Chapter 28: Chapter 26: Past and Present

Raphael waited impatiently as Kali put Lilith to sleep. She was going to reserve her judgement on this whole situation until she saw Kali’s “proof”, whatever that might be. Yes, she had come to realize that her grandmother was not the greatest person and treated her poorly, but that didn’t mean she was going to blindly believe these outrageous claims.

She was shocked that Lilith, and, more importantly, Carmen had believed it. It all sounded so…impossible.

“Thanks for waiting.” Kali said, straightening up. “What would you like to see first? My surveillance room or my library?”

Raphael frowned. “I don’t care. Whatever proves it best.”

“Library it is.” Kali said. “Follow me.” She led Raphael down a series of halls, before eventually opening the door to a dry, musty-seeming room. “This contains a copy of every significant text ever written. Name anything, I’ll fetch it for you.”

Raphael thought about that for a moment. “One of Grandma’s letters to Grandpa during the war, specifically about their plan for the removal of magic from the humans, and when the ritual would take place. Or is that not significant enough?”

“No, that…probably counts. Let me see if I have it.” Kali replied, walking over to a large book and opening it. After a moment, the area in front of her sort of…fuzzed, and a letter dropped into it. She brought it over to Raphael, who opened it and began to read.

It…fit everything she had remembered and then some. Kali could have been reading her mind, but that wouldn’t give this level of accuracy, not when Raphael’s memory of it had been so fuzzy in the first place.

Raphael frowned, handing the letter back to Kali. She requested a few more, similar things, and eventually she was, at the least, convinced that the library was real. “Fine. I guess this at least checks out, but that doesn’t prove anything, you could have just…found this.”

“I suppose that’s fair.” She paused for a moment, then continued. “I’m guessing you’d be similarly unconvinced by my surveillance room. I…didn’t really want to do this, since it’ll cost some of my resources, but I can give you undeniable proof.”

“I’m listening.” Raphael replied, folding her arms.

“Don’t freak out, okay?” Kali said, walking over and placing a hand on Raphael’s forehead. Then a sort of warm, pleasant feeling washed over Raphael before concentrating in her lower back. After a moment, she felt what could only be a tail slither out from the area, and Kali removed her hand, taking a step back.

“You know an identification spell, right?” She asked. “Go ahead and take a look at your Domain.”

Raphael twisted around and, to her shock, found a demon’s spade tail moving behind her. “You…”

“Spell first, please.” Kali replied.

Raphael grit her teeth and cast the spell. She…had two Domains now, angel and succubus. That was not something that should have been possible, not in the slightest. Domains couldn’t just…be gained after birth, outside of certain incredibly rare circumstances. So, she looked up at Kali in wonder. “I…what? It’s…true?”

Kali nodded. “Yup. I can remove that Domain from you if you’d like, but if you choose to leave it, you’ll get the benefits of having two Domains forever.”

Raphael gingerly touched the tail, flinching as she felt it flick away from her. “This is…weird.” She said. “Can you like…just get rid of the tail?”

Kali nodded. “Yeah, I can do that.” She knelt down and grabbed the tail, and Raphael felt it shrink away to nothingness. “There you go, good as new.” Kali said. “Now, do you still want to see the surveillance room? I can show you what Elenoa’s doing right now if you’d like.”

Raphael gave a hesitant nod, still in shock over her new Domain. “Yeah, sure, but…um, why succubus?”

Kali shrugged. “Because that’s what I’m most familiar with. It’s easier for me to just…pop on someone. It’s not like it’s any different from any other Domain, so I just picked it for simplicity’s sake.” She gently grabbed Raphael’s hand, leading the girl out of the library and into a room just across the hall.

It was a small, roundish room, the walls made mostly of some sort of glass-like material that peered out into nothingness. There was a circular couch surrounding some sort of…console with a blinking light on it.

Kali frowned, letting go of Raphael’s hand. “Sit on the couch, I’ll get this started up. Looks like something’s met some conditions I set up that would cause things to be recorded, and I’m gonna have to give it a look.”

Raphael sat as Kali hopped onto the couch, grabbing some sort of orb from the console. She was silent for a moment, then shook her head. “It’s…well, unsurprisingly, it has to do with Elenoa. I gave it a quick look through, and I can show it to you if you would like.”

Raphael raised an eyebrow. “Unsurprisingly?”

“A lot of my conditions right now have to do with Lilith, and Elenoa has been hitting a lot of those lately. So…do you want to see it? It’s…not exactly a flattering look for her, though, so just be warned.”

“Fine. Let’s see it, then.”

Kali put the orb back, and the door they had entered through vanished, becoming more of the same glass-like material. Then, the nothingness surrounding them was replaced with a room that Raphael was very familiar with, her grandmother’s study.

Inside, her grandmother was pacing back and forth, Winston standing to one side. “Winston, we have to figure out a way to rein her in.” Elenoa growled. “I don’t want another situation like we have with Isa. We need to get her used to doing whatever I say, and for that we need some way to control her.”

“Of course.” Winston said. “I believe it would be in our best interest to act soon, then. From the quick look I got at her, she was much more powerful than I was that shortly after becoming a Perfect Chimera. If she continues to grow at this rate, we won’t be able to do anything drastic without taking risks, much like with Isa.”

“You’re right.” Elenoa said. “But we need to separate her from Tunem. Right now, we can’t do anything big without potentially alienating him further. So, we need to get her transferred to Gabriel’s tutelage. Can you work on that?”

“Of course. May I ask what you have in mind for after? I can begin laying the groundwork for that as well.”

“We’ll need leverage. We can use her family as hostages of sorts until we can get her to swear a magical oath. So, get to it.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Winston replied, leaving the room. The recording then shut off, the door returning as the nothingness past the walls returned.

There was a long silence as Raphael processed what she had just seen. “Did…that really happen?” She asked quietly.

“I’m afraid so.” Kali responded.

“Why? What’s wrong with how things are now? Isa’s been a huge help to everyone, and Lilith hasn’t done anything that would make her dangerous.”

Kali shook her head. “That’s…just how she is. She grabs for power and tries to justify it by making people scared. She even tries it with the rest of us on the Council, and unfortunately, she has enough important people on her side to make it work. This is how she acts when she’s not putting up that front.”

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“But…” Raphael said. “That’s so…different from how she usually acts around me.”

“I know.” Kali said kindly. “And I know this is sudden for you. So, I’m going to give you special permission to use this room while we’re keeping you here, but only to look at Elenoa. You can observe her behavior and decide for yourself what you think. I’ve made it so that whenever you in particular grab the control orb, the room will automatically focus in on her. Mess around with it a bit and get used to it, if you have any questions just come ask, okay?”

Kali stood up, stretching slightly. “Now, I really do have to go deal with Lilith’s stuff, do you need anything else from me?”

Raphael frowned, but shook her head. “No, it’s…it’s fine. I’ll just watch Grandma from here.”

Kali gave her a smile. “Alright. Don’t be shy about asking if you do decide that you need something though, I’m happy to help.”

She left the room, and Raphael reached up, grabbing the orb. The room once again morphed, this time showing one of the rooms in Haven’s capital, where Elenoa was doing paperwork. Raphael settled down in the couch, and prepared herself to watch. It probably wasn’t going to be exciting, but she had to see for herself if things with her grandmother were really as bad as she was starting to think they were.

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A few hours later, Raphael deactivated the viewer and stood up. Her grandmother was still doing paperwork, and it didn’t…seem like anything nefarious. She had found out that she could sort of…zoom in and look at individual things of note in the area, and none of the paperwork was anything other than what would normally be involved in running a country.

So, she had decided it was time to leave and get a snack. Important as deciding for herself was, her grandmother was boring. She’d have to ask Kali if there was any way she could…look through the past or something with this, because she didn’t think she could sit through more of…this.

She exited the room, making her way through the hallways until she reached the kitchen. She opened the pantry and began to look through it, taking stock of its contents. Unfortunately, she was in one of those moods where, despite there being plenty of food in the pantry, there was nothing that she really wanted to eat.

But she would have to force herself to. She knew it wasn’t good for her to just…not eat, so she would have to decide on something.

“Oh, Raphael!” Kali called out, causing Raphael to jump. “Do you need something?”

Raphael turned to the open door from where she heard Kali’s voice. She looked through, and from the doorway she could see what she now recognized as another viewing room, and through a door there, Kali’s room. Inside, Kali and Siph were standing, and Raphael thought she could make out the silhouette of Lilith on the bed. “Um…yeah, I guess? How’d you know I was here?”

“We’re in my personal realm, I have a pretty good idea of where people in here are.” Kali replied. “So, what do you need?”

“We’re not done talking about this!” Siph said firmly. “I’m not leaving until you give me a straight answer.”

Kali gave a sigh. “Well, it was worth a shot. Fine, I’ll give you your answers, but not right now. This information is a bit too…sensitive for anyone else to hear.”

“I can keep a secret!” Raphael protested, moving towards the two. “I want to know!” Her curiosity had been piqued by this sudden mystery that had been placed in front of her

Kali shook her head. “No can do. Siph is one thing, since she’s already tied up in all this, but you and Lilith don’t need to be for the time being. You’ll find out eventually, so just…wait, alright? It’s not exactly a pleasant story, so you’re really not missing out on much.”

“Fine,” Raphael said, pouting slightly, “but I’m not happy about it.”

“I don’t expect you to be.” Kali replied. “Anyway, what did you need?”

“I was getting some food, and then I heard you two talking. Oh, and I also wanted to know if that viewer can look into the past. I’m glad I can check in on Grandma and all, but I don’t want to have to sit there all day looking at her doing boring stuff if I can just…look through time and see if she’s always like she acted in that recording.”

“Yeah, I…guess I can allow you that.” Kali said hesitantly. “But that’ll have to wait until tomorrow, I’m going to have to make some slight modifications to limit you a bit more. I haven’t really put safeguards on that function, I can’t let you invade other people’s privacy too much.” She paused briefly before continuing. “Well, aside from Elenoa, but she’s the only reason I’m letting you use that anyway, so she doesn’t count.”

 “Alright.” She took a moment to look around, and found that Lilith was indeed sleeping peacefully on the bed, so watching TV while she waited was out of the question. “When’s Lilith going to wake up?”

“Soon.” Kali replied. “I was going to finish having this talk with Siph and was planning to wake her up then.”

“I can wait.” Siph said, sitting down in one of the beanbag chairs. “I’m going to have a lot of questions, and I’m sure Lilith would like to be up as soon as possible. I’ve waited this long for answers, so a few hours more is nothing.”

“Right. I’ll wake her up then, it should only take a couple of minutes. She’ll have a lot of questions, though, so we’ll have to take some time to answer those, and that’s going to take a bit.” She turned back to Raphael, giving her a smile. “Is there anything in particular you wanted to eat? The stuff in the pantry is more…well, more like a suggestion. I can get anything else you want.”

Raphael paused, thinking about that for a moment. “Dunno, I was just sorta browsing.”

“Well, if you think of anything just let me know.” Kali replied, moving back over to the bed where Lilith was resting. “After this, of course. I need to focus while I’m waking her up so there aren’t any complications. In these next few hours after she wakes up, though, feel free to interrupt if it looks like we’re not in the middle of something important.”

“Umm…alright.” Raphael responded. “Do I have like…a room here or something? I don’t imagine I’m going to be sleeping in yours all the time, right?”

Kali nodded. “Yes. Give me one second…” She stopped for a moment, then continued. “Alright. You should see a new door in the kitchen when you get back. Go through there, your room will be the second door on the right. Bathroom’s the door at the end of the hall.”

Raphael blinked. “You didn’t…just make it, did you?”

“Maybe. Again, this is my person realm, I have a lot of control here. Something like making a few more rooms is not an issue. Anyway, go get your snack, I gotta get to this.”

“Alright. Um…thanks, I guess.” Raphael said, leaving the room and heading back to the pantry. She absentmindedly took out stuff for a sandwich, noting that there was indeed a door that hadn’t been there before. She made the sandwich, grabbed a plate, and then opened the door, peering in to find a decently long hallway.

She took the second door on the right as instructed, and found a room not dissimilar to the one she had back at Tunem’s academy, though it had a couple of changes, namely the addition of a TV and the fact that the computer, desk, and…well, most of the other furniture looked much nicer than the ones Tunem had.

A small note was attached to the computer, which Raphael took and began to read.

You should have access to all the TV channels you did on Haven and then some. The note read. I have some clothes in the dresser for you, and your computer should get pretty nice internet. Let me know if there’s any trouble with anything, I’ll get it fixed for you. Consider this…well, consider this an impromptu break of sorts in your schooling. So, feel free to take a load off and just relax for a bit, you look like you could use it. – Kali

Raphael put the note in the wastebasket near the desk before flopping onto the bed, briefly looking around for a remote before turning on the TV. She would take the time to relax as soon as she had figured her grandmother out, and then…well, she had never had the opportunity to try lazing about all day, so she figured she would give it a go. Some of her classmates swore by it, so it couldn’t be that bad, right?