Congratulations! The Assimilation of the artifact Poseidon's Bell was a success!]
[New setting added: Ideal Weather]
[New Evolution Added: Griffeon]
'As on the nose as ever with the names, eh System?' Kevin thought. 'I'm guessing that Griffeon is a Flying Type evolution?'
[The Host is correct. The Elemental powers held within Poseidon's Bell were Wind and Water, which it would use to stabilize the weather and sea itself. The closest Pokemon Type to Wind is Flying, so the Wind Type energy was converted to Flying Type energy and assimilated to unlock this form.]
He would've nodded in understanding if it weren't for the fact that there were so many people around him. 'And the Ideal Weather setting?"
[Should the Host activate this setting, the weather surrounding the host will always be the most suitable for whatever form the Host is currently using. Forms that have abilities associated with weather conditions will automatically trigger them without having to think about using a move.]
He wasted no time in turning that on. Any advantage in a battle would be appreciated, seeing as he had a feeling that it wouldn't be as easy to curb stomp every hostile monster he would encounter on the Sentora continent.
"That was certainly…interesting," Tamamo piped up, drawing his attention back to the real world. "I see now why you wanted it. I could feel you absorbing the powers of the bell and strengthening yourself with it. From how pleased you looked, I can assume you got what you wanted?"
"I absolutely did," the teenager smiled.
The blond kitsune clapped her hands together. "With that out of the way, it looks like my work here is done! I'll be headed back to the castle, Alice."
Alice glared at her. "Just leave, already. Having so many kitsunes around is already making me feel…punchy."
Nanabi and Kitsu needed no more incentive to immediately cling to Tamamo in fear of what the Monster Lord might do to them. It wasn't a secret that she had a thing against their kind, and neither of them wanted to be bullied by her.
"This is farewell, then," Tamamo grinned at Kevin. "I look forward to seeing you again."
"Me too," he smiled back, moments before the three kitsunes blinked out of existence.
Silence remained in the cave as the Eevee and Monster Lord were once again alone with each other. They proceeded to leave the cave without saying anything to each other, their usual companionable silence enough for them to organize their respective thoughts on the events that had just transpired.
Upon stepping out into the evening sunlight, Alice focused her senses on the restrained core she had detected multiple times deep within her travel companion. She could tell that it had changed again, but was completely incapable of telling what had been added to make it different due to the locked-down nature of it.
"What forms did you unlock this time?" the lamia finally inquired, curiously.
"Well, the bell had Wind and Water Type magic in it, so I was only able to get the Flying Type evolution this time," he replied.
"That's convenient, " she nodded. "If you use it, it could make the trip back to the port much quicker."
Kevin nodded. "That's true, but I'm not exactly in a rush, you know? Getting back quicker just means fighting Alma-whatever even sooner, and I've had enough excitement for one day."
Alice unsurprisingly agreed with this sentiment. She knew that Alma Elma would attack whatever ship they were on moments after it left the harbor. It was a smart move to take their time on the way back, set up camp for the night, and have a good night's sleep before rushing off to encounter another of her Heavenly Knights.
"Okay," she said, slithering slightly ahead of him. "But if we're going to be sleeping in the woods again when we could've been renting a room at an inn, you have to make extra food tonight."
Kevin gave her a look that was slightly amused. "Do you ever NOT think with your stomach?"
***
Author's Note 2:
Next chapter will be longer, have exposition, and likely the encounter with the sexy succubus. Stay tuned for it...eventually