"…and her name is Toshiko, in case anyone was curious!" I concluded, beaming at my amused audience.
Glaustro, Methialia, and Bronwynn were all there, listening to the report Mia and I had managed to give in between moments of gleeful bickering.
No matter what the stuck-up cat was trying to claim, she was definite not the more important half of the soul meld! My flames and spells still did a lot of work, not to mention what my soul blade had let us pull off.
The kitty cat scoffed at me like she could hear my internal monologue. To be fair, with how 'close' we'd just been, she could probably guess at bits of it.
"I am proud of you both," Glaustro announced. "Your mission's gone more or less flawlessly. Now we have an important source of information, support, and potential new allies. Good work."
"You can't rely on 'proud parent' vibes to get us to do whatever you want. You're not our real dad!" I petulantly crossed my arms across my chest, even though my lips were twitching as I did so.
The look of Parental Disapproval Glaustro aimed at me was negated by the bubbliness still squirming under my skin. I had no clue why I was in such a good mood still, but I didn't really want it to end.
"You are… unusually happy," my colonel concluded, eying me up and down before looking at Mia. "And you are unusually calm and content. If I didn't know any better, I'd say you had a bit of a… private celebration of your success with the Kettunens, before coming to deliver the news."
I blinked at him, then flushed scarlet when the implications caught up with me.
"Shut up! We decided not to head straight for the Absorption Station, just so we could relay the good news faster, and this is how you thank us?"
I pointed my nose upwards in a show of overblown childish pique. Mia, on the other hand, just giggled, looking not one bit tense. She didn't even appear to be contemplating Vengeance while lounging on my…
Okay, maybe Glaustro had a bit of a point. But still!
"Oh, something's definitely off." Bronwynn leaned in and frowned as he panned his eyes from me to Mia and back. "Hmmm… I know you said you've done this once before in combat, and that you've practiced since, but how deeply did you two soul-meld outside of combat? More importantly, how deep did you go during it?"
"You're weird, and your choice of words is lewd," I declared with solemnity, only to burst into giggles.
"They're going to be useless." Methialia peered at us. "There's something there, though, between them… when you really squint, you can just make it out."
I squirmed a little, suddenly feeling a tinge uncomfortable.
"I can see it," Bronwynn mused. "It's like a thread? But why… Wait. Hayden. Mia. Are you still running a mental connection spell?"
"No."
I lied, like a liar. While simultaneously using my mental connection with Mia to suggest that we should book it quickly.
Neither of us moved quickly enough, though.
Glaustro snapped forward and rolled over his own desk to block us. He swung his arm in a downward motion, his hand blazing with Wrath, soul essence, and mana as it sheared through the space between Mia and me.
There was a moment of tension as the spell we were running snapped. Then I was assaulted by such intense vertigo that I almost tried to heave my guts out.
My Emotions also snapped apart before slowly coalescing again. Good cheer was swiftly drowned out by the typical medley of stuff that lived in my mind, with Woe returned to its chief position.
"Wuh wuz that?! It feels like you took a sledgehammer to my brain, dammit. Glaustro!"
I hissed and covered my face. It suddenly felt like every ray of light stabbed straight into my brain, and every noise set off a total collapse of my ability to think.
Mia wasn't any better off. She had taken full advantage of her flexibility and curled into an actual ball, her head completely covered by the fluff of her tail.
"That was my one and only warning that you two should be much more careful when handling such things." My colonel sighed, meandering back to his seat in a leisurely fashion. "This time, you got off lightly for overdoing it. Next time, you might not be as lucky."
"What do you mean? What even happened?" I demanded, moving over to cuddle up against Mia. She just groaned morosely in response. The state of my head made me want to copy her, but a thrill of worry at Glaustro's words forced me to pay attention.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
"It seems that you two managed to displace certain Emotions. When you pulled apart, happiness and its related Emotions ended up pooling into you, Hayden. In turn, calm and relaxation pooled inside of Mia. You're lucky you weren't experiencing any potent negative Emotions at the moment you undid your connection, or the results could have been much worse. There's also the fact that you maintained a link between you, making it even harder for things to return to where they belonged or at least dissipate. You'll both feel a little off until you settle down, I'm guessing."
"None of this stuff happened when we practiced!" I protested, though I knew Glaustro was probably right. "And we tested the connection plenty of times, trust me."
"And on none of those occasions were you physically, emotionally, and magically pushed to your limits. Fighting a Viscount isn't something you can just shrug off. Honestly? You two should probably avoid repeating this performance for some time, at least."
I gnawed on my lower lip, entirely unwilling to just give up this mode of combat. It made me, us, feel… in control, powerful, dynamic in a way that being a singular person could simply never match up to.
"I agree we need to figure out how to do it a little more safely," I hedged.
Glaustro just sighed. "No, Hayden. You need to back off fully and give yourselves time to recover. Just for now. Once you're back to normal, we'll work on limits. Both on how far you should take your mergers, and how long you should maintain them. Do you really think you two are the first pair of demons to pull something like this?"
"…Yes?"
I had a reason for thinking that, okay? Demons who trusted each other were already a rarity. Demons willing to let someone into their innermost selves, sharing every thought? Every secret? Those were, to my understanding, practically nonexistent.
"No. Others have done it. Lovers. Twins. It's not common, but there are precedents. And you will study the records we have on those as soon as I retrieve them from my own collection. Graighast and I briefly considered pursing this path before…" My colonel shook his head. "Never mind. It didn't work out. What you need to know is that the risks potentially outweigh the benefits."
"How?" It was Bronwynn who voiced the question, flushing when everyone's attention moved to him. "I mean… their experience sounded remarkable, that's all. And it was a success."
"They were remarkable," admitted Glaustro gently, drawing the Affection demon in for a hug. "They will continue to be in the future, too. At least until they slip up and accidentally turn themselves into a permanent Gestalt."
To say I froze in horror would be a bit of an understatement.
I knew the word, obviously. It wasn't very common, but I'd always been something of a fan of both sci-fi and fantasy in my original lifetime.
"We… could end up permanently fused? Fully? Mind and soul?"
Glaustro merely raised an incredulous eyebrow at me. "Of course. What did you think, that you are beyond such concerns?"
"But… we're demons. We're masters of soul manipulation and… all of that," I defended myself weakly, much to the chuckles of both Glaustro and Methialia. Bronwynn just looked at me with concern.
"Oh, Hayden." Methialia finished chuckling and shook her head in exasperation. "Sure, we are naturally gifted when it comes to manipulating souls, Emotions, and even minds. That doesn't mean we're all powerful or infallible when it comes to those things. If we were, I could have just healed myself, or at least figured out what was actually wrong with me."
I had to admit she made a very good point.
I also had to admit that I might have, maybe, potentially, fallen a bit too deep into the regular demonic mindset.
Pride and rank stupidity had lulled me into a level of confidence that veered right past dangerous. Sure, I'd acknowledged this somewhat when I let that dragon-like demon try to gore the life out of me. At least, I'd acknowledged it when Mia chewed me out afterwards. But what else had I missed?
There was nothing wrong with confidence, of course. Confidence was good. But arrogance was its much more dangerous cousin, and I'd become best pals with that cousin without even meaning to.
"I… have a few things to consider. Moving on!" I rushed out the words in a slightly high-pitched tone of voice, then cleared my throat. "Mia and I strengthened our souls considerably with this last bit of combat. Do you think we should try for Viscount? I think we could do it, but I'd appreciate your opinion."
That I was floundering a little after my recent bout of self-awareness was probably written all over my face. Glaustro's expression softened from the severe, worried look he'd been wearing before, and even Methialia and Bronwynn eased up from the tension that had gripped them.
"I do think so, yes," Glaustro confirmed. "You are both about where I was when I took the step, and you should have enough Merits from the whole Desire fiasco. Correct? If not, I can chip in. I still have some saved up, and you can even use a couple of higher rank if you need to, though it is horribly wasteful."
"No, we're fine! Right, Mia?"
"Let me dieeee. I want to pass out. Why can't I pass out?" my kitty cat wailed, raising her head for the first time since our full separation to glare at the world with something approaching hatred.
I winced at how bloodshot her eyes were, wondering why the whole thing seemed to hit her even harder than it did me.
"We'll go take a nap soon, I promise." I gently traced my fingers over her cheek. She leaned into my touch with a contented sigh before stiffening, stealing a glance at our audience, and then batting my hand away.
I could only watch in amusement as she then draped herself over my lap imperiously, as if to declare affection was hers to dole out and mine to endure. I rolled my eyes and mussed up her hair, much to her annoyed hissing.
"We're fine," I repeated. "We've got the Merits we need."
"Excellent." Glaustro's lips were twitching and his voice was a little strained from holding back laughter. "In that case, I'd wait until tomorrow and make sure both your souls are settled, but I fully support you making an attempt then. We're going to need all the advantages we can get. Two more Viscounts will do nicely."
I flushed a little at the indirect praise, but caught onto the important bit of his little speech.
"You want our souls to settle? Out of curiosity… what would have happened if we'd tried to ascend to Viscount as we were before?"
His eyes practically speared me to the couch we were lounging on. "Nothing good. The best case scenario would be soul damage. A worse case would have been the process solidifying your state as it was. You'd have been forced to constantly manage your Emotions if you didn't want to slip into a happiness high at random. It would settle eventually, maybe, but you could have been stuck like that for decades, if not longer."
"Ah… Yeah." Clearing my throat again, I looked away from him. "We'll be careful."
I very carefully didn't promise we wouldn't do it again, though. The advantages our little trick granted us were far too extensive to give up.
We would just need to be a lot smarter about how we handled it.