Becoming Monsters 2: Ch. 43

Honoka didn't know how tense she had become over the course of this long, long day. Just hearing those words were enough for her legs to give out and collapse her on the spot, weeping for joy that her strange and complicated Race had done nothing wrong to either Diane or her child. Nearby, Diane also cried. They crawled together to embrace and kiss and sob in the relief of everything. Shilo was missing none of this, quickly joined them in a group hug that got them all back on their feet and laughing in relief and joy. Which is when Honoka remembered what Akisame actually said.

"Mostly good news? Can you elaborate, Uncle Aki?"

Akisame pulled away from the machine, setting one pile of notes next to another on the table and taking a seat, growing more serious (but which Honoka and Shilo knew was just how he normally looked). "I think you all will want to sit down, this is going to get technical."

Shilo rolled her eyes, knowing how much her husband liked to expound and suggested drinks and snacks. Honoka fetched them and soon the four were again in the office surrounded by machines and munching on a late nosh. Honoka in particular gulped and crunched on a few dozen large red dire chicken eggs and ten gallons of milk, but this was just a snack to the insatiable hunger of Honoka's tummy.

"For Diane's sake, I'll start with a little background," Akisame said, holding his steaming barley tea and pausing to blow on it before taking a pleased sip. "I came to the States when I was still a teenager to study medicine. It wasn't a year before my little sister Uzume ran away from Japan and begged to live with me in Florida, but that isn't very important for this conversation. I graduated with my MD and began specializing in Internal Medicine. If you don't know what that is, it is a general specialty - an oxymoron, I know - that focuses on coordinating how everything in the body works or dealing with multiple diseases or other problems all at once. Internists sometimes work as diagnosticians and coordinate teams to handle severe and difficult cases requiring multiple doctors with different specialties to come together and heal a patient, which is what I eventually became. I was well respected in the field and became the head of my department at the hospital I worked at.

"When the Change happened, I didn't see any reason to do anything differently. My wife became a polar bear and my step son was now a fruit bat, but that didn't make them different people. People still needed healing and for those first few months, everything was in chaos and the world tried to adjust.

"Six months after the Change, Honoka visited me." Akisame paused, taking a long sip of tea before he continued on. "It wasn't that she was a different Race or had so many unknowns that forced me to see the world in a new way, it was that when she came to me she was terrified and had lived in terror for six months. I was ashamed to find that, as a healer, I was unable to ease the suffering of my beloved niece, that she had been in silent pain for so long. I became obsessed with studying Status and thaumian effects on humanity, determined to find the answers to the hardest questions.

"Fortunately, I had an excellent Class to help me. As an Enchanter, I could create magical devices where science came up short. I worked with people to help them adjust to their new Races and abilities, giving them the knowledge they required to adapt. However, as time went on, people adapted just fine on their own and I found my studies moving in another direction. I am currently one of the leading experts in the country concerning Racial fetal development and Racial births."

"That seems like too much of a coincidence," Diane muttered, her eyes wide when she realized the fortuitous implication of Akisame's specialty.

"Maybe I was guided in this direction for this very pregnancy. Or maybe it is the reality of our new world that the people in most need of help from ailments brought on by the Status are expecting mothers, and I am drawn to those in most need. I do thank God I am here now to help Honoka when I couldn't before."

"That is not true," Honoka interjected, lightly punching Akisame in the arm with a smile. "You saved my life. You gave me hope for years when I had none."

"Regardless," Akisame took some crackers and piled deli meat on them, "I am a doctor with experience dealing with women who are pregnant with Racial children. And aside from the speed you progressed - which I heavily suspect is related to Honoka's Race - you have all the earmarks of bearing a child with a Legendary Race classification." Pulling over one of his sheets of notes, he glanced over it before looking at Diane's swollen abdomen. "Your child is currently healthy and of a normal size for a baby of 40 weeks. I can't determine what Race specifically your baby is right now - no one can, another mystery I'm working to solve - though the electrical shocks narrow it down to around a dozen possibilities. To explain her size, Diane is much larger than a human pregnancy because many expecting mothers of Racial children grow extra layers of magical insulation between the womb and their bodies as a way of protecting the mother from uncontrolled fetal abilities. Some women grow much larger as their need for thaumian insulation is greater. Although it doesn't seem natural, it is how the Status compensates for Racial Features in this brave new world. The excess is physiologically similar to fatty tissue and will be absorbed or expelled at the time of birth.

"All this so far is common for a quarter of expecting mothers around the world in the last five years. But in those rare cases of a Legendary Racial birth, there is one major difference. Essentially, the baby requires a certain amount of thaumian energy - known as the Thaumian Threshold - to finish prenatal development. In actuality, I theorize all babies now have a Thaumian Threshold, but in more common Races or human children it is negligent enough not to be noticed. It is noticed in the Legendary Races, because any woman bearing a Legendary child will remain pregnant - stuck in a 40 week limbo - until the Thaumian Threshold is met. The few times I witnessed an inducement or caesarian before the threshold was met - which went against my recommendations and is now better understood in the medical community - always ended in a form of stillbirth."

Diane sucked in a sharp breath and Honoka balled her hands in impotent fists, shaking as Shilo put her large paws in Honoka's lap. "Understood," Honoka said, her mind compartmentalizing the death of other children to focus on her own child. "So, how long will Diane be pregnant."

"I have no idea." Akisame studied his numbers and got up, his own anxiety bleeding into a need to pace slowly around the room. "This could be a very long process for you and Diane. Just last month I was a part of a team of consultants throughout the country that helped a woman give birth to the first basilisk in the United States. The poor woman had been pregnant for a total thirty seven and a half months. Before today, her womb possessed the highest thaumian ratings I had ever seen recorded. I estimate Diane's Threshold is nearly triple that amount, if my calculations are correct."

"I could...I could be pregnant for the next nine years!?" Diane shouted, her eyes nearly popping out of her head as she hyperventilated and gripped around her precious cargo.

"There is one other possibility," Akisame said reassuringly, looking through his notes to find another sheet. "I ran some tests on Honoka's semen and I think that is going to be your solution."

"Of course it is," Honoka said with resignation as she put her head in her hands. "Just once I'd like to solve a problem without using my dick."

"You are the envy of hermaphrodites around the world," Shilo said with a broad smile as she patted Honoka on the back with a massive paw.

"Specifically, the thaumian content in Honoka's ejaculate is literally off the charts: my machines are unable to read high enough to gauge her current energy levels, which is very surprising because I built them specifically to gather her thaumian readings years ago."

"I'm over nine thousand!!" Honoka roared dramatically, getting a round of smirks from the Toriyama savvy crowd.

"So, um, do I..." Diane hesitantly started, the otherwise blunt succubus hesitant in what to say in front of Honoka's family.

"Boink Honoka silly?" Shilo said as she leaned in close to Diane's face and spread her bear face in a wide leer. "Suck the cream filling out of her chocolate eclair? Get your holes filled by your very own BBC plumber?"

"Aunt Shilo!" Honoka tried to desperately make the thirty year old aunt stop but failed miserably, weakly beating on her thick furry hide, Honoka's own skin quickly turning the color of a steamed lobster.

"There are two ways I see it happening. The first is I think every time you allocate Diane, you will increase her thaumian content, though I want to do some light tests right now before you try anything that can harm the baby." Pausing, underneath his mustache a small smile appeared. "Then there is the direct approach." Akisame picked up the bucket Honoka used earlier and handing it to Diane. It was still more than half full. "It doesn't matter how you get it in you, the more you internalize Honoka's semen, the sooner you'll be holding a child in your arms."

That did the trick. With a look of determination that put professional hotdog eaters to shame, the pregnant woman tipped the bucket up and chugged. Honoka's love cream was as thick and dense as a smoothie with not enough milk, a spoon would stand up if stuck inside. It still had enough motility to slide instead of clump, but Diane eventually had to ask Shilo to help hold the bucket as the woman used one hand to shovel the honey and oat and musky white ejaculate into her stomach as fast as she could swallow. Ten minutes later, with a loud belch and licking the last of it with her fingers, the succubus eyed Honoka's crotch as if it contained a box of decadent chocolates.

With a bit of nervous laughter, Honoka told her aunt and uncle they could meet up tomorrow morning after finishing those allocation tests. First, Honoka spent ten minutes as a succubus while Akisame used yet another machine to monitor the health of the baby (he said he could tell them the sex, but both women agreed to let it be a surprise). The conclusion of the experiment after allocating back was that Diane was safe to be allocated from, but she should avoid anything allocated onto her. Otherwise, allocation was encouraged to increase her Threshold. Diane agreed, saying she'll set up the Harmony Chamber for an all nighter.

Honoka then hastily retreated, saying if this was going to happen she would need a much larger snack than just a few eggs and milk. Diane's impatience simmered for a moment before the succubus tamped it down, blowing a kiss towards her wife as she scrambled up and checked her phone, saying she would get Akisame and Shilo situated. With a bit of relief, Honoka made her way to the downstairs gym and the collected food supplies.

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A large snack later (not quite up to morning meal levels, but still bloating her stomach out to the size of a sedan), Honoka was full of energy and horny. Despite the hour, she decided to walk off the last of her meal around the compound, only having a beachball amount of food baby left. Once out into the courtyard, Honoka slowed to an amble and pulled up her Status.

Its back, Honoka thought to herself, worried as she glared at the glitch at the bottom of her Collection. This time, she tried to pull up a submenu from it, maybe gain a better clue of what it was. However, as she focused, the glitch itself broke apart and disappeared. In seconds, it was as if there was nothing there. Even though she hadn't been heavily allocating all day, her head already sharply stung from a headache that was probably more from stress than Status.

Looking on the bright side, both Miaka and Dolly were only one or two more sessions away from harmonizing for the first time. Honoka was excited at how fast the women in her harem were growing by leaps and bounds. Most of the afternoon had been spent going over the various options the wives possessed, and there were some truly broken abilities only a few points away from adding into the allocation pool.

Or, Honoka thought with a wicked grin, we could just keep adding height, muscle and boobs to everyone until we create the ultimate Giant Woman allocation.

Closing her menus down, Honoka continued strolling through the courtyard, though a paranoia fell upon her out of nowhere. She couldn't get away from the feeling that she was being watched. Paranoid was a healthy state of mind in the dungeon, monsters able to appear from anywhere causing countless deaths in the last five years. It wasn't really paranoia if the landscape was actually out to eat you. Yet right now, Honoka would swear she was not only being watched, but followed.

Hearing something behind her, Honoka spun around and crouched into a low guard stance. Nothing was there. Worried she was either losing her mind or rightly sensing danger nearby, Honoka pulled out her phone and made her way towards the nearest doorway inside the complex. It was 11:59 at night, ticking over to midnight as she opened the door and typed a mass text to everyone but didn't send.

Before the anxious woman could do anything else, hands reached out from the dark hallway and pulled the surprised woman into a large cloth bag, muffling any cry she made.