Twisted Destiny

“Okay, I think I’m about done with the tests now.” Gamma cracked her fingers after another half hour of work, a content smile appeared on her lips.

“What’s your verdict, Doctor Gamma?” I asked, being happy I didn’t need to be hooked up to wires for much longer.

“My earlier tests were confirmed by some other tests I ran. I don’t really see any danger anymore of a hostile takeover as the power differential between you and your unwanted lifter is steadily increasing. I think you will see her from time to time, if she so chooses to herself, but I don’t think she will influence your mind anymore than she has in the past.”

“That’s quite the relief.” Sam sighed. “Thank you for checking up on Ami, Gamma.”

“It’s nothing, she dragged my unconscious ass through a desolate desert, this is the very least I could do for her in return.” Gamma gently started unclamping the couple of wires that were still attached to me, freeing me of all of them in only a minute. “There you go.”

Instead of replying verbally, I just hugged Gamma tightly. A bit to her surprise at first but her purring, soon followed by my own, meant it wasn’t unwanted. “Thanks, Gamma.”

“Hehe.” She blushed and her pur grew a tad louder.

“Not to interrupt your cuddle puddle,” Veanya coughed. “She is also cleared to perform rituals, right?”

“I don’t see why not.” Gamma shrugged. “We can safely do the magic ritual with that Carol girl any time we like, as long as she is ready for it herself.”

“Are you sure? Isn’t that asking for trouble.” Hilda squinted and crossed her arms. “This is one of our friends you are talking about.”

“I wouldn’t say yes if I wasn’t sure.” Gamma defended her reply. “It’s very safe, even though we haven’t really performed such a ritual before. Theoretically every angle is covered, considering the somewhat minor role Ami needs to play in it, on top of the aforementioned fact that Amicia is as safe as a stuffed bear, I see absolutely no reason to not involve her in the ritual. I’d bet everything I have on it.”

“She does sound very sure, Hilda.” My sister put her hand on Hilda’s shoulder. “I’m the first one to doubt the chaos tornado over there, but I really don’t think she would take any chances when it comes to my baby sister. Especially not after what just happened.”

“And she wouldn’t willingly endanger one of our friends either.” Sam agreed.

“Exactly!” Gamma, still purring in my arms, replied. “I’m more worried about never wanting to leave Amicia’s arms for the rest of my very long life than I am about anything bad happening.”

“You better not or I’ll spray you with a water bottle for the rest of your very long life.” Sam turned her attention back to Gamma and squinted. “That’s still my girlfriend. You don’t get to have her for that long.”

“That implies that I can keep hugging her for at least a bit longer.”

Sam looked at Nikki who was pouring out some water in the kitchen. “Nikki, where do you keep the spray bottles? In the storage space I presume?”

“I think I have an empty one right here too.” As Nikki bent down to open one of the kitchen cabinet doors, Gamma slinked her way out of my hug and raised her hands to Sam.

“Please, no, not the water bottle, I’m not hugging her anymore, see? No bottle, please!”

Veanya rolled her eyes and my sister was just chuckling at the entire scene as Sam cracked a smile. “Sure, you get away this time.”

“I’ll send a message then to Carol to ask her if she still wants to go through with the ritual. I know I said I was going to send it this morning, but considering the circumstances I didn’t really do that yet.” I took my phone in hand and saw that I had gotten a couple of messages from both Max, Carol and Hailey. “Ah, whoops.”

“Talking about the messages from our friends?” Sam asked, seeing my reaction. “I already explained what was going on so you can just write a quick apology and get to the point.”

“Hope they weren’t too stressed about my lack of response.”

Sam wobbled her head from side to side. “A bit, but it’s all fine. I’m afraid they have gotten somewhat accustomed to it already.”

As I sent a message to Carol asking her if she was free, a call came in almost immediately, Carol’s name flashing on the screen.

When I picked up, Carol shouted. “Amicia, are you okay!? Sam told us what happened but we were worried sick.”

I looked at Sam who showed me her teeth. “Well… looks like I was maybe underestimating the situation just a little bit.” She admitted. “To my defence, emotions don’t transfer too well over text.”

“I’m okay.” I replied, soothing my girlfriend with a warm smile. “Apparently I just have a passenger lifting along in my head but according to Gamma that should be all fine.”

“That doesn’t sound very fine to me!” Carol kept yelling.

“Carol, chill, Amicia said she was fine, didn’t she? Why would she lie?” I could hear Hailey’s voice as well, looking at the clock they were probably in between lessons right now. “Besides, you are kind of pulling attention towards us so at least stop yelling.”

“Oh, right, sorry Hails.” Carol then spoke into the microphone. “Sorry, Ami, for yelling into the phone. Also Hailey is here too.”

“I heard.” I chuckled. I forgot how much of a chaotic being Carol could be as well. “I do know it sounds scary but Gamma is sure that I’m safe. I’ll give you the details later if you want to.”

“That would be nice. Max was worried too but she isn’t here right now. She needed to head to her next lessons already.”

“I’ll probably do a voice recording and put it in the group chat then. That way I don’t need to type the whole explanation out.”

“That’d be good, yes.” Carol sounded a lot more relieved already. “But I suppose that’s not what you wanted to talk about considering your earlier message?”

“No, I wanted to message you about something else entirely actually.”

“Oh? I’m intrigued now.”

“Do you remember asking for that little… transformation thing?” I tried to word it in a non-awkward way but I think I just made it sound more awkward in the process. “Veanya and Gamma told me that they are pretty much ready for whatever ritual they need to do.”

“Oh, wow…” It was hard to gauge her reaction but it didn’t feel like she was very enthused about it.

“Are you not happy with that news?” I decided to just ask her straight up.

“I am… happy about the news.” She replied somewhat hesitantly. “The reason why I don’t sound like it is because I didn’t expect this timing. Not that close to one of my best friends almost dying on me.”

“Well, yeah… I’m sorry about it but I just bare the news that I was asked to deliver.”

Carol chuckled. “You don’t need to say sorry, silly. Can you tell them that I’ll have to think about it for a little bit?”

“We can hear you.” Veanya stated. “Hope you don’t mind.”

“No, it makes it easier for Ami too so she doesn’t need to play relay.” Carol sounded a lot more chipper now. “I just want to have a final conversation with Max before I go through with it. Just so she feels included in the decision-making.”

“Don’t make it depend on Max though.” Sam came in with some friendly advice. “As much as I like Max, this is not a decision she is supposed to make for you, it’s one you should make for yourself.”

“I agree wholeheartedly.” Veanya nodded.

“I know, but I still want to hear her thoughts about it. I basically already made up my mind to do it but I wouldn’t want to just go in without communicating with my girlfriend, that’s not how I like to work.”

“Carol the communicator. Where are we going to write that?” Hailey teasingly mocked her friend on the other side of the line.”

“Shush, it’s because you always tell me to communicate that I’m trying to do it more, okay?”

Hailey eeped at this heartwarming confession.

“Ugh, Hailey is being annoying right now.”

“You did sound very sweet though.” I giggled. “Not to sound too annoying either.”

“Well… my friends make me a better person, what else can I say?”

Veanya smiled and walked up closer to the phone. “You can take all the time you need, Carol. The ritual doesn’t need to happen right now. Although I would also not like to wait for too long as who knows what other chaos can come our way thanks to a certain upstart Goddess.”

“That’s a very good point. I’ll let Amicia know once I’ve made my decision but I doubt that’ll be any later than this evening.”

“Good. I’ll be expecting your reply then.”

-I’ll just let it slide they blamed the chaos on me, mostly because it’s kind of true…-