The Fire Within

After its initial introduction, the space-time orb was quite popular over the next several days as several people went to see and experience the amazing feat for themselves, with several of those people choosing to stay and train as well for a while. Among these people were several of the girls from the Manor who wanted to use the orb to spend more time with Alex, much to the surprise of people like Miledi and Suzu, who had yet to become aware of just how expansive Alex's harem truly was. Of course this also included Gabriel and Koneko who both had the idea to spend the rest of their terms in the space-time orbs, an idea Alex quickly shut down since it meant Gabriel would possibly be going into labor while he was busy fighting Ehito. Though he didn't mind the girls using such means to make their pregnancies go by "faster", he didn't want to risk not being present for the birth of his own children, a sentiment that the expecting mothers greatly appreciated.

As the time until the battle with Ehito crawled ever closer, the excitement within the space-time orbs slowly diminished as all of the inhabitants focused on using it for their own training. Alex would disappear for the majority of most days to train his control over his SSJ2 form, taking only Shia and occasionally Sairaorg with him for sparring partners as he tried to push the two of them even further. Tio, who was planning to be present during the fight in order to represent the dragon race, would spend her days taking instructions from Ophis when she grew curious and decided to explore the training orbs. Their meeting was quite the interesting one, as the moment Tio heard she was a dragon God who even Alex couldn't beat, she had immediately prostrated herself before her and started worshipping her fervently.

Kuroka meanwhile had laid claim to one of the islands within the main space-time orb, and would disappear there daily as well to train herself intensely in seclusion, something several people had a bit of hard time believing due to her usual carefree nature. Yue and Rias of course trained together, meaning they sparred against each other with magic endlessly everyday in a different habitat as they both tried to overwhelm the other by coming up with different ways to use their magic. Shizuku was of course the one trying to work the hardest to improve, as she materialized as many clones as possible daily to maximize her productivity. Usually she would have two spar against whoever was available as opponents, while the third alternated on training her chakra control or raw sword technique, until she finally managed to summon a third clone to work on both of those simultaneously as well. Grayfia was the only one who wasn't on a specific training program, as she alternated between training with everyone to train each of her aspects, knight with Shizuku, rook with Alex and Shia, and bishop with Rias and Yue. Of course each person who was going to be part of the assault on Ehito was also doing their best to become accustomed their newly evolved abilities, except they were saving the real tryouts for when they fought Ehito; who by this point was no longer a foe to take seriously, but instead he was considered a super powered punching bag they were all eager to try hitting.

"This is amazing..." Miledi couldn't help but mutter as, even after being with these people for a couple weeks within the space-time orb, she couldn't believe just how powerful they were compared to those from Tortus. Of course when she heard someone talk so casually about defeating Ehito, she couldn't help feeling somewhat bitter regarding how much she and her comrades struggled just to challenge him two thousand years back.

"They are amazing." A monotone voice suddenly said from behind her, causing Miledi to jump as she turned in a battle ready pose. Noint looked somewhat confused as she tilted her head once more before asking,

"You still do not trust me, even though our lord stated he would even enslave me to ensure I would not betray you?" Though she didn't necessarily go out of her way to try and build a relationship with Miledi, as far as Noint was concerned the only reason they had fought in the past was because she was on one side while Miledi was on another, and now that they were on the same side it was only natural that they would try to work together to serve her lord. The fact that Miledi wasn't willing to do so was confusing to her since it was the defeat of her creator that she desired most, the very thing even Noint herself was now working towards. Miledi seemed to get agitated at the question, and declared,

"Of course I wouldn't trust you so easily!" After that she turned and stormed off, leaving Noint even more confused before she turned her own attention towards her next attempt at getting her lord to teach her about love. Such thoughts were swimming through her head until she saw a certain person training nearby, and decided to join her.

Shizuku was sitting in sieza position, trying to clear her mind and meditate on her sword before practice, which was proving quite difficult as she instead kept recalling the events of the previous night. While she and Alex were together the night before she had been using her shadow clones to give him attention in four different ways at once, resulting in her acquiring two new skills that the other girls had not, the 'Seduction' and 'Bed Skills' skills. Needless to say it bugged her quite a bit to have acquired such suggestive skills while several other people hadn't, especially since the effects of the 'Seduction' skill had made themselves apparent soon enough. Apparently the skill made nearly everything she did more alluring and seductive, to the point that she had already caught multiple people staring at her several times that morning while she was doing normal things like brushing her hair or eating breakfast. Hoping she'd be able to figure out how to deactivate the skill soon, she was now trying to distract herself by meditating and losing herself in practice. As Shizuku opened her eyes to finally begin the actual practice, she found herself face to face with Noint who asked,

"Shall we spar together again today?" Shizuku nodded as she rose to her feet, and replied,

"If you don't mind, I need to learn more about fighting apostles before the attack." Noint gave a single nod in affirmation, and summoned her twin scimitars before taking a stance opposite from Shizuku as she similarly drew her own katana. The two women stared at each other for a few seconds, before both suddenly disappeared from their previous positions and reappeared in the middle of their previous positions as Shizuku deflected both of Noint's scimitars. The sound of metal clashing rang out throughout the courtyard for several seconds as the two traded blows at high speeds, before Noint decided to tray and take some distance to use a magic attack. Right as she was about to back off however, she felt something brush her back right behind her heart. Noint immediately dropped her swords and raised her hands slightly in a gesture of surrender before saying,

"I concede, it's your win." Shizuku smiled as she similarly pulled her katana back, before looking at the spot behind Noint. Directly behind her in midair was the very tip of another katana that looked identical to the Shizuku had just put away, except this one was surrounded by the shimmer of Spatial magic that started going down the length of the sword before revealing another Shizuku standing there. Noint glanced between the two Shizuku's and nodded in approval before saying,

"Well done, but you need to recall I was only using sword skills and no magic, and that the real battlefield will be more chaotic, so you won't be able to focus on a sole opponent. Let us go again." Shizuku's smile faded as a serious expression replaced it, and she replied,

"Of course, let's continue." As her clone faded the two took their starting stances once more, before the courtyard was filled with the clash of metal on metal once again. While the two swordswomen were training in the courtyard, a certain trio of women were busy rearranging the landscape in the desert sphere as they each tried to overpower the other. Two of them were of course Rias and Yue, but the third was unexpectedly Akeno, who had decided to train against Rias for the first time in a while to see how powerful she had become, and to see for herself the strength of Alex's other bishop. As such Yue was currently surrounded by six different elemental dragons, water, fire, earth, wind, lightning, and ice, while Akeno was surrounded by ten five-headed Lightning dragons, and Rias was surrounded by several dozen reddish black orbs made of pure destruction. Currently it appeared they were in three way stalemate even though Rias and Yue had been powered up considerably by turning into a super devil and Shinso, they were both restraining their full powers however by not turning into their other forms to prevent causing too much damage to the training orbs; plus Akeno hadn't been idle during heir time in Tortus either, and had spent most of her days in a training room while Rias and Yue had been exploring Tortus.

"Ufufufu, shall I show you what I've been up to while you were out having fun Rias?" Akeno taunted, before sending her ten dragons to descend on the Crimson haired woman. Rias smirked as the dragons approached her, with up to fifty different heads snarling and prepared to attack, however to counter them she just casually pointed her finger and the orbs surrounding her flew into action. Even as several heads blasted lightning at her, the orbs simply moved to intercept and took the entire attack before moving onto the head the itself, soon each dragon was being pelted by several orbs of destruction. As each one of the orbs had weak amounts of gravity magic imbued into them as well it didn't take long before the dragons were dispersed, resulting in Rias flipping her hair confidently and saying,

"You'll have to try harder than that Akeno, or did you think I wasn't getting stronger as well all this time?" Akeno narrowed her eyes at Rias's provocation and was about to summon another attack, but both girls were interrupted when several more dragons comprised of different elements this time attacked them.

"... Don't forget I'm here!..." Yue stated as she simultaneously started summoning even more dragons as if to create a small army of them. As they were created with more gravity than her orbs, Rias could only watch as they were sucked down the dragons throats where Yue used her raw magical power to disperse them. As a smile started spreading on Yue's face this time, both of the other women also started smiling before once more preparing attacks, Rias a large mass of destruction and Akeno summoning pitch black clouds that rumbled menacingly before they attacked each other once more.

That night everyone who was using the space-time orb was gathered as usual for dinner, another pleasant attribute of everyone being able to train together. This included all of those who were part of Alex's peerage, Tio, Ophis, Miledi, Anne, and all of the Devils who had undergone evolution and planned to participate in the attack. Even though some of them were also training in the space-time orb, but several others such as Serafall, Seekvaira, and Sona were busy with their day jobs outside the orb, and were spending their "nights" training, getting roughly a weeks worth of training over six hours real time. While waiting for their food to be brought out, everyone present was discussing their results of the days training with varying degrees of excitement.

"But to think that little Ria-tan has gotten so much stronger recently!💕 I haven't realize it until we actually sparred a little bit earlier!💕" Serafall excitedly said while Rias made an awkward smile before replying,

"But I still can't compete with you lady Serafall, turning the entire desert-scape into an arctic tundra instantly like that while fending off all three of us..." As Rias spoke Yue and Akeno nodded solemnly as well as towards the former Maou, causing Serafall to puff out her impressive bust with pride. Akeno then muttered,

"At least we didn't get the same training as Shia, Sairaorg, and Grayfia..." Earning another solemn round of agreement as everyone turned towards the three exhausted people, two of which were slumped in their chairs while Grayfia was maintaining a dignified air, even though it was apparent she was exhausted as well since she wasn't helping to prepare dinner. Kuroka even turned towards Miledi and muttered,

"What do you wanna bet she used Regeneration magic to make herself presentable for dinner~Nyan?" A few mutters of agreement answered her, even as Grayfia directed narrowed eyes at most of those who did. Alex smiled wryly at those who looked at his training methods in such a way, even as the chatter continued until the sound of Noint finally arriving with dinner reached their ears.

"Dinner, is served!" She declared to the happy crowd, before they realized what she was wearing, or rather the lack of. By this point the majority of those gathered had gotten used to Noint's misguided attempts at trying to learn love from Alex, however her antics always caught them by surprise since she never seemed aware of the time, place, or occasion. What also didn't help was her apparent lack of shame at letting other people see her naked, meaning that just about everyone within the training orbs had seen her naked by now. This led to situations like the current one where she was serving dinner while wearing nothing but a naked apron, leading to several people staring at her exposed backside. While he too was ogling her, Alex felt an elbow hit his ribs and turned to face an annoyed Anne, who demanded,

"It's pretty much a forgone conclusion that you're going to accept her into your bed soon, are you really ok with letting so many people see her naked?!" Alex simply shrugged in response before replying,

"It's not like she herself has a problem with it, in fact she's the main instigator even though we've already tried to talk to her about it. The same thing could be said about your clothes you know, but you have your own preferences so I don't mind. Unless it becomes a major problem I won't worry too much, and besides even if they look everyone in Asora knows not to lay hands on anyone associated with me." As he finished speaking Alex went back to ogling Noint's butt as she served them dinner, while Anne looked down on her own outfit, which was her usual dancers outfit that exposed almost everything except her most important places. Though she realized the hypocrisy in meddling further, Anne still decided that actually being naked in front of other men was too far, and decided to try and talk to Noint once more later. Though several people were enjoying the show, they quickly dug into their food when it was served in order to not be too impolite, especially since they knew Alex was making a rare exception when it came to the women around him. With everyone turning their attention to their plates there was no more distractions with the exception of Miledi saying,

"Pardon me, Miledi-tan will be right back!" Before getting up to go somewhere. No one bothered with it too much as they were more focused on their food, but Alex followed her retreat with a curious gaze until Noint finally brought him his food as well. Unlike everyone else though she didn't immediately put his plate down, and instead recited while trying to take cutesy pose,

"Husband, would you like dinner, a bath, or me~?" There was a series of clattering around the table as several gazes once more returned to Noint, who had apparently decided to try one of the most well known tropes out there. Alex himself however was more distracted by the gap between how she was trying to act, and Noint's usual expressionless face. He then shook his head lightly and said,

"I'll take the dinner." Though she seemed slightly disappointed, it was far from the first time Alex said no to her so Noint simply placed his food in front of him and turned to head back into the kitchen, while also possibly thinking of her next "attack". What no one expected however was the sudden sound of smacking flesh as Noint jumped slightly, and turned to see Alex shamelessly grabbing her exposed butt. He then added,

"But I'm think I'll take a late night desert tonight, I hope you'll still be on the menu Noint." Though it took the silver haired girl a few seconds, she then got Alex's meaning and allowed a small victorious smile to escape her lips before replying,

"Of course my lord, or do you prefer husband?" Alex smiled ruefully before responding,

"I think my lord is the safer option." Though she didn't immediately get his meaning, after a quick glance around the room Noint understood from the looks she was getting from other women, and quickly retreated to the kitchen. After she had gone, he then turned towards Anne and said,

"Now she should calm down a little, don't you think?" Anne rolled her eyes, but didn't say anything else in response since she knew Alex was most likely right about it. Though the response he initially gave Noint was that they should get to know each other better before moving forward, with several weeks already having passed within the orb it could be said he'd known her longer than some women before he'd gotten involved with them, like Xenovia or Remia for example. With the main distractions over with, everyone returned to their food and ate with gusto after the day's exertions before retiring to the lounge, and then ultimately to the baths before bed.

As she laid in her bed Miledi tossed and turned for what felt like forever, the usual feeling spreading throughout her body that she hadn't felt for two thousand years. It hadn't taken more than a few days for the first issues to show up, but Miledi had noticed that she was experiencing several "things" that she had a hard time handling. She'd find herself randomly crying when recalling her former companions, or she'd find herself reacting strongly to something she disliked, mostly Noint in this particular case. Though she hid this well beneath her usual attitude, she eventually got fed up with it and sought Valerie to figure out what was wrong. She then learned that with her new body she was now also having to become readjusted to all of emotions she was experiencing, not to say she didn't have emotions as a golem, but that now her body was reacting to the emotions she felt for the first time in two thousand years. This wasn't all though, as her body's chemical balance was also still trying to settle from when it was created, something Valerie speculated would last around a month. This meant that not only as she having to readjust to her body reacting to her emotions, but they may also result in exaggerated responses leading to her randomly crying or lashing out, in other words it was like she was going through puberty all over again. That wasn't even the worst part however.

"Ngh, again with this?! Even though I thought I dealt with it earlier..." Miledi groaned as she tossed and turned, trying to ignore the fire spreading throughout her body. The biggest problem she was feeling with her new body's sensations, was that at random moments it made her incredibly horny. She felt that she had done fairly well hiding this from everyone else, but there were instances like when dinner was being served that she wasn't so sure and had to excuse herself in order to go and secretly relieve the fire within. As she tossed and turned Miledi finally gave in and moved her hand down until it finally reached her secret place, guarded only by the thin pair of panties she wore to bed along with a shirt.

"Ah!" She lightly gasped in response to the sudden stimulation she provided herself, before her hand made it way inside her already damp panties while the other one made its way inside her shirt to her breasts. Not caring about the mess she was about to make in her own bed, Miledi started bringing herself to the peak of pleasure with her fingers, but before she could her room suddenly shined with the light of magic. In a slight daze as her personal fun was interrupted, Miledi suddenly found herself falling a foot or so before a pair of rough muscular arms caught her.

"I had a suspicion of what was happening, but I didn't think it was this bad." Alex said as he looked down at the blonde haired woman in his arms, who was so stunned she had yet to extract her hands from her panties or shirt.