I was home again. Me again. The old me. The original me, or at least I think this was the original me. I was in the old Ontario farm house where I spent most of my early childhood before my family moved south to the US. My head was in a fog. The tv was on. I could hear a certain classic cartoon playing the background.

I walked through the house dazed. I headed to the bathroom and ran some water over my head. Once I was thinking a little clearer I started to wonder where my mother and sisters were. Dad was at work and likely wouldn’t be back for a few days but mom was usually home because she worried about leaving me alone by myself. I walked through the house calling out but no one answered back. I headed to my room to check my smartphone to see if they’d left a message for me.

I got to my room and the phone was ringing. I picked it up and said,

“H-, Hello?”

A cold voice answered back. Familiar and unfamiliar at the same time. Crisp and low, sounding a bit like my dad’s except just a bit sharper.

“Reformating and reboot will be complete in 5, 4, 3, 2….Hey, dummy. I thought we already agreed to forget all about this? Stop dreaming about a past that may or may not have ever happened and wake your ass up.”

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I woke up snapping back into existence from a state of quantum uncertainty. Returning to existence as my consciousness returned. There was this numb feeling in the back of my head. I groaned softly, rubbing my temple, as a jaw cracking yawn escaped. The inside of my head felt like it was full of static. It always felt that way after I’d been forced to take some downtime.

It wasn’t a big deal for my longer naps, where my mind could create elaborate simulations to keep me distracted but for shorter naps it was a bit like waking up with a bad head cold.

This was one of the consequences of living too long while also processing vast amounts of information constantly. It meant that whenever mind could find a minute to do so, it would compile, compress, and even erase those parts of my memory it found useless or potentially harmful to my continued existence, and/or mental wellbeing.

I got off of the floor. Stretching as I did so. I looked down at myself and realized I was still wearing the same slightly too small school uniform my new contractor found for me after she’d summoned me. After considering whether it’d be worth it to use my alchemical-printer to whip up something more fitting, and more me, I remembered that I was a familiar now and didn’t really have that much power to spare.

Even if it wouldn’t cost too much to use a little of my power at a time, especially with my self-recharging auxiliary cores, I would still feel the cost. So it was probably best if I learned to be a bit conservative in my power use.Thus with a shrug I just stepped out of the closet I’d been curled up in and stepped into what seemed to a girl’s dorm room.

The sole occupant of the room looked up from what she was doing with wide frightened eyes. She froze and then opened her eyes. I used my psionic abilities to catch the scream that was about to escape her. Stealing the vibrations her throat was about to make before they reached the open air.

“Oi! What’s the big deal?!” I said.

She stared at me. Still screaming. Then she calmed down after a moment. Partially because she realized that her voice wasn’t escaping partially because she seemed to recognize me finally.

Once I thought she’d calmed down a bit I released the bubble of silence I’d put around her head.

“You good?”

“Um...Y-, Yes. Er, sorry about the...Sorry about freaking out. I’m usually all by myself here and for some reason I didn’t remember that you were you…” said Margot. Looking everywhere in the room except at me.

“Eh, don’t mention it...I have a non-conspicuousness filter folded into the abilities of my current form to keep the…’you-know-what’ hiding beneath my skin from causing trouble. It makes it easy to forget all about me when I’m not in the room, nevermind when I’m in a state of nulled existence.”

“Oh...Uh, Okay. Well, it’s nice to see you again anyway.”

I raised a brow.

“Do you really mean that?”

The girl frowned. Looking befuddled and somewhat conflicted.

“....”

The expression she was making was kind of cute. Like watching a hamster try to figure where its sunflower seeds had been hidden.

“Nevermind...Anyway, did you get the stuff I asked for?” I said. Idling giving the room a look over. There was bed. Unmade, but still roughly neat. The comforter folded and pushed to the side.The walls were covered in posters advertising games, comics, anime, and one virtual popstars.

There was a shelf covered in a mixture of figurines, games, and magical texts. There was a desk with an old laptop sitting on it. The portable computer looking well taken care of despite its age. As for the floor, the floor was littered in boxes, books, and old snack wrappers, with a large pillow sitting in the middle like a single island of sanity. There was also your standard minifridge like you’d expect to see in any dorm room.

“I...Y-, Yes. I have the stuff.” said Margot. Nodding.

She got up from the desk she’d been sitting at, her body suddenly filled with nervous energy. She walked over to the fridge and brought out a plastic jug filled with a sloshing red liquid.

Then she turned and headed over to her bed and pulled out a cardboard box. She opened the box and I saw a mixture of wiring and chemicals that were taken out in public probably would have had someone calling the cops. She reached inside the tangle and wires, metal prongs, and tubes and pulled out two fist sized glowing blue spheres.

I couldn’t help smirk as read the akashic data behind the spheres. I knew quite well what a high-grade magic crystal was likely to cost in a relatively low-magic world like this one. When she was about to hand them over to me I stopped her.

“Hold up…”

“Um, a-, are they not good enough…,sir?” said Margot.

That got me laughing.

“First off...I’m not a sir...At least not for you anyway. Like I said before...My friends call me Monty. And I’d like to be your friend if you’ll give me the honor of doing so. Second, the crystals are fine. I just wanted to ask if you have any ice in that fridge of yours by any chance.”

“N-, No. I don’t but the school store is probably still open and they tend to have those kinds of things. It’s just that they’re kind of far away.”

“Cool. Now, I hate to be a pain but do you mind ...?”

“Huh? Oh, no. Not at all. I’ll just...I’ll just go get that for you.” said Margot. Seeming to have rethought the whole issue mid-sentence. Going from sounding glum to sounding almost excited to run the errand. Likely relieved to have an excuse to leave the room and collect herself.

I watched her leave. The door clicking shut once she was gone. Then sighed in relief. I looked at the jug I was holding. Sloshing the one and a half gallon container of blood. Using my a thermokinetic abilities to slowly raise the temperature of the contents to a perfect 98.6 degrees, because cold blood was kind of gross.

After years of drinking blood that was the one sentiment I had on the matter that never changed. Cold blood is gross. That’s why I always loved visiting worlds where vampires were main stream and people knew how to serve it right.

There was a reason I made Margot leave the room. I wasn’t trying to treat my would-be partner like an errand-girl. I just needed to be alone and hadn’t known how to say so. It had been a while since I had a body and it had been a while since I’d had to drink blood.

Those two factors created an urgent need for privacy. A need for privacy that couldn’t be resolved some other way, because my long range teleporting abilities were offline and all the bathrooms in this damn school were basically all public bathrooms. I sent her out for ice because I needed to borrow her room and was too embarrassed to explain why.

Once the blood was warm, I took off my pants. Then I spent some power and created a miniature room, using a blacked out forcefield I’d set up around myself to avoid making a mess.

With the pants folds hanging on the chair beside me. I opened the jug of blood and upended the contents into my mouth. Margot’s blood tasted sweet. Don’t get me wrong it still tasted like blood which is generally, coppery, salty, and kind of like liquid meat, but to a blood drinker like myself her blood tasted sweet. Sweet with strong touches of vanilla, caramel, and just a hint of spiciness. (Maybe cardamom and cinnamon?)

I was smart enough to know that she’d freak out if I told her to her face, but the girl was seriously tasty. At least for blood drinkers like myself anyway. I drained the jug dry. Actually going as far as using my powers to making sure every last drop was pulled into my mouth. Then once my belly was full. I came. Hard.

A shotgun blast of jism escaped my glorious iron general. Then because I might have gone a little overboard when I was making my new penis, I had to use my hand to “execute” my general because that first ejaculation wasn’t enough to drop me to half mast and there was no way for an erection of that size to...NOT...be noticeable.

Do you see why I made my contractor leave the room now? I would have looked like a pervert otherwise. When it comes to vampiric beings, there’s a very good reason for why people always associated our drinking blood with having sex. In truth, for about a third of the many species that drank blood, feeding actually ‘was’ tied to sexual response and reproduction.

In my case, I don’t always go off like I did. However as I said, it had been a while since I’d had a physical body. My new body wasn’t quite used to certain stimuli and there were things that would need breaking in. On the upside, I could look forward to losing my virginity again.

Once that whole...episode...was over. I cleaned up. Compressing everything inside the bubble of kinetic force that wasn’t me into a tight black cube, and vaporizing the horrifically sticky mess with my pyrokinesis.

Then I used my powers again, this time to create a sort of bathtub made of kinetic force I used hydrokinesis and thermokinesis to fill the tub with warm water. I took a bath and maybe might have borrowed some body wash off out of my partner’s cabinet.

I took a bath. Cleaning myself off. Vaporizing and changing the water as needed. By the time Margot returned I was feeling refreshed, and full. I’d even changed my mind and ended up splurging. Using some power to demolecularize the uniform and some of the trash on the floor, and remake them into a crisp blue evening suit. Creating a sort of makeshift telekinetic comb to run through my dark and shaggy, jaw length hair.

“Hiya, partner…” I said. As the door opened. Glancing at my own reflection in the mirror that hung on the wall next to me. Trying to make sure I looked okay because even eons old monsters get nervous about making good impressions.

“Er, hi...I got the ice.” said Margot.

“I can see that.” I said smiling my friendliest smile and walking over to help her with the large bag of ice she was holding.

“Oof...Wow, that’s actually a little heavy. Not that I’m ungrateful but I don’t think we needed this much ice.” I said.

“I...I know but it was the only size that the school store was selling. Other than that, they were just selling ice-cube trays since most students here can...Ugh…” Margot said. Her words ending with a sound of pain and a face palm.

“What?”

“Nothing...I just forgot I could do magic now and technically could have just made ice for you here.” sighed Margot. Blushing furiously.

“Eh, it’s fine.” I said Patting her on the shoulder. Shamelessly sidestepping the fact that if I really wanted ice, I too could have made a few blocks with my hydrokinesis and tempature control.

“I’m psionic, I’m partially made of technology that’s far beyond anything that’s possible or will ever be possible in this reality, and I know more magic than your particular iteration of humanity has ever dreamed of, so I’m basically nigh-omnipotent and do you want to know how I ended up getting hurt the last time I was seriously injured?” I said.

Margot looked at me, and then she slowly nodded. Her academic curiosity overpowering her wariness of me.

“I forgot I could teleport.”

“.....”

“Yeah. I can’t believe it either. Here I am trying to race out of a universe that’s about to implode and I forget that if I really need to I could just tear open a hole in space time and get my ass to safety that way. And that’s not even the most embarrassing time I’ve forgotten something like that...So, yeah, that kind of shit happens to the best of us. Especially since by my reckoning you’ve only had your powers for...what?... eight maybe nine days.”

“I-...I guess.” said Margot.

“So of course, you’re liable to forget you can do some things. Anyway, thanks for the ice. You have some bowls, right?” I said.

She just sort of stared at me. I laughed dryly and then used my psionic to break down more trash from her usefully filthy floor and used my alchemical-printer to create some serviceable bowls from the resulting material.

“Okay, cool. We have bowls now. Please tell me you have spoons.”

“Nh...Yeah, actually. I think I have a bag of plastic spoons in my drawer.” said Margot.

Which made sense because about a fifth of the trash on her carpet were old pudding cups and yogurt cups.

Now do you have anything sweet and fruity, like juice or candy or something like that?” I asked.

Prompting Margot to head to her minifridge and bring out a can of some kind of athletic drink. It wasn’t exactly what I had in mind but it would suit our needs just fine. I took the can and then I used my alchemical-printer on its contents.

I generally didn’t use my printer to make food. It usually tasted off. However, when it came to modifying things that were already edible the alchemical-printer could instantly turn me into a five star chef.

This time I was just using the printer to reduce the drink into a syrup. Once that was done I turned to the ice and used my telekinetic ability to float a fair portion of it out of the bag and into the air. I took the two magic stones and tossed them into the air as well.

I used my kinetic abilities to grind ice and the stones into a fine powder. Depositing the resulting white slurry into the bowls. Pouring can full of syrup over the bowls of white ice as a finishing touch.

“Here...One for you and one for me.” I said. Offering one bowl to Margot.

She stared at the bowl like it was a snake. Then with a look of reluctance she took the bowl. She sat on her bed and took a bite. Making a surprised noise. I ate my own bowl of magically enriched shaved ice with gusto. Eager to replenish the power I’d been spending willy-nilly.

“It’s good right?” I said.

“Yeah….” said Margot. Still sounding surprised.

“You’re probably wondering why it is you can suddenly ingest magic crystals without ill-effect.”

“....Yeah.”

“That’s a fair question. But you know what? It’s fine. We have pretty much the rest of our...well, since I’m completely immortal I guess it’s just the rest of ‘your’ life,.... to pal around and do whatever. And as your familiar, I have no problem answering any questions you have about me.”