Following Ren's lesson, Jason put her to bed and saw Wicke off before he and Lillie relocated to their room. Ren generally napped from 2~6 PM, and since she had her on residence and lab, Wicke only stayed the night if she knew she and Jason were going to have sex.
"What do you think I should wear today...?" asked Lillie, modeling nothing but a pair of cute, Pachirisu-themed silk panties and socks as she held up a pair of pajama hoodies, one Latias-themed and another cobalt-blue and black with the scrunched face and ears of a Lucario.
"You know I think you look good, no matter what you wear..." responded Jason, relaxing atop his and Lillie's typically shared beanbag with a look of undisguised appreciation as he was enjoying watching her change and hold clothes up to her body in front of a standing mirror.
"Then maybe I shouldn't wear anything..." hummed Lillie, her green eyes narrowing as she set aside the pajama tops and got onto her hands and knees, crawling toward Jason like a female Pyroar approaching a Rattata that strayed too far from its colony. Expectation built in Jason's body the closer she got, but since he was genuinely spent, he remained silent and simply observed as Lillie approached, dipped her head under the hoodie he was wearing, and wiggled her way inside of it.
"I'm not sure the collar is—" started Jason, his words cutting off as Lillie managed to get her head through the collar, albeit with their faces side by side rather than facing one another. From there, he promptly assisted her, sliding his hips under her so she could more easily straddle him, resulting in them practically being glued together within his hoodie.
Catching Jason off guard, Lillie softly but rather abruptly confided, "I'm not sure how I feel about Maeve coming with us when we set out on our journey..."
Following a brief pause, Jason gently cupped Lillie's perky bottom as he responded, "We never concretely agreed to travel together, but I should have discussed it with you after she brought it up..."
"Yes, you should have..." affirmed Lillie, burying her face into Jason's neck and tightening her arms and legs against his sides and outer thighs as she muttered, "I really don't mind you being popular...but it frightens me when I imagine someone might take you away from me. Not in a literal sense, of course, but in a way where you pay more attention to them than you do to me..."
"I'm sorry for causing you to feel anxious..." muttered Jason, tightening his hold on Lillie's faintly trembling body and planting a lingering kiss on the left side of her neck. The current interaction was the main reason he had never desired a harem. He never wanted to make someone he cared about feel insecure, so Lillie's words washed over him like a series of cold, sobering waves.
Just as Jason was forming the resolve to break things off with his other provisional girlfriends, even Korrina, Lillie left him doing a mental double-take as she softly confided, "Truth be told, I actually like seeing you make love to other girls. I don't know if it was because my first experience was with my mother and many others, but it excites me seeing you working so hard to make us feel good..."
'I'm just going to shut my brain off for a bit...' thought Jason, maintaining his hold on Lillie's body but remaining completely silent, trusting that she had more to say.
"I know it's important to you to value your relationships..." muttered Lillie, bringing Jason's thoughts to focus as she posed, "But I think you should rescind the requirement that someone needs to be your girlfriend for you to have sex with them. There are a lot of girls who want to try having sex with you, and if you make all of them your girlfriends, I worry you're going to wear yourself out trying to value all of us..."
'She's not wrong...' Jason admitted to himself. He did his best to form a meaningful connection with the women he slept with to counterbalance the shame he experienced from giving in to temptation so easily. It wasn't long ago that he had put foot down against Wicke and Lusamine. Now, as long as his prospective partner was prepared to become his girlfriend, his body and the contents of his briefs were practically free real estate...
With Lillie falling silent after she finished speaking, Jason took some time to organize his thoughts before expressing, "Lillie...I haven't given up on one day returning home, but you have become the single most important person to me in any world—and I'm not just saying that because we have the highest Bond Level. If you asked me to, I would never even speak to another woman unless it were necessary..."
Demonstrating the superhuman strength of most natives of the Pokémon world, Lillie positioned her hands behind Jason's shoulders and promptly sat up, tearing the fabric of his hoodie to meet his gaze with a wide-eyed, rather intense stare.
"I mean it..." said Jason, forcing the most genuine smile he was able as he confided, "I wasn't lying to Korrina and Ellaine when I said I loved them—and I still do. But they both have their own lives, their own careers, and a slew of interests completely detached from me. You're the first girl that's ever met me on equal terms, and these past few weeks, including the two of us planning our future...they've been the most fulfilling moments of my life. So, in case I haven't said it enough...I love you, Lillie Argyle. All that I am and will ever be is yours..."
"Oh, Jason..." muttered Lillie, her eyes rapidly welling with tears and her chin crinkling as she did her best to hold them back. Seeing this caused Jason's eyes to water in turn, but it also brought a smile to his face, his tone tinged with laughter as he teased, "You're even beautiful with snot threatening to leak from your nose..."
Instead of responding with words, Lillie abruptly grabbed the sides of Jason's face and gave him the most intense and forceful kiss he had ever been on the receiving end of. The latter had hoped that his words would be effective, but they were evidently super effective as, when she finally pulled away from him, her hands still clutching the sides of his face, Lillie asserted, "From now on, you're my fiancé. I will call my mother and have her make the necessary arrangements. I'm not going to prohibit you from having sex with other girls, but no more girlfriend talk, okay? You're mine now..."
"I did just say as much..." affirmed Jason, a little taken aback but nodding in response to Lillie's assertion. Korrina would forever be his first love, but Lillie had become his emotional anchor. She was incredibly smart, caring, and they shared many of the same interests, including a love of music and the arts. The time she invited him to sketch her in the nude had become a core memory of his, and he was looking forward to forming many more in the months, years, and even decades to come...
As Lillie leaned in to give Jason another passion-filled kiss, the two barely noticed when a bright, bluish-white circle appeared beneath them. It was only when his System began announcing something in its synthetic voice that their lips parted and they began looking around in confusion.
[Conditions fulfilled. The Aspirant has successfully formed a Pactio with the 1-Star Entity, [Lillie Argyle]. May the stars shower their blessings upon you.]
"W-What's going on? I suddenly feel really warm and tingly..." remarked Lillie, her face flushing as she closed her eyes and wiggled her hips as if she were trying to scratch an itch. Before Jason could respond, his black subspace orb, Sanctum, emerged from his chest, slipped between Lillie's breasts, and disappeared into her. Then, as her body started to glow, he couldn't help but notice her breasts inflate slightly, going up nearly half a cup as her waist tightened and her weight increased.
'Just what the hell is going on here!? What's a Pactio...!?' Jason exclaimed internally, doing his best not to panic outwardly as his brain attempted to process everything he was seeing and experiencing. Long before that, his subspace orb emerged from Lillie's body and returned to his chest, filling him with warmth. Immediately after, a separate, completely clear sphere followed its trajectory before stopping in the air between them, garnering both his and Lillie's gazes.
"Is that a card...?" questioned Lillie, tilting her head slightly as she eyed the object suspended within the sphere, a card ostensibly crafted from pure bronze that rotated along a slanted axis. The back had a single red star amid a complex pattern of embossed runes. The front portrayed Lillie herself, outfitted in a frilled dress and striking a pose that reminded Jason of a Magical Girl. And if one were to look closely, they could also see each of Lillie's stats listed along the bottom left side, as well as a ruby-red star in the top right.
Feeling inexplicably drawn to the sphere and card, Lillie didn't wait for Jason's response before reaching up and grabbing it with her hands. The moment she did, a flash of white light briefly filled her and Jason's vision before fading to reveal that she was wearing a predominantly white dress with red accents, sunny yellow, and golden frills. The top accentuated her breasts, and above them was a large, bright green, diamond-shaped gem that matched the color of her eyes, framed by gold.
"I suddenly feel powerful and full of energy..." revealed Lillie, inspecting herself with shimmery-eyed excitement. Along with the gown-like dress, she also had on perfectly fitted white gloves that covered nearly the full length of her arms, flesh-colored hose that matched her natural skin tone, and white, ribbon-fastened flats that reminded her of the ballet shoes she used to wear during practice and recitals.
"I have no idea what's going on, but it suits you..." asserted Jason, his thoughts racing but fading into the background as he stared at Lillie with an unapologetically stupefied expression. She had always been beautiful, but as her body appeared to emit light from its pores and follicles, he felt like she had suddenly ascended to become a goddess.
Blinking in surprise, Lillie tilted her head to the side and asked, "You think I look like a goddess...?" with expectation in her eyes.
"I do..." affirmed Jason, nodding without hesitation. Immediately after, however, he felt the need to ask, "But how did you know that was what I was thinking? Can you read my thoughts?"
"I don't think I can," responded Lillie, shaking her head before glancing down, touching the crystal on her chest with both hands, and remarking, "It's more like I can feel it...deep inside my chest..."
As Jason's gaze was invariably drawn to Lillie's chest and the crystal above it, he noticed a series of golden motes collecting into a familiar number: 128,497.
"The interior of the crystal is displaying our current Bond Level..." noted Jason. He also noticed that, while it was ticking up much more, it was also ticking downward, compelling him to add, "If I'm not mistaken, this outfit converts our Bond Level into mana or raw energy. The number is going up from us being in contact, but it's also ticking down between two and three points every four seconds..."
"Incredible! So this is the power of our love...!?" exclaimed Lillie, her eyes sparkling with even greater intensity and her smile threatening to tear at the muscles of her face as she held up and clenched her hands into fists. She felt like she could accomplish anything at that moment, but as eager as she was to test the dress's effects, she now had even more of a reason to raise her and Jason's Bond Level.
Placing her gloved hands on Jason's chest, Lillie was planning to offer him a massage before a hazy white ripple of light spread across his body from her palms. She hurriedly retracted them as if she had touched a hot stove, but the light was evidently a good thing, as Jason no longer looked nearly as tired. Rather, based on the swelling against her butt, he was now full of energy...
...
..
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