It only makes sense that when the loud ringing cry rang out, and the cats all began to act weird, that the other residents of the mansion and villa noticed something strange was happening. Elillith, Jean, and Helt had all been cleaning the sitting room of the mansion when the sudden noise rang out. Two cats had been in the room, leisuring about and getting the occasional pets. However, after the summoning call, their strange actions were impossible to miss. Jean and Helt looked on in surprise and confusion as the frantic cats suddenly dashed away, and through the open door they could see yet even more cats running by. Understandably, the two curious children ran off to see what all the fuss was about, leaving a completely unfazed and unworried Elillith behind, still cleaning, although now with a raised eyebrow.

The children chased after the steadily increasing hoard of cats, following them into the villa and up the stairs. Along the way, a small ashen girl slipped into their ranks, and followed behind them silently. She was so quiet that no one truly noticed her amongst the noise of a hundred pounding paw-steps, not even Helt.

The cats were faster than the children, and easily reached their target long before the children finished climbing up the stairs. By the time everyone turned around the corner, all of the cats had already piled on top of each other, and before the children had time to think about what was happening, the cats all suddenly dissolved into a viscous puddle. They could see the form of Noth, sitting on the floor, huddled against the wall, right next to the ominous fluid. Jean and Helt tried to softly call out to the teen, but they only received a quick glance before his eyes swiftly turned back to the puddle. It seemed as if Noth was too afraid to speak or move. Jean almost took a step forward to try and reach Noth and drag him out of there, but suddenly her hand was seized in vice-like grip. When she looked back, she was shocked to find that Ren was behind her, staring at the pile of goo with a look of anticipation on her face. Only she seemed brave enough to speak in this spookily quiet moment.

“He’ll be okay. Watch.”

Both Helt and Jean could feel a chilling sensation as they looked at and listened to their friend. Her face, the way she’d just talked, the obvious excitement in her voice at what should be a horrifying situation… This did not look like their skittish friend Ren. However, in the end they could only decide that the eerie puddle was much more distressing of a problem than whatever was currently pretending to be their friend. If they didn’t want to anger this pretender and have two problems on their hands right now, then it was best that they did as it asked and looked forward.

All eyes were on the viscous puddle, and before long it suddenly began to move. It started to bubble, and then somehow, although it should have been flat, it began to wiggle. It shook itself, side to side, until suddenly it moved in a circle. It formed a vortex, twisting its way upwards and upwards, and then all of a sudden lost its form and quickly returned to its original shape.

When everything had quieted down, Noth couldn’t help but let his curiosity control him. Ever so slightly, the teen arched his back further and further forwards to peer down into the goo. It bubbled once or twice more, making him a bit jumpy, but after a moment it was once again still. Noth hesitantly moved onto his knees to get a closer view, but he still couldn’t see any difference in the puddle. He clumsily blew at it, seeing if the liquid would move, but oddly there was no reaction. It was as if the puddle were solid, or that maybe his breath wasn’t strong enough to move such a dense mass.

His inquisitive nature spurned the teen on, and Noth couldn’t help but reach a hand out to try and touch the strange puddle. The tips of his fingers grazed the oddly cold and hard goo. It almost felt like he was touching a mirror, and Noth’s face twisted up in confusion. He put more of his hand on it and pressed a bit more firmly, and for a second he thought he could feel his hand sinking into the puddle by the smallest bit. However, before the teen could pull his hand back, something seemed to grab hold of it and pull. A brief scream escaped from Noth’s lips, and he desperately pulled his hand back, fighting so hard against whatever was pulling him that he ended up falling back against the wall he’d previously been crouched against.

This little scuffle seemed to have awakened the puddle once more.

Just as before, it struggled and wiggled, climbing up in a vortex; This time however, the vortex didn’t collapse, but instead grew bigger and more ferocious. Eventually it began to fling out blob after blob of viscous goo around itself, only dissipating after it had flung out as many blobs as cats that had formed it.

The hallway was completely silent, except for the bubbling sounds of the blobs.

Everyone present held their breath as they looked at the odd, blob-ish abominations that were wiggling on the floor. Noth was almost surrounded by the strange things, and his fear of the unknown was finally enough to win over his rampant curiosity. He rushed to stand up, and contemplated jumping over the nearest blob to try and make a run for the children who’d been watching all of this with him. At the very least he believed that if he could grab them and run out of the villa, then he might be able to put them somewhere safe until he could find his mysteriously missing angel and ask for her help.

However, before Noth could make even a single jump, the blobs took action.

Blob after blob began to shoot up.

The pillars of stretched thin goo looked almost see through, and as they began to take shape they almost looked as if they were made out of thick shadows. Their figures formed, and eventually each of them settled on a sort of dark, misty, humanoid shape. It was like seeing the silhouette of someone in the dark, but not being able to see a thing about them. All Noth could make out was that each of these figures had cute triangular ears and freely flowing tails on their dark bodies. Only those features seemed to hold any colour, or break away from the darkness that surrounded them. Looking in awe at the beings in front of him, Noth could only slowly realize that they’d kept the various colourations from the cats that had been sacrificed to make them.

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In fact, just like the cat he’d initially infected, the shadow in front of him seemed quite small, and had the same calico colouration.

The teen was almost certain that this must be what became of that particular cat.

The small shadowy figure slightly bowed its head to Noth, and a quiet, meek voice emanated out of its darkness.

Noth’s mouth opened, knowing that the shadow was for sure asking him, and not anyone else. However, he didn’t know how to respond. He’d certainly never meant to make whatever this thing was, and he certainly didn’t know how he’d created it. Of course he’d seen the whole process of it happening, but it was all too strange and mysterious to make sense of. All he could think was that he’d used the power he’d gotten from the archdemon to do it, and the thought that he might have infected the cats the same way that the demons would infect monsters was… too much to accept. If that was true, then he absolutely hated what he’d done. Still, if he didn’t know how he did it, then he didn’t know how to reverse it, and so he’d just have to accept the strange monsters that he’d made.

The teen had taken too long to answer, and this time all the shadows present joined their voices together to beseech him.

The sound of all of their demanding, airy voices as one almost sounded like a howling scream, as if the cats they’d been formed from were yowling. Noth panicked and searched himself desperately for something, anything to tell them to do. After a few moments the shadowy figures seemed as if they were becoming restless, and their bodies once more began to bubble as if they might lose their shapes. Rushing to appease them, Noth spat out the weak desire that had caused this whole mess in the first place.

“C-clean! I want you all to clean this villa and the mansion! Please, clean them!”

At first only the small shadow in front of Noth recited after him, the meek little voice sounding reverent about the word. Soon many of the other shadows began slowly saying it as well, and eventually the entire crowd of them began to chant it, each in their own slow rhythms. When the crowd of shadows eventually stopped chanting, the small figure finally raised its head to look at its master.

And with those words every shadow but the small one collapsed, bubbling in place as the small blobs they once were for just a few moments, before eventually reforming cleanly back into their original cat-forms. They each scampered off in a different direction, heading off into separate rooms. Noth and the children didn’t dare stop them, and stayed completely still as only their eyes moved. It wasn’t until every ‘cat’ had gone off to their respective targets that anyone’s shoulders finally slumped.

After looking around and seeing that only the small shadow hadn’t changed, Noth decided to try his luck at understanding any of this by talking to the strange thing. He cleared his throat and did his best to keep his voice even as he spoke.

“Are… Are all the, um… 'cats' going away t-to clean?”

The shadow bowed its head and once again meekly spoke.

“O-oh. And you all… know how to? To clean, I mean.”

The corner of Noth’s mouth pulled up a small bit. This answer didn’t really tell him anything. Part of him was a bit worried that they didn’t truly know how to clean, and that the mansion and villa might become a complete and total mess. However, these shapeshifting creatures were obviously some kind of magical being, so perhaps they would surprise him. Noth was curious enough to see exactly what they would do, and eventually decided to just leave the things be and solve whatever problems arose later.

“Alright, and do you happen to have a name?”

Noth had asked this question to see if perhaps these newly created beings mysteriously already came equipped with a name. He wouldn’t be too surprised if the God-dess had somehow already bequeathed one upon them. Sadly, his question was stated too vaguely, and the little shadow only tilted its head for a while before bowing it back down and stating its name with a great devotion in its voice.

Noth’s brow wrinkled. It took him a moment to understand the miscommunication he’d just had, and after thinking his words over more carefully, he tried again.

“No, I meant all of you. Perhaps, did the God-dess give-”

“Noth should be the one to give them a name. After all, didn’t he make them?”

All eyes suddenly turned towards the tiny ashen girl at the back of the hall. Jean and Helt’s gazes were particularly alarmed. Rarely in the past year had Ren ever called Noth anything but ‘Big brother Noth’, especially when she was talking to him; It would be incredibly rare for her to just call him only his name, directly to his face. The words she chose to say were also quite out of character for her, seeming a bit more mature than the way she usually spoke. And the fact that she seemed so sure that Noth had created those shadowy things was the nail in the coffin that truly worried them. By the time the children had gotten here, the cats had already turned into a blob, so how was it that Ren seemed to know anything about what had just happened? She’d also been acting strangely when they’d first arrived earlier, too…

Helt and Jean exchanged a look.

Once again they were reminded that this pretender was not their friend Ren.