“Ow, ow, ow, ow!” Ahvra immediately woke and lurched upright, rubbing her head in pain. “Ugh, so tired. Feels like I haven’t slept at all.” She blinked at the crowd of people and could immediately tell something was wrong. “How long have I been out?”

A random person in a lab coat that she’d never seen handed her an old clock. It didn’t have a date on it, so how exactly was that someone who could sleep up to a week at a time? “Who they hell are you?” she couldn’t help but question the stranger looming over her bed.

“This is uhhh… what was it… Dr. Fabio Gump?” Mallea attempted to introduce him.

“Farian Graf,” the doctor corrected and introduced himself. Ahvra reached out to his outstretched hand and hesitantly shook the few fingers she could with her small hands.

“He just cured you. I thought you were going to die,” Andi finally gave a proper explanation, her eyes tearing up a little.

Cured? Die? Ahvra’s head was still too fuzzy to process this. Then, she saw the baby in the room—a child that was glaring death at her. It could only be Phon. Why was she a toddler? It then all started flooding back to her.

Ahvra leapt out of bed and rushed past everyone to leave the room without explanation. She didn’t run to her own lab and actually stopped at Nathym’s, digging through his things. It took her a minute of throwing everything around into an unorganized mess before she found what she was looking for.

When she bolted out of his lab, she realized the crowd had followed her, curious of her actions, but she wasn’t ready to explain. Back in her own lab, she was pleased to find it left as the mess it should be—untouched after the failed experiment. If things had been cleaned up, it would have been more difficult to figure out why the experiment went awry, like a contaminated crime scene.

But she ignored all that for now: the exploded machine, the scorch marks, the scattered furniture and broken glass. None of it was important at the moment. Ahvra rushed over to a cabinet and sighed in relief once opened. All the blood samples inside were still fine, and more importantly, still there.

She grabbed them by the handful and quickly stuffed them into the lockbox she’d stolen. It wasn’t padded like she would have preferred, but it would have to do for now. More permanent arrangements would need to be made in the future, but these couldn’t be left out in the open.

The lockbox itself had varying levels of security that one could apply. Ahvra secured it with biometric, retinal, fingerprint, and voice recognition. She then handed it over to Andi and ordered, ”Protect that with your life.”

“We need to meet about blood and the experiment as soon as possible,” Ahvra finally gave the others the time of day. “But I take it I need to put out a fire. Why else would you all be stalking me?”

“You’re Cosdamned right there is! Now hurry up and—” The baby Phon started to yell, but before she could get far in her tirade, Ahvra walked up to her. She barely touched Phon at all before the girl erupted in height back to her normal age, exploding out of her baby clothes. In hindsight, Ahvra probably should have given a warning, but at least it shut Phon up—teleporting away in terror.

“Someone can explain what’s going on while we go to… wherever we’re going. I get the feeling I won’t be able to get some sleep any time soon.”

A dressing room was set up in the events room where the temporary sleeping quarters had been. A baby would be placed inside and Ahvra would poke her hand in through the curtain. When a Fiend was turned human again, there would be a set of their usual clothes waiting for them. After they stumbled outside, one of the staff members would take them away for a proper meal and a full explanation of what had happened over the past few days.

Lessers didn’t require as much care in the aftermath, most just shaking it off as a weird dream and carrying on about their days. For the most part, changing everyone back went smoothly. Ahvra did have to take longer and longer breaks after each one—such repeated use of her Curse draining her to no end. She did commit to changing them all back in one sitting, understanding the possible damages that could happen if they kept delaying. Mostly, though, she knew she’d never hear the end of it if she didn’t.

One slight conundrum was with Itsy because Crucion was wary to leave her alone even for the few moments it’d take for the change to occur. He had been taking care of her personally the entire time, toting her around in a carrier strapped to his chest. They’d all been worried that if they ever took her eyes off of her for a second, she’d die from being so weak and fragile. Her transformation went fine, but she was weaker and had more of an appetite than all the rest.

Drim was saved for last. They knew that’s what he’d want as leader, to have everyone else helped before him. There was certainly no mentality involved of them wanting to enjoy him in his cute baby state for even a moment longer. Eleen wasn’t around to complain either, likely having put herself to sleep when the events had started. She’d detested it the last time they’d been turned into a baby after all.

Farian got to work after everyone had been changed and had some time to recover, already proving his worth. He examined everyone to make sure there were no lingering bodily issues, but more importantly, he gave each person a full mental health screening.

Such an event would have some lingering effect on the psyche, regardless of how strong willed the person was. Thankfully, there didn’t seem to be any long term trauma, though some struggled to cope with embarrassing acts they’d committed. Tize and Gatrim detested their older selves, but no other Lessers really seemed to care.

However, plenty of Fiends blushed deeply when they remembered what they could of the past days. While not necessarily harmful, quite a few of them had lingering impulses of nostalgia and a strong desire to pick up old childhood hobbies.

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After letting Ahvra get some proper rest for a few days, the generals and the science team finally had their meeting to discuss what had happened. “I see Pill Head is still here,” Ahvra stared at Farian suspiciously.

“Yes, Dr. Graf has come on as our physician,” Drim introduced him properly. “He will be joining the science department and conducting his own research. Farian has also expressed an interest in your personal research and would like to provide whatever assistance he can.”

“Hmm…” Ahvra stared at him a bit longer, trying to figure out how to best make use of his cooperation. “A bald Fiend. Even the supernatural couldn’t fix your hair. I would like to take epidermal and follicle samples. Maybe we can cure it. Was able to fix problem with Useful One’s hair after all,” she boasted with pride.

Now that the ice had been broken, Ahvra fidgeted in her seat a bit longer as eyes focused on her. It was her presentation to make, but she hated things like this. She rather would have sent this all out in a message, but some things needed to be said in person.

“First. I would like to apologize,” Ahvra bowed her entire body. “The recent incident was due to a failure on my part. I was delirious due to blood loss. This caused me to make a measurement error of a compound during an experiment by a factor of 100. Assistant has already installed necessary limiters to all of our machines to ensure nothing like this happens again.”

“However, I can say that this experiment bore great results, as well as dangerous potential. What I am about to say, I implore you to keep in this room. Some will need to be said to the others, but we need to choose what we share carefully.”

“The experiment has confirmed what I long suspected about our blood, Fiend blood. It is infused with the properties of our Curses. In this case, it was my blood that caused the disease. The virus took on my Curse’s properties to control the flow of a being’s time.”

“Alone, blood is harmless, but if processed or mixed with certain compounds, it can become active. This is fantastic news and terrifying. For Project Fiendless specifically, it will advance it by leaps, and may let us expand the project well beyond its original scope. I can not stress enough the potential this holds.”

“However, if this information becomes public, Fiend blood will become the most sought commodity in the world. It is basically liquid super powers. In the wrong hands, could destroy everything.”

“Let us take Useful One’s blood for example. It could be imbued into seeds, creating crops that could be grown in minutes and end hunger worldwide. Fantastic for sure, probably something we should look into, but that is not all his Curse can do. With a few drops of blood, a bomb could be created that drains and kills all plant life within its radius. A horrendous biological weapon.”

“For this reason, we must make sure any samples of our blood stay secure. We also need to warn our members of those trying to take it from us. If someone is injured on a job and blood is spilled, it needs to be reported and cleaned if possible.”

“Hopefully, the outside world won’t learn of this, or believe it too rare of a resource to be sustainable for them to research. That said, I am also requesting an increased influx of blood samples from all of our members. Just because it is dangerous, doesn’t mean we shouldn’t utilize it. As long as it stays in the right hands, the benefit can not be ignored.”

“We should also endeavor to keep as many Fiends as possible from dying, even if not on our side. Since every Curse is unique, would be permanently losing an invaluable resource.”

“Any future samples we procure need to be kept under the tightest security. Given the recent spy, we can not be certain our own compound is even the safest, so may wish to look into other storage locations that only a select few know of. I trust everyone in this room except for Pill Head, but I will keep him under watch until he earns it.”

The meeting went on for a while longer as specifics were discussed. By the end, everyone was so excited by what this meant for the future that Ahvra was basically off the hook for the trouble she caused. Drim in particular had his head racing with ideas of how this could change the world he wanted to make.

Fiends For Hire Text Conversation 13

Date: Monarchber 11th 2078

『Mallea: Please keep this confidential. But I believe you all may be interested in the contents of this folder. (Attached Folder: Drim > 38th Series > Child Adorableness [Contains: 1,017 Images])』

『Phon: [Folder Downloaded]』

『Kada: [Folder Downloaded]』

『Xard: [Folder Downloaded]』

『Xard: Some good stuff here, Mallea. Appreciated』

『Kada: Ohmygosh so cute!!!!!!!!!!!! Which one should I make my background?!』

『Phon: I don’t say it often, but good work, Mallea.』

『Mallea: I appreciate your kind words.』

『Mallea: However…』

『Mallea: In the event that any of you would abuse this trust, I should inform you that I have also acquired several compromising and reputation-ruining pictures of each of you during your time as children.』

『Mallea: Please bear that in mind.』

『Kada: 💀💀💀』

『Xard: 😰』

『Mallea: I have also made sure to allocate a small portion of brain space to perfectly preserve the memories of my time with Phon during our trip. Those stories may be recounted at any moment upon request.』

『Phon: 💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢』

『Phon: 🙇‍♀️』