Then, Lillian with a lot of enthusiasm shouted, “Nope!” Max glared at her as she continued to talk, “he used to date one of my exes, and my ex told me about how him and Max would.”
“Shut up.” Max interrupted her, “You will not continue that sentence. You already answered his question. He doesn’t need to know any details.”
“You’re being so salty.” She pouted.
“I don’t blame him. I wouldn’t want people talking about my sex life either.” Detective Karl added to our conversation.
“Thanks for defending me.” Max expressed his gratitude.
Max and Detective Karl exchanged a fist bump followed by Baxter and a stranger joining us at the booth.
“Sup?” Baxter greeted us once he had taken a seat.
“We were just talking about sex.” Lillian responded to him.
Max, again, growled at her, “No we are not.”
“Sounds like you two are already at it.” The stranger commented.
“She’s being weird about my relationship with Felix. Oh, by the way, this is Felix,” he pointed at me and then pointed at the stranger, “Felix that’s Gus.”
Gus stuck a hand out to me, “Nice to meet you, Felix.”
I looked at him funny, not sure what to do. After a couple seconds, I greeted him back, “nice to meet you.”
“Ah, you’re shy. Sorry, didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable. So Max, you’re dating again? When did this happen?”
“It’s pretty simple actually. Someone just declared me as their boyfriend and didn’t even let me disagree with them.” He grinned as he gave me a little squeeze with his arm.
“You never tried to disagree with me.” I contested him.
“But you also didn’t ask me to be your boyfriend. You layed in bed and said ‘then it’s settled, you’re my boyfriend.” He laughed.
“I asked you a couple times before that, and you kept saying that we didn’t know each other well enough since I lost my memory again. You could have told me no.” I pouted.
He took a sip from his coffee while the others shared a laugh or two from our conversation. Then, Lillian bounced into the conversation, “So y’all were laying in bed? What were y’all doing?”
“Stop it.” Max barked at her.
I answered her, “talking before we went to sleep.”
“Y’all sleep together?” She interviewed us.
“Yes, but as in sleep. Just sleep and nothing more. We share a bed so that I can keep him close in case someone tried to attack him.” Max explained.
“I hate to interrupt your conversation, but I think we should get to business and discuss how we’re getting into the Crown District.” Baxter announced to the group.
We all looked at him. He made a really good point; we couldn’t just stay here and talk all day. We needed to get into the Crown District to meet the aristocrats that Max arranged a meeting with. Thinking about this, it dawned on me how close I was to potentially getting answers. My excitement returned to me. Max filled the group in on what we were going to do from this point.
The day before we left for California, Max had arranged for a cab to drive us across the bridge into the Crown District. Max was going to move our group into the human realm for my safety as we traveled across the city to the beach where he would put us back into the spirit realm to meet the cab driver. From there we will meet two aristocrats: an arrogation angel and an arrogation demon. Hopefully they will have answers for us as well as solutions.
Afterwards, we would go to a persona demon so that we can try to identify my aura by having it matched to the database. Then after all of this, it was thought that we would have been able to find the people who attacked me and find out what really happened to me.
Once Max was done with filling the group in on the plan, we left the café and began walking to the beach. We decided that it would be best to walk since most human cabs did not have enough room for our group. It also wasn’t that far of a walk, so it wasn’t too much effort from us.
It was an okay walk, but the city wasn’t much different from the city back home. Same old boring buildings. The only major difference was the amount of buildings and the amount of people. There were definitely a lot more people in this city than there was in the city back home.
It didn’t take us long to make our way through the bland city, and we soon reached the beach. Max navigated us to a quiet shack with nobody around so that he could put us into the spirit realm without anyone seeing.
After we were all in the spirit realm, we moved towards a bridge that wasn’t visible in the human realm. It stretched out far into the ocean, and I couldn’t see where it ended. We all followed behind Max as he led us towards a yellow van big enough to fit us all.
A man stepped out of the van and greeted us, “Hey, Max. How’s it going?”
“Not too bad so far. Thank you for being a cab for us today.” Max responded to him.
“Not a problem at all, my friend.” The driver stepped back into his vehicle.
Max got into the front seat and the rest of us crammed into the remaining seats of the van. It was a long drive across the bridge at about 2 hours. On the ride, we joked around like old friends, and I got a chance to really get to know Max’s friends. They were all pretty nice, and I enjoyed myself while talking to them.
Despite having a good time, it was exhausting being in the van and talking to so many people that I hardly knew. There wasn’t much to look at when looking out the window. It was nothing but splashing water.
While driving across the bride I felt something. It was strange and hard to explain, but it had a very sad feeling to it, and for some reason, I wanted to find what it was coming from.
Curiously I asked, “Do any of you feel that?”
“Feel what?” Baxter asked me.
“I don’t know what it is. It just feels sad. It’s like something is calling out for help.”
“Maybe a sea creature is dying. You are a nature demon after all; you can feel things like that.” Miriam suggested.
“But I kill things. Why would something ask for help from me if all I could do was kill it. Shouldn’t it be calling to a nature angel.”
“No. You really don’t understand your role in the spirit realm at all. You help creatures that are ready to move on, by comforting them in their last moments and aiding them in making the jump from living to the next part of their journey. Yes, you kill them, but it’s what they want. It’s not a bad thing, and it’s really beautiful. When you get your memories back, you’ll be able to understand it all again.” Gus explained.
Eventually the feeling went away, and I assumed it was because the creature had moved on to the after life. It was hard to understand my role in the spirit realm, and I couldn’t understand how killing anything was being helpful to anyone.
It sounded brutal and exactly what a demon would do. To me, it sounded like I was a bad guy, who gets pardoned by society because they feel bad that it’s the only thing I can do with my powers. I was pretty sure that creatures could die on their own for various reasons, so what need was there for a spirit like me? The humans prosecute murderers, but my kind didn’t sound like anything but a murder, but why were we not being punished?
There was a lot I didn’t know about my own people, so I had to have faith that there was a reason for everything. I would eventually regain my memories and understand everything that was eluding my thought process at that moment.
How much would my thought process change once I regained my memories? I was worried that I’d be disappointed with myself and decisions I’ve made in the past. I was also worried that I wouldn’t be happy with who I became after losing my memories.
The remaining drive across the bridge continued in an uneventful manner with the occasional conversation. It was a boring ride with nothing to do and nothing to look at. By the time we made it to the other side of the bridge, I was tired from the ride and hardly wanted to do anything. The only thing I was interested in doing was taking a nap, but Max said that it wasn’t an option and that we needed to get moving.
Once everyone got out of the van, a strange stiffness filled the crowd. Everyone was on edge, and I couldn’t figure out why. I knew the situation could get dangerous if something happened, but it was strange to see all the people who were joking around and goofing off suddenly turn serious and cold.
We all silently followed Max as we navigated through the city. Unlike in the café, it was super obvious that everyone was in their modified forms. It made our band stick out like sore thumbs because none of us were in modified forms.
Despite feeling the stares on the back of the neck, it was an interesting walk through the city. Max’s modified form was the only one I had even seen up to that day. It was fascinating to see the differences between all of the different people. It was like a scene from a fictional story about monsters and creatures.
Some of the spirits had tails, but not all of the tails looked the same. Some people had tails like a lion while others had tails like a dragon. Then there were all other types of tails like bob tails and horse tails. I had no clue that a single trait like that had so many different potential expressions.
There were other spirits who had animal ears and looked much like what the humans refer to as nekos. There were a ton more traits that I saw while walking through the city, and it made the city seem more lively than a regular human city.
I don’t know how long we had walked, but it was for a good while, and my legs were tired by the time we reached our destination. We stopped outside of a gated castle-like building, and at this point, Max turned into his modified form followed by the rest of our small group. Since I was unable, or rather I didn’t know how to, I didn’t transform into my modified form.
Shortly after everyone had transformed, we were greeted by a tall goblin like figure. He had a bulbous nose, green skin, pointy ears, and sharp fingers. “Is that a true form?” I asked Max as we walked through the gate that the goblin man opened for us.
“No, that is a modified form. He is a psychokinesis angel of high standing, so he is allowed to keep many of his true form traits. In fact, most of the spirits you saw in the city are all of high standing, so they can keep a variety of traits they have in their true forms.” He smiled at me as we followed the goblin man.
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