13: Blank Slates

Agate eyes slowly open as the chirping of birds in the woods arose her. The owner of said beautiful eyes slowly sits up and the duvet covering her drops to her waist. Vivid agate eyes blink, trying to adjust to the sunlight.

Leilyn yawns widely, her arms going up as she stretches, bones cracking audibly. Once done, she throws off the duvet and walks over to the bathroom, a hand scratching a butt cheek through her lace underwear. She relieves herself, sighing in pleasure as her bladder empties. She walks over to the sink and washes her hands before picking up her toothbrush and squeezes a healthy dose of mint toothpaste on the bristles. Once done taking care of her oral hygiene, she removes her underwear and walks out to dispose of them into the hamper basket.

She blinks as she catches sight of her bra, which is currently around her chest.

Strange. She's quite sure that she removed her bra yesterday, before she crashed into her bed. Hmm…

With a shrug, she removes her bra and dumps it into the basket, before walking back into the bathroom and takes a warm shower. She spends twenty minutes in the bathroom, coming out partly dried with a towel wrapped around her body and another wrapped around her head.

She walks over to her desk and gently sits down on the soft chair. She heaves a tired sigh before proceeding in drying her hair and begin her usual hair routine. She removes the towel on her head and drops it on her laps before taking out her instant hair drying cap from a drawer, and puts it on. Within a minute, her hair's fully dried. She sprays the mixture of castor oil and jojoba oil on her hair before taking a generous amount of shea butter and massages it on her scalp and her entire hair. As she's combing her hair with a huge comb – brushes just makes her hair to tangle up badly –, a realization suddenly comes to her.

When did she loose her braid?

Leilyn blinks, a frown on her face.

First her bra, now her hair? Why is she losing time?

"Zoranne." She calls out, but is unanswered. She looks up, her frown deepening. "Zoranne?" Once again, she gets no reply.

She hurriedly finishes her hair routine, putting everything back to where she took them from. She throws the little bit of hair she got from her comb into the trash can besides the table, before standing up and walking over to the hamper and drops both towels into it. Naked, she walks over to her closet, opens the doors and walks in. She walks over to her underwear section and reaches for the black underwear drawer. She grabs one, closes the drawer and puts it on. She then moves over to her bra section, reaches into the red drawer, grabs one and wear it. She does the same thing for her shorts and crop top.

She's about to walk out of the closet when the weapon compartment catches her attention. With a frown, she walks over to it. She pushes the button and it opens with a whirl. She counts her weaponry and finds them to be complete. She ghosts her fingers over one of her ninja-samurai tanto swords, feeling an awful feeling of Deja-vu. Blinking, her eyes makes its way over to the dagger section and her upper body reels back in shock.

Beside Merchant lays Shadow. Wait… Shadow? Shadow?

She hurriedly picks up the sheathed dagger and looks at it in shocked confusion. She closes the compartment and strides over to her bed. She raises up her pillows, looking under them.

Nothing.

She settles her eyes on the dagger again, mind reeling.

Since she came here, she has never ever removed Shadow from its position under her pillow. Unless she's cleaning of course.

She's losing time. Lots of time.

What happened when she went to bed? Did she perchance have a sleep walking episode? Did she even watch the blood moon at all?

The thoughts of the blood moon suddenly makes her remember about Zoranne. She dashes downstairs – almost tripping – and heads for the room specially made to house Zoranne's earth core, and also serve as Jo's resting place. The robot's clearly shut down, unmoving. She finds that Zoranne has been switched offline and before she brings her back, Leilyn has to enter lots of sequence to get Zoranne's core running. A mechanical whir goes off in the room and holograms starts popping up.

Zoranne's augmented reality appearance starts to form. In five seconds, Zoranne's AR appearance is complete. Before Leilyn stands a holographic representation of Zoranne, clothed in a tight, purple, floor length gown, which have tight long sleeves. Her hair is a bubblegum pink; her eyes icy blue in color and her skin tone is a rich golden brown.

"Ms. Leilyn!" Zoranne shouts out, her voice filled with worry and her face scrunched up in fear. Which is odd and alarming, seeing as Zoranne never shouts (except for rare occasions) or look like hell just appeared on earth.

"Zoranne, what happened?"

The A.I frowns. "I- I do not know."

Leilyn blinks in shock.

The A.I folds her arms under her large bosom. "Last night, at approximately 12AM, I sensed the presence of cloaked intruders near the house. Before I could alert you, I found myself being shut offline. I managed to let out a loud beep, send a message to Mr. Alexander and also send a starting signal to the core in the Helper Satellite before I went offline forcefully. It took me four hours to come online and even so, I couldn't send a distress signal to anyone due to the world wide EMP occurrence that took everything down. Everything came back up this morning. I've even informed your family about this. They plan on coming here immediately the Transporters are deemed safe."

Leilyn's eyes go wide at that piece of information.

"Shit."

She takes off to her bedroom, Zoranne AR form disappearing like pixels. On reaching to the stairs, Leilyn skids to a stop when she sees her Watch on the living room table.

When did she-?

She makes an annoyed noise, striding over to the table. She secures the watch on her wrist and puts it on. She taps on the hologram keyboard option and a red keyboard appears before her. She starts typing away, fingers running over the keys in fast speed. With a last tap of the enter key, two hologram screens appear before her. On both ends, she hears the sound of running footsteps coming towards the direction of the screens. Her mother, Alex and Shinji run in front of them, yelling out her name.

"Furaha, se nkan lol dede oelu e?! (Are you alright?!)" Her mother asks in Yoruba, slipping into her father's tongue due to how worried she is.

"Lyn, che diavolo?! (What the hell?!)" Alex yells in Italian, brows furrowed in worried anger.

"Lyn-Lyn, daijoubu desu ka? (Are you okay?)" Shinji softly asks. Sensei slowly creeps into the screen, a worried frown on his face.

While apologizing profusely, Leilyn explains to them all that happened. She also tells them what Zoranne said and assures them that she's fine.

"Did you catch the intruders?" Her mother asks, now calm. Her body and facial expression are now relaxed, as were the other three's.

"…I don't remember."

"What?" Sensei frown comes back with a vengeance. His eyes become slits as his vivid purple eyes stares intently at his daughter in all but blood.

"Lyn… what do you mean by 'you can't remember'?" Alex asks with a frown.

"I just can't remember what happened after I went to bed. My memory is just… blank." She places both of her hands on her head, closing her eyes shut. "And if I try to force myself to remember, I have this blinding headache. It's as if I'm trying to remember memories that are clearly not there and don't exist at all. It's so fucking irritating!" She throws her head back, fingers gripping and pulling at her locks. When she brings down her head, she stares down at the tiles in distress, looking crazy and distressed in one go.

Leilyn never notices the look Shinji and Sensei share between themselves for a brief moment. Shinji's eyes were cold and narrowed, as were Sensei. If she were to see those looks, she'll comment right away that someone's about to be slaughtered. Painfully.

"Calm down sis." Alex says in a soothing voice. Both he and their mother has on worried expression.

"Just take it easy Lyn. They'll come back to you." Shinji adds.

"Trying to force a memory is dangerous. Allow them to come back on their own." Sensei supplies.

Leilyn nods in understanding.

"Honey… do you… do you want me to come over?" Amharic asks, her hands clasp tightly together.

Leilyn shakes her head. "It's okay, Mama. No need to stress yourself. I'll be fine." She gives a tired sigh, massaging the bridge of her nose. "Like Sensei said, they'll come back. I'll just give it sometime. Please, don't fret too much. All of you." She gives them a knowing look.

Shinji and Alex snort in reply.

"You guys… I'm serious. Don't come over. I'm fine. As you can see. All I'm just missing is just a few hours. Not the end of the world, seeing as one tends to forget things every second." She shrugs. "So, Sensei and Shinji, how're the kids?"

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Leilyn runs over to the kitchen sink in a flash. The moment her head was in it, she starts puking out her guts. Through the sound of blood rushing in her ears and over the sounds of her vomiting her intestines, she hears Ying Ming-Mei cooing soft words at her through the hologram. Once she's done, she washes her mouth then her face.

She sure as hell's gonna disinfect this sink with a bucket of bleach.

Leilyn goes to sit on a counter stool with a groan, her head in her hand.

"Dear non-existing gods above." She moans out.

"Jiejie, what's wrong?"

Leilyn raises her head and looks at the hologram in front of her, eyes tired and facial expression twisted in pain.

"I honestly don't know." Leilyn groans out. "For a week now, I feel so weak and tired. Now this started happening since yesterday. Even Zoranne has no clue of what's wrong with me."

"Have you gone to see a doctor?"

"Mei, I am a doctor."

The clan's youngest assassin – for now – gives her a deadpan look. "A real one. One who has more knowledge and knows what to do about…" She gestures at Leilyn. "Your situation."

Leilyn grunts, dropping her head on the cool surface of the granite countertop. She shuts her eyes and breaths slowly, trying to will the dizziness away.

A day or two after that memory losing problem, she has been getting waves of dizziness and has been feeling weak and tired all of a sudden. Yesterday was when she started throwing up. She was jolted awake by her stomach content – or what little she had left – forcing its way out of her throat. She managed to make it to the bathroom… barely. She puked her entire stomach content out till she feared that her intestines were going to come out through her mouth.

"Urgh… I wanna die." Leilyn groans.

"Sorry sis, but no can do. Well, not now anyways. You can die in twenty or so years later if you want to, I don't actually care." Mei shrugs.

Leilyn groans again. "What beautiful words of encouragement, Mei." She mumbles, getting a chuckle from the pale pink haired woman. The dark red copper haired woman slowly raises her head and looks at the holo-screen before her.

"So, how are you?" She asks. "How did your transition surgery go today?"

"It went well." Mei replies. "I'm still sore though. My body is still adjusting to the womb and vagina, along with these on my chest." She gently touches the two medium sized organs on her chest. Leilyn could clearly see the bandages around her chest through the sleeveless vest she had on. From her posture, Leilyn could see that she's uncomfortable sitting down.

"Give it time." Leilyn yawns widely, covering her mouth with a palm. Her eyes tear up at the intensity of her yawn. "As long as you take a single shot of the newly developed Nano-Helpers, you'll be in top shape by tomorrow."

Ming-Mei sighs, wincing as she feels a stab of pain.

"I see you went for a size a little bit smaller than our big sisters." Leilyn says with a tired smirk.

Ming-Mei snorts, giving the tired woman an amused look. "Of course I did. I have no strength to deal with big ass boobs. So I chose a C cup size implant. Although Asherai's and Anaestiane D cup – or is it Double D – boobs are-" she chef kisses, "A+, they still look like work. Then there's you." Ming-Mei out right stares at her chest. "Even without a bra, they are still big. How in the hell do you fight with those melons on your chest?"

Leilyn tiredly splutters, giving her little Clan-Sister a mock admonishing look. "They're not melons! I'm not sure they can be measured like that! I'm pretty sure that they're E cup sizes." Ming-Mei gives her a flat look. "Well… kinda." Ming-Mei's flat look becomes drier. "Fine. They're almost at the size of melons. And seeing as I am the unfortunate soul who the Cosmos decided to grant all bustfulness from both sides of my family tree, I got used to it eventually. " Leilyn shrugs. "But lately, I feel as if they are getting bigger." She lays a hand on a breast, wincing at the sore feeling.

"Hm." Mei looks at Leilyn with a critical eye. The woman looks so tired. She looks as if she will fall over any moment from now. If she looks so haggard, then whatever is wrong with her is definitely serious. "I take it you haven't told Shinji and Sensei yet?"

Leilyn cocked a tired brow at her and asks in a dry voice, "Really? How can you tell?"

Mei's face takes a deadpan expression. "Because they are still here and not over there with you and fretting over you. Knowing those two, they'll confine you to your bed and will take drastic measures, because right now sis, you look horrible." She stresses the horrible.

Leilyn waves her off tiredly. "I'm sure it's nothing. Maybe it's stress or something."

"Don't you have your Nano-bots in you to help?"

"They're gone. After that day, I couldn't find any trace of them in my system. So, I'm using this opportunity to make new ones."

"Ahh."

"That being said, do not, and I repeat, do not tell anyone that I'm down. After today, I won't be answering any video calls until I'm better. I so do not want Sensei and Shinji breathing down my neck."

"No prob, Jiejie. I quite understand." Mei said with a smile, which Leilyn returns. "Oh, gotta go. Jinsei is coming to check up on me. Thanks for all your help, Lyn. Not only did you pay for all my transition process, you served as an encouragement to me. Thanks." Mei grinned brightly.

"No problem. Just keep making awesome weapons for me and we're even." Leilyn winks at her. "I'm just happy that the genders of the clan is now even."

With a hearty laugh and another goodbye, Ying Ming-Mei ends the call.

Leilyn throws her head back with a groan, eyes droopy.

Great. Now she's sleepy.

With a sigh, she slowly gets up and gently makes her way upstairs, going to take a small nap. Maybe that will help a bit.

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Leilyn stares at the wide, full length mirror before her. She's panting heavily, sweat dripping down her body due to the intensive workout she just went through. She pokes at her lower abdomen, which is a little bit bloated.

It's been three weeks and two days since the day she lost some of her memories. Even up to now, they haven't come back.

Lately, she notices that her lower abdomen has been bloated, more so than usual. She thought it might be because she is eating too much lately, so she went on a diet and started training intensively. But that didn't work so well. Her abdomen is still bloated, making the under of her four packs ab stomach soft. To her, having her four packs invaded by a bloated abdomen made her feel… imperfect. Not only that, her breasts are now sore and she winces anytime she touches them or wears a tight or leather shirt. Or any shirt at all. Now, she only wears cotton cloth bras.

Leilyn gags and without hesitation, she runs over to the gym's toilet.

Not only did the workout routine and regiment not work out, but it also made her sickness worse. But Leilyn doesn't know when to quiet. Which, in this case, is bad.

The rich caramel skin woman proceeds in worshipping the proclaim bowl, holding its body tightly. After a minute or two of puking her guts up, she groans in agony.

Okay, maybe she should stop. There has been no improvement, so why bother maintaining it.

Leilyn spits out the last bits of bitter bile in her mouth, breathing heavily. She slowly gets up with a tired groaning. She flushes the sick in the bowl before walking over to the sink. She washes her mouth with water intensively, before washing her face. She stares at her tired face in the mirror, a thousand thoughts and questions running through her mind.

She slowly walks out of the bathroom, a hand on her bloated stomach. "Zoranne… what is happening to me?" She asks out loud. "Do I have cancer or something?"

"…no. It's not cancer that you have." The A.I slowly replies, almost seemingly hesitant.

A red flag waves in her head as she hears her A.I's hesitant tone. Leilyn looks up, brows furrowed in worry.

"Zoranne… what is it?"

The A.I remains silent, making Leilyn to get more worried. The only time Zoranne has been this quiet when she asked about her health was when she had the accident.

"Zoranne." Leilyn says with a firm voice. "I command you to tell me what is wrong with me this very instant."

There was another moment of silence, before Zoranne finally replies.

"Due to the symptoms you're exhibiting, I decided to look them up. When I found out the result of my scans, I was sure I made a miscalculation. So, I kept watching your body reactions for another week. And I was right. It wasn't a miscalculation, even though it's supposed to be impossible, given your status."

Now, Leilyn is getting seriously worried.

"Zoranne… what is wrong with me?" She asks with a troubled voice.

"Ms. Lyn… you're pregnant."

Leilyn's eyes go wide in disbelief. Her mouth drops open, gaping in shock. She tries to make out words, but fails. Her mouth opens and closes like that of a fish, unable to form out a single word. When she finally manages to get her baring a little bit, only one word is able to leave her lips in a choked whisper.

"What?"