Chapter 463: It's so simple

“Alright, How do I do this? Please tell me that its not going to take long, because we are on a touch of a time crunch right now.” Belladonna asked, speaking in her head once again.

‘Angel’ let out a soft, melodic laugh

“I know all about your time issues, although it is hard for you to keep using that as an excuse when you have been wasting so much of that time.”

“Well… It was important. We need people in the city after and I liked Mac… And it’s not like I could kill this girl now I know she’s a child.” Belladonna blushed deeply, rubbing the back of her head sheepishly, something that made the Spider girl tilt her head in confusion.

“Yes yes, I know dear. Luckily for you, the method I have in mind will not take much of your precious time. It is also rather simple, relatively speaking when you consider the ordeal we are undertaking. Simply enchant your blood and feed it to her, so that it will seek out her existing Blood Root and fuse it with your own and change her essence to match that of your family. It is imperative that you do not completely consume her existing Blood Root, otherwise her essence will completely change and it could lead to adverse reactions, and possibly even death. The same goes for the opposite, making it too weak and dare I say submissive to her existing could have deep ramifications for the origin of her new species. The essence must blend perfectly, altering what exists with what is introduced, to bring a perfect equilibrium between Elf, Sanguine and Whisper.”

Belladonna blinked a few times, as she stared blankly at Angel as she explained all of that. She heard it, she definitely heard those words and there was a lot of them she actually understood, which was good for her.

But while the individual words were good, combining them in that particular order just became a stream of nonsense that Belladonna couldn’t even begin to process, nevermind formulate an actual way to attempt that.

“You… What the hell are you talking about? You call that simple?! I don’t know how to do any of that? Blood Root… wait, wasn’t that the thing that we needed to change the Baron into one of us? We used that, and that can only be used every… Well I don’t know how long but I can feel I don’t have that in me anymore! Wait… How do I remember that? I didn’t do any of that…” Belladonna muttered with a frown, before Angel drew her from her thoughts.

“That is correct dear, that will present as an issue. But luckily for us, you have an understanding of how to control Will. It’s severely lacking… like that on the level of an infant, but it will be enough for our purposes. We will supplant the required energy used to develop Blood Root Essence with Will. It won’t be perfect, but it will do.”

“I still don’t know how to do any of that! And what kind of infants are you talking to that can do things with Will?”

Angel laughed, as she sauntered over to Belladonna, gliding with every step.

“My dear, there is a reason I say ‘We’. Now move over, I will need to take control for this part.”

Before Belladonna could question her any further, Angel reached out and tapped her finger against Belladonna’s forehead.

She blinked, flinching slightly from the touch, before opening her eyes and frowning.

She was still looking at Angel, only she looked much different.

She looked exactly like Belladonna now, and was even wearing the same clothing as her. The light filling her eyes had disappeared, showing them to be completely milky white as if she was blind, as the usual blackness that filled Belladonna’s eyes spread across her forehead.

“Wonderful.” Angel said with a smile, her voice tickling Belladonna’s ears rather than her mind.

“Now dear, I am going to ask you to open your mouth and trust me, do you think you can do that for me?”

Belladonna frowned as she wondered why in the world she needed to do that, only to realise a second later that it wasn’t her the order was made for.

“A-alright. Will it hurt?” The Spider girl asked, as she slowly lowered herself down to Belladonna’s level.

She seemed a little shy about what came next, giving the rest of the group a cautionary glance, but they were completely focused on the transformation that Belladonna had suddenly gone through to care about what the Spider was doing.

Even Belladonna was taken by the changes in her body, as she finally understood what had happened. She and Angel had swapped places. Angel had taken the body, and seemingly adapted it to suit her preferences, while Belladonna became the figment of imagination that was simply floating around, unseen to everyone and everything.

Well… Almost everything. She could swear the Hollow Knight was staring at her, but those were just empty eye sockets.

The shiver down her spine was most likely from watching her body move and speak without her telling it to. Even weirder, she could feel the signals that her brain was sending through her body, like phantom limbs moving in sync with the real ones, but her imaginary body was not moving to copy those phantom movements.

It was disorientating and rather disturbing, so Belladonna remembered Sylvi’s golden advice. Don’t think about it, just accept it and move on.

Angel smiled warmly at Belladonna’s thoughts drifting through her mind. A smile that the Spider girl thought was for her as, after a few more seconds, she opened her mouth reluctantly.

Her cheeks peeled apart, revealing the fangs they had kept hidden, as her mouth unfolded like a slobbering rose full of needle teeth.

“It might,” Angel said, as she lifted her hand to her lips. “But it will be so much better afterwards, I promise.”

Angel bit her finger, making Belladonna flinch as she felt the jolt of pain, before holding the wounded finger over the Spider girl’s mouth.

Angel, in Belladonna’s borrowed body, muttered lowly under her breath as the single bead of blood wobbling at the end of her finger started to glow with a strange power. The air in the room froze, not wanting to disturb the process, and all sounds seemed to dim as if the entire world was listening to Angel words.

The droplet fell, like a crimson drop of pure sunlight, and was swallowed up by the innocent Spider girl who gulped it down without so much of a thought that it could be dangerous.

Everything remained still. Everything remained silent. Everyone watched and waited to see what would happen next. The entire world seemed to be holding its breath, as Angels brow creased into a frown.

“Hmm… This might be a small problem.”

Certainly not reflective at all of my own struggles with character names.

Definitely all Belladonna’s issues, not mine.