Chapter 38 - Mavel's Dilemma P2
~38.2~
*****
"What do you want for yourself?"
I sighed. "From you, I want whatever makes you happy. From our partners, I want whatever makes them happy. And for myself… I would rather not say. Suffice that I want you and the others to be happy together."
"We are happy together, but there is still something missing. Fifteen years ago in Atlantis, when it was just me and Eli… there was a lot missing. The two of us were happy to be together again, but we didn't have Adara or Adele, and also Lily and Ally who are extraordinarily loyal to us, and kind of remind me of…"
She shook her head.
"Never mind. And neither of us had memories of past worldlines or the living world. Eli didn't even have memories of Athas. Then in the first year in the academy, we were reunited with Adara and Adele. Then Fia came along, the big sister to all of us. Or so we thought."
"You didn't know about Fia and Eli until after Rei was kidnapped, right?"
She nodded. "That's right. A lot came to me rapid fire. I found out mom… Atalante was a soul I knew very well, but I couldn't put a name to that soul right away. In the following days when I was practicing with Zen Mana to traverse the boundary, I recovered my memories, all of them. Every worldline, living world, Eden, everything. One of our best friends Eglantine had become my mom in Atlantis. I was happy to have all those memories and figure out so many people from past lives and the living world were there with us."
She paused for a moment and sighed.
"And that empty feeling was explained. I kept it all to myself because I didn't want to risk the seal on Eli's memories, and afterward I'd been thinking about how to talk about it. Alfia was part of that empty feeling, but we've since filled that. Luma and Eli are together now, and although she's not officially with any of us, the empty feeling with her is pretty well filled. But you…"
"But me?"
She smiled and gripped my hand. "You don't have to be alone."
I shook my head. "Yes I do." I hesitated, but I knew I had to get it out. "You say you're done with the mother-daughter charade. You said I stole your parents, our parents, from you. And you even said I stole myself from you."
"Those last two weren't meant to be literal."
"But they weren't exactly wrong. You think of mom and dad… Mabel and Velarus as your parents, do you not."
"Yes."
"And you said you've never thought of me as your mother?"
She hesitantly nodded her head. "That's right."
Mom reached her hand toward me and wiped a tear out of my eye. I didn't even realize I had shed a tear. But it was no surprise. The girl I had thought of as my daughter since her birth was sitting in front of me telling me she never thought of me as her mother.
"I'm sorry, Mavel, but that's how I feel. And I won't lie to you."
More tears came out of my eyes and mom switched spots with Alethea to get closer to me. She pulled me close and held me like she did when I was younger.
"I'm going to step out for now," Alethea said.
"Wait, no!" I cried.
"Mavel… we can't proceed as we are now. The way we feel about things, the way we feel about each other… we're fundamentally too far apart. In your mind, we're parent/child. In my mind, we're not that, nor are we sisters, we're two halves of one person. In your mind, you can't be with our partners because you feel guilty over 'taking them from me'. In my mind, you're hurting yourself and the rest of us by staying away." She looked back at me for a moment. "This conversation isn't over, but we can't finish it right now. We're too far apart to even compromise. I need to do some thinking about everything before I'm willing to continue."
She left the room without another word, and I lost control of my tears. I couldn't stop them, and mom held me tight as I cried.
*****
"How is she?" Shi-chan asked as I entered the lounge.
"She's awake."
"Did she say anything?"
"We started to talk, but I decided to pause the conversation."
"What happened?" dad asked.
I flopped down into an empty chair and sighed. "I asked her about what she wanted from everyone, what she wanted for herself. She only said she wanted the rest of us to be happy, but wouldn't say what she wanted for herself. And asked about what I had said in the cabin. How I don't see her as my mother."
"How did that turn out?" Fia asked.
I shook my head. "She said that this entire time, she truly sees me as her daughter. She's always seen our relationship like that, and I've never seen it like that. There's no point to compromise on, so I decided to pause the conversation and think about things."
"Think about what?" Shi-chan asked.
I shook my head. "I don't want to talk about it until I've had some time to think. That is, other than with my original." I eyed an empty sofa and moved over to it. I grabbed a pillow and laid down. "Shi-chan, Fia, will you put me to sleep for a while?"
I was facing the back of the couch, so I couldn't see what they were doing. Both said, "Okay," and then I felt their warm mana. It took me no time to drift off to sleep.
Only moments later, I opened my eyes in my dreamworld. My original was sitting in a chair at a table having tea, waiting for me. It looked just like the bedroom. I sat down with her, not sure how to start the conversation.
"I don't think there's any fixing this."
I didn't expect her to start the conversation for me.
"Of course, I know the situation. I can see it from both of your perspectives. Aya, this might be something that you just have to live with."
"Is there nothing you can do?"
She shook her head. "Beyond talking with the two of you, there's only one thing I can do. But I won't do that without both of your consent."
"Merging."
"Yes, though that's not a great idea right now. I've been trying to push Mavel to want things for herself for a long time. When you and Eli went into Elysium, it became very difficult to talk to either of you. And then Eli split herself in Alpha, and went without talking to either of her halves until recently. Though, I was able to talk to her much easier after her split. We've been talking about how to help all of you."
"You have?"
"Yes. Though again, that help amounts to talking. If the words are ignored, there's nothing we can do short of take over ourselves. Mavel won't be convinced. She told you the truth, that she truly does see you as her daughter. I've tried the entire time to convince her that wasn't what I meant for you and her. I didn't even consider this scenario, or I would have had twins. Twins at least would have been less complicated than this."
"Why did you split in the first place? I understand what Eli was doing. She did it to perform Serenity in Elysium. But you were still in the Living World. I have your memories and mine, and I don't know of any point that would have required that. We could use our full power for any problems."
"You have all of our memories, but you're still suppressing a lot of them. You have the memory about why, but I suppose it was a difficult time. Mavel doesn't remember it either. I did it to keep half of us in the Living World and send half of us into Elysium. The others were heavily against, but the Living World needed somebody strong enough to fend off phantom's monsters. Alice Aindrea was going into Elysium, and so were all of us. That left mom and dad as the only SSS combatants in the world, but they could get overrun, too. Even with half a soul, our power is far beyond what any of the mortals could manage, so that's what I decided. I left my body to Mavel and created one for you, even though I knew you would only use it for a few years."
"Okay. That makes sense now. What about Mavel?"
"Even I can't convince her that you're not her daughter. There's no solution other than merging. I don't think that's a good solution, either. You've been through so much, and I want you to be happy for a while."
"This is getting in the way of that. I am happy, but until this is resolved, I can't move on."
"You're both like me in that regard. Mom figured out we're autistic by the time we turned one year old, which is unthinkable for most races, but we were the equivalent of about five years old by then. Anyway-"
She froze.
"Maya?"
"Hold on, Aya. Mavel is asleep in the dream world, too. I'm going to transfer to her for a bit, okay?"
I nodded, and her body went into what I could only describe as autopilot.
*****
"Hello, Mavel."
"Hello."
She was hesitant to say anything, just like Aya. The dreamscape with her was also our bedroom, so I sat at the tea table with her and invited her to sit with me. "I know the situation."
"She's never going to call me 'mom' again. She's already started calling mom that in front of me."
"We've talked about this ad nauseam."
"Did you really intend for us to not see each other as parent/child?"
"Getting pregnant to give her a body was strictly meant as that. To give her a body… a clone of us that wouldn't be the child of any of our spouses."
There were tears in her eyes already. She had cried herself to sleep and even now still cried. "If you didn't want me to see the child I gave birth to as my daughter, you should have asked mom and dad to do it."
"Perhaps. But you know mom wanted another child, right? She and dad tried to conceive since we were five."
"I know. You felt it wrong to ask them for that when they were failing to have another child on their own."
"Right. And you know what I said the night I inseminated?"
She nodded. "You looked into the mirror and said, 'I'm not having a child, I'm making a clone of myself, so the second half has a body.'"
"But that carried no weight with you."
"I tried following that, but after carrying her to term, I couldn't. And I don't believe you could have stayed strong through that either!"
I was about to take a sip of tea, but I put the cup down and shook my head. "Perhaps not."
"So what you and she are asking of me is… it's not fair. You should have made a body for both of us, not made me keep yours!"
"Yes… I should have. I'm sorry, Mavel."
"Take it away."
"Pardon?"
"The memory of it. Take it away. Modify my memories so that-"
"It's not that simple. You would be able to recognize that are using my body even if we modify your memories. I could make you remember it as if you were born sisters."
"Then take over your body and make a clone for me! With our power, we can make an identical clone of Aya's body, the one in the pod. Erase my memory of being her mom and put me into a clone like her."
"Will you not see her as your sister after that?"
She shook her head. "I don't know, but anything is better than the heartache I'm feeling right now. How would you feel if one of our other children acted like you weren't their mom. What if Kaede called our mom her mom in front of you?"
"Yeah." I clutched my chest. "The thought alone hurts."
"It's either do that for me, or merge. I don't want to live with this pain. It's too much."
"Okay," I said. "I'll borrow my body for a bit… but Mavel, is that truly what you want?"
"No. It's the compromise. I would rather merge." She looked down at her cup as she said the last bit. "If I never leave this dreamscape… I'll be happy."
"I don't believe that for a second."
"It's what I want."
"No, I mean I don't believe you'll be happy."
"What does it matter? Everyone else will be."
I shook my head. "You are part of everyone's lives. They'll miss you even if we merge. And I don't want to take away Alethea's life."
"I don't either. If you taking over our body could be permanent, I'd consent to that. But it costs mana that is spent permanently. We'd run out in how long?"
"A decade at most."
"So the compromise then. Take over our body, make a clone, stuff me in it, erase my memory of the pregnancy, and modify the rest as necessary to account for that."
"Okay. I'll take over our body, but I need to talk with Alethea, Fia, Eli, mom, and dad before doing anything."
"Whatever you have to do. Just leave me here in the meantime."
"Okay."
I switched back to Alethea's dreamscape and filled her in.
"She said that?"
"Yes, she came up with a compromise. One that will take away her pain and give you what you want."
"That, yes, but… she wants to merge?"
I hesitantly nodded my head. "That's what she wants, yes."
"I…" She clenched her fists.
"What do you want? I am against merging, but if you both want that I will do it."
She shook her head. "No. I don't want that. Unless…"
"Unless?"
"What do you want? You're the original. If you want to be whole again, I-"
"Stop there. I want to be out in the real world with everyone, but sacrificing you and Mavel is not something I'll ever allow."
"That means you'll be trapped in this dreamworld forever."
"So be it. It's not like I can't live vicariously through the two of you. I see and feel everything you do as if it were me."
"But it's not the same."
"I mean, when you have sex it feels like I'm in your body… so…"
"You went there," she said, exasperated.
"I went there." I smiled at her. "I'm happy like this."
Alethea sighed and stood up. "Let's go then. We should be quick. If she's willing to erase that part of her… I don't like it but if that means she can live without that pain, then I'll support it."
"Don't feel guilty," I said adamantly. "This is all my fault. This is what I should have done at the beginning."
"Yeah."
"I'm going to wake us both up now. I'll be in control of my body again, but without your half of our soul in it with Mavel's half, it's going to consume a lot of mana… permanently. We're probably about to burn a solid one percent of our total."
"One percent? That's…"
"No small amount, yes."
"Then we need to be quick to minimize it."
I snapped my finger and the dreamworld disappeared, replaced by the ceiling of my bedroom. I rose up, which alarmed mom, who was sitting at the same table that Alethea and I were sitting at in the dreamworld version of the room.
"Mavel! Easy."
I shook my head and put my feet off the side of the bed. "It's not Mavel."
"What?"
I felt wobbly, probably from the heart attack. I clutched my chest and cast Benediction on myself. "She's sleeping inside right now. It's the original me, temporarily."
"Maya?"
I nodded my head and stood up. "I need to go to the lounge."
She nodded and followed me.
*****
Eli and Fia jumped out of their seats when I walked in the room. "Hello, everyone."
"Are you sure about this?" Eli asked. "This is not going to be easy on your body. And your body will have to go into a pod."
I smiled. "It's okay. That's how it should have been."
"Maya, are you absolutely certain this is what you want to do?" dad asked. "Your mother and I…"
"No. I will not allow that. If you two have another child that'll be wonderful. I will not get in the way of a sibling being born." I steeled myself and walked over to Alethea. Holding my hand out, I said, "I'll make this right."
She nodded, stood up, and took my hand. "Eli, Fia, will you help? This is going to cost a tremendous amount of mana."
"We helped the first time," Fia said as she placed her hand on ours.
"Of course," Eli said. "I'd rather we both lose a smaller chunk of mana than you lose a large chunk."
"Okay. I'm going to move us back to my bedroom. Mom, dad, please wait in here."
They nodded and I warped us to the bedroom. I formed an orb of mana. "Connect with this. I'll draw mana as necessary."
They nodded and I set to work. I formed a ring of rainbow mana that soon warped into a multitude of shapes, increasing in size until it surrounded me.
"As soon as I'm done, my body will fall limp. I won't be able to control it when Mavel's half is in the new body. Please don't let me face-plant the floor."
They giggled and nodded.
"Step one, I will modify Mavel's memories. I am Origin. I seek to ease the burden of a loved one. We offer our mana in exchange for her happiness. Let the pain be washed away and let a smile take its place. The memories tormenting her shall be erased! <
"Now the hard part. Creating a body out of mana won't work in the long run in the living world. It's unsustainable. So, I'm going to create one the old-fashioned way with artificial insemination, assisted by mana of course. It'll all happen inside my body, so I don't even need to undress." I closed my eyes and concentrated.
"Fertilize an egg… done. Now the forty or so weeks. <
"And now to grow her up. I'm going to set her age to eighteen. I know demons grow faster, but… I don't feel right leaving her at five years old even if she'll be fully mature." I enveloped the baby in rainbow mana and cast Time Dilation one more time.
After the spell, the body was fully grown. It was identical to Alethea's Living World body and my own. I laid it on the bed and laid down next to it.
"I guess you won't have to catch me after all." I smiled at Eli and Fia. "I look forward to the next dream!" Then I smirked. "Or the next round. Hehe."
They looked at me exasperated at how I said that, but they knew what I meant.
"Okay now to…"
I put my hand on the girl's face and drew Mavel's soul half from my body.
The moment her soul half was transferred, the room changed back to the dreamworld.
I smiled as I sat down at the table and took a sip of tea.
*****
When Maya took over her body, I fell into a slumber. It felt like only a moment later when I woke up in the bedroom with a hand over my face.
"Still in the bedroom?" I rose up and saw my body - no, Maya's body lying next to me. I held up my hand and made a fist a few times. Then I looked up and saw Aya, Eli, and Fia standing next to the bed, sweating. "Did it work? Is it…?"
"It worked," Aya said as she sat down on the bed next to the unconscious body. "We need to get her body to a pod right away."
"I'll go fetch Velarus and Mabel," Fia said as she ran out of the room.
"Mavel, what do you remember? When you look at me, what do you feel?"
I held my hand out to her and she grasped it. "It seems silly now. She took away the memories up until you were fully grown. She left everything that you weren't part of, but everything involving you is gone from the conception to a first few years after you were born. She left the memories after that intact and didn't modify anything further. So I know that I used to think of you as my daughter. But I look at you and I don't feel that now."
"Are you okay with that?"
I nodded. "I'm okay with that. It feels so strange thinking about all of it."
Fia returned with mom and dad and prepared a teleportation spell.
"Mavel, are you…?" mom asked.
"I'm okay. But we have to get Maya's body to a pod now."
"She truly did make you a new body," dad said.
I nodded. "She left me the memory of planning it, but not the execution of the magic. I think she did it the traditional way, just with extreme time dilation to make it go by in an instant."
"She magically artificially inseminated herself and used the origin magic Time Dilation to basically skip the pregnancy," Eli said. "Then used Time Dilation again to age Mavel's body to be eighteen."
"Eighteen? Demons mature at-" dad stopped short. "I see."
"Okay, I'm teleporting us now," Fia said. Rainbow mana filled the room. When it dispersed, we were in the Elysium Control Facility in Alexandria where everyone's bodies were being kept.
Maya's body floated in place, but wouldn't stay like that long. I picked her up and carried her to an empty pod. I laid her down inside and pressed the button to close it.
I looked around at the other pods. The body of Elise Aindrea was in one, as was Aira, Rhia, Lena, Serah, Stella, Leah, Kaede, Kyra, Liya, Lux, Ariel, Anna, Adriel, Alice, and Ian. Aya's clone body was on the other side of Eli's.
"Everyone's here now," I said.
"Yes," Eli said. "All of our bodies." She walked around and stopped in front of Ian's pod. "Ian… I wonder when you'll remember who you are."
"There's no telling," Fia said.
"So now, we can continue our conversation," Alethea said, standing in front of me. "Tell me now, Mavel. What do you want?"
"That overprotectiveness I felt before… is not gone. I still feel protective of you, but not for the same reason. It's the same as Eli or Fia now."
"What about the part where you felt like you'd be stealing them from me?"
I shook my head. "A lot of my feelings are just… different now. It's surreal. It's like I was seeing everything with blinders on. I truly don't understand how I felt the way I felt before. Everything is different."
"This is how it should have been," Alethea said with a smile as she embraced me in a warm hug.
My mind shifted to the cabin and my cheeks grew warm. "I'm having strange thoughts."
"What sort of strange thoughts?" Alethea asked.
"The kind I don't want to talk about with our parents present."
They chuckled and teleported away.
I pulled away from Alethea's hug and grabbed Eli and Fia's hands. "Come on, you two. Thinking about what we almost did in the cabin earlier has me a little…"
They exchanged glances and looked back at me with wide eyes.
"Already?" Eli said.
"You mean to…" Fia added.
I held onto their hands with one and grabbed Alethea's with the other. "You're coming, too."
And I whisked everyone away, back to the cabin.
*****
She changed so dramatically that I wasn't entirely sure what to make of it at first. It was like her inhibitions were just… gone. She held herself back so much, yet the things she did it the cabin…
And afterward, she wanted to spar. Of all things. Outside the cabin on that small island, we sparred. She hadn't had anyone as good as us to spar with since we entered Elysium.
"It's really unfortunate that I can't use my power in Elysium freely," Mavel said. "I feel like I can do anything right now."
"Yeah, you've really changed in the past hour," I said. "At first, I was skeptical of the entire thing, just you choosing to erase some memories."
She held her fist out and clenched it a few times. "This is how it should have been the whole time." She looked up at me, then Fia, then Alethea, then back at me. "I just feel good right now. It's really something how one's experiences can change them so much…" She eyed Alethea as she walked up to her. "You never worried about one of us 'stealing' any of them from the other."
She shook her head and smiled. "No. Never. And I'm glad you believe that now. Honestly, it's such an extreme switch that it's almost like whiplash. You were so adamantly against anything romantic with just Eli or Fia, but…"
"A sense of self repression for eons is bad for the soul. I may not have taken on darkness like the three of you, but I can tell mine is better off now than before. If I could compare it, it's like my soul was fighting itself before. Now, I'm at peace."
"Now you're acting a lot like Aya did in the Living World before we entered Elysium," I said.
"Pfft. Am I?"
"Miss Almighty finally acting like the young girl she is."
"Well… none of us are exactly young, you know?"
I shrugged. "Well, I'm glad you're feeling better." I turned my weapon into a bracelet, grabbed her hand, and pulled her in tight. "I'm happier now that I can hold you like this."
"I love you, Eli," she said with a big smile.
"What about me?" came Fia behind her.
Mavel jumped and landed on all fours with her tail sticking in the air.
"Pfft."
"You did not just get jump scared like a cat. Pfft." I couldn't help but laugh.
She stood up and gave me a 'Hmph'. "I am a cat, nya."
"You are so adorable," Fia said.
Mavel grinned and ran over to Alethea. "We are so adorable."
"Hey, I don't milk the cat act!"
"But you want to!" She grinned at her other half. "We're both a bit chunibyo, just admit it."
Fia and I exchanged glances then smirked at the catgirls. Alethea was resisting so much.
"Fine, nya. Let's get back to the meeting room. The others are waiting."
"Yeah, actually, we've been gone for a couple of hours now," I said.
"I'd say I'm sorry for being a distraction… but I'm not," Mavel said with a warm smile. "Eli, Fia, Aya… thank you for this. I really needed it." She held out her hand.
"I'm glad you're happy now," Alethea said as she took her hand.
"How many girlfriends is that now?" Fia said. "Five for me?"
"Five? Are you including me or Luma?" I asked.
"Luma."
"You know, technically, she is only girlfriends with me right now."
"Yeah, yeah, shut up."
I giggled and Fia and I put our hands on Mavel and Alethea's, then she warped us back to Athas.
*****
Revision: 2025-4-12