Mana Mutation Menace (Journey to Chaos Book 3) (7 page)

Suddenly, she was blushing again. "It's nothing
really." Just as suddenly, her face hardened again. "You'd better not
screw this up, Eric.” She grabbed his hair and pulled him forward. "Kallen
is counting on you. You are a beacon she will wave for all the world to see;
make sure you burn brightly, got it?"

"Ow, got it!"

"Good."

She let go and returned to her beloved labor, and Eric and
Kallen returned to their browsing. Both of them were well known in Roalt and
received many greetings while others avoided them as much as they could.
However, Eric noticed that it was not fear that motivated them. It was the same
caution as before he mana mutated. Then there was a third group that picked up
on Kallen’s third identity and asked about the Summit. She responded that she
had good news to share with them. At first, she spoke of her research and then she
pointed to Eric and said, “Exhibit A.”

Every time, Eric was horrified. The other person never was.
They expressed their condolences on his misfortune or congratulated his
recovery as suited them. Others weren’t surprised at all. “Trickster’s Choice
and all” summed up their feelings. A final group simply didn’t believe her
because Eric looked and acted far too human to have ever been a monster.

“Maybe you’re right about not being a grendel,” Kallen
said. “They agree with you.”

“I bet they were all The Trickster.”

One of the statues jumped off its base and approached
Eric. It was a scorpion-style centaur. “Nonsense,” it said. “Only two or three
of them were me.”

“Trickster! Get out of my statue!”

Tasio slithered from within the icy creation like steam
from a kettle. Then he broke off one of the arms and stuck it on the figure’s
head.

“There. Now it’s unique. Judges like that.”

The sculptor chased him away with a broom. His chosen
laughed at his expense. With the pest gone, the sculptor returned to her work
and no one gave this event a second thought. It was just The Trickster making a
nuisance of himself, as usual.

“The people of Ataidar are a tough breed,” Kallen
remarked. “It’s only those that work in the ICDMM that consider you a threat,
and only because it’s their job.”

“I bet a few of them think otherwise.”

Once again, Kallen took his hand into her own hand. By
now, Eric was becoming accustomed to the serenity that always followed such
contact. It was hard to think of how he got by in Threa without it. It was like
mana; something he didn’t notice he was missing.

“A few of them are assholes. I know you’ll prove them
wrong.”

Kallen grasped his other hand and held them both up and
together. She held his gaze and showed him her chimera eyes.

“We’ll do it together.”

Eric tried but couldn’t manage grendel eyes. Then he
thought of the treatment she went through in the past, and Nulso moving around,
and Lunas near his little sister. His eyes slitted.

 “I believe you.”

Then, hand-in-hand, they continued to enjoy the festival.

In a hallway of blank stone and stainless steel, a golem
stood guard. It was ten feet tall and made of industrial concrete. Its left
hand carried a club made of granite. Its right hand carried an iron/bronze
alloy shield. Its eye gems glowed as it detected motion up ahead.

 A creature rounded a corner and bounded down the hallway.
It was eight feet tall and bipedal. Its skin was metallic, but its exact
composition evaded the golem. There was little less it could be sure of. Thus,
its onboard computer identified the creature as a grendel. The golem raised its
club and brandished its shield. The beast roared and charged.

 The floor shook with his footfalls. His roar gave mortal
men chills. The golem itself, possessing only basic sentience, felt the Universal
Dread in its eyes. The grendel cocked its right arm and the golem blocked with
its shield. Quickly shifting its stance, the grendel brought its left foot up
and kicked the golem's side, shattering it to rubble.

“Very good, Mr. Watley,” an intercom said. “You’re doing a
better job maintaining control this time around.”

Grendel ignored him. Instead, he focused on the door. Without
the golem, it was unguarded. He forced his fingers into the gaps of the door
and forced them apart. He stepped inside and the door slammed shut behind him.
Bars swung across them. The temperature dropped below freezing, but Grendel
didn’t care. His body could endure intense cold. He ran through the hallway
without a shiver. When he reached the far door, he conjured a fireball in his
hands and forced it against the door. The metal expanded and cracked. Then he
punched it until it collapsed.

“Excellent,” the intercom said. “You’re providing us with
quality data, both of your abilities and your sapience despite your
appearance.”

In the next room, ten golems awaited him. They brandished
blunt weapons like the previous golem had in addition to bladed weapons like
the ones before it. Others were bare-handed. Never had he fought this many
before and he regarded them as a nuisance. As a grendel, he knew he couldn’t
eat them. As a human, he knew it was a chore. As a mercenary, he wasn’t getting
paid. Nevertheless, he took out his frustration on them in a calm and methodical
fashion.

His mentor taught him how to fight with his bare hands. It
was the first thing he learned as an apprentice mercenary. He moved among the
golems by blocking and dodging, even though he knew they couldn’t hurt him. It
was poor form for a mage to tank everything; that was the fighter’s job. All ten
golems were soon thirty some inanimate rocks and it was his human skill that
accomplished this feat. All his grendel strength did was enable him to break
stone.

The next door was sealed into the floor. The gaps were too
small for his fingers. Instead of punching it, he decided on a different course
of action. Backing up to the entrance, he ran toward the door and shoulder-charged
it. His momentum carried him forward and dented the door. It was his mentor’s
mana bolt lecture that pushed through that dent and into the next room. It was
a laser grid.

“Well done,” the intercom said. “This is the first time
you’ve reached this room as yourself instead of as Grendel. Please confirm this
with the identity sign.”

Grendel groaned and obliged. Lifting his right hand, he
tapped out “Shave and a Haircut” on the wall.

“Thank you, Mr. Watley. Please refrain from using your
barrier in this room.”

Grendel ran right through the crisscrossing beams, barely
grimacing as they scorched and melted his skin. They left nasty marks, but he
ignored them. Next, twin flamethrowers fired from either side and engulfed him.
Like an orc, he emerged with only minor burns. The next obstacle was a row of
spinning blades. Grendel stopped and used a wind spell to arrest their motion.
Then he walked through unharmed.

The final gate was enchanted with ordercraft runes. In
response, he extended his
soiléir
claw and its chaotic tip gleamed. Then
he thrust into the Lawful Shield guarding the door. The barrier buckled and
dissolved under his power. With a roar, he shattered it. Laughing, he retracted
the crystal into his body and soul.

More golems awaited him. They stood guard around a cage in
the center of the room that was further shrouded by force fields. Inside this
cage lay Kallen, chained to the floor and quivering in pain. The sight enraged
Grendel and he ran forward.

The golems intercepted him and he bashed them without a
care. He even used one as a club against the others. Electric shocks ripped
screams from Kallen’s throat and incited Grendel to greater madness. So blind
was he that he didn’t notice Kallen’s appearance flickering or her screams
skipping.

He pounded on the force fields with monstrous savagery. If
he were thinking clearly, he would notice that the generators for the force
field were to either side of the force field itself. Eric Watley would have
seen them, evaluated them, and destroyed them, but Grendel decided on a
different angle.   

Out of his mind by now, he invoked the power of death. Senescence
flowed
from his soul, through his hands, and
into the floor. Its metal and electronics rapidly aged and rusted, corroding
its spells into uselessness. A door opened and Talbot marched forward. He wore
a suit of armor like a dragon.

“Mr. Watley, control yourself. Your actions have
consequences. Refraining from dark magic—”

Grendel cut him off with a roar. Then he ran forward and
tried to grab the threat with his left hand of death. Talbot nimbly avoided his
hand and tripped his foot. Grendel sprawled face first. Talbot stood straight
once again and continued, “—is one of the ways you prove your sapience.”

Grendel jumped up and lunged again. Talbot ducked,
sidestepped, and dodged all of them. Then he redirected a kick and again stole
Grendel’s balance, and this time, he did not let the monster stand up. He
stepped on its back with his dragon greaves. Grendel struggled. Talbot kicked
him in the head. When at last Grendel forced him off with a spirit blast,
Talbot merely jumped back and prepared a mana bolt. He fired just as Grendel
stood, knocking him immediately on his ass.

“Subject failed. End simulation.”

The remaining golems deactivated and the force fields
around Kallen disappeared as well. Kallen herself vanished. Grendel looked on
in confusion. He quickly came to the conclusion that, because Kallen was not
within his sight, Talbot must be tormenting her somewhere else. He snarled and
rose to attack again.

“Eric, stop!”

A door opened and Kallen entered. Unfettered and unharmed,
she sprinted to him and hugged him. At once, peace filled him. Talbot made no
move against either one of them, so he couldn’t be a threat anymore. Eric
settled for hostile looks at the armored human.

“As we thought, he can’t tell the difference between the
real thing and a fake,” Talbot said. “Someone could use that against him.”

“Don’t talk about Eric like he’s not here!” Kallen shot
back. “Besides, that was a high-level illusion. If I were in Eric’s place, I
would have fallen for it too.”

“You did,” Talbot reminded her. “We still have the
footage.”

Kallen took a breath and squeezed Eric to send more
positive waves into him. He was still in grendel form. She gestured and he
leaned forward. She whispered the poem in his ear and his head returned to
human form, but nothing else did.

 “I just can’t do it. The grendel is too strong.”

“Eric, I tell you this every time—
there is no grendel.
There is only you and your perceptions.” She knocked on his skull. “There is no
one in here except you yourself.”

“It’s savage and hungry and horny! I’m nothing like it!
I’m just cursed with the ability to take its shape. It’s like the universe is
accusing me of fratricide.”

Eric’s body shifted. His bones shrank, his muscle mass
decreased, and his skin transformed from the ambiguous metal to flesh. In a
flash of light, his clothes reappeared. These were a gift from Kallen, or more
appropriately, a gift from Dnnac Ledo that Kallen arranged for him to receive.
A full set of clothes that would change their size and shape and even appear
and disappear into a hyperspace pocket depending on his current state; such a
thing was easy for the elves. Given the trade embargo, it was much harder for
Kallen to get it out of the village.

Now human, he shifted his right arm into that of a grendel
and then back again. Then his left arm and back again. He did this for each
part of his body, except for his head. He did several parts at once, but his
head was never in the combination. Finally, he transformed every part of himself,
but his head remained human.

“Why isn’t this good enough?”

“A family is walking down the street,” Talbot said. “Two
parents and a child. One of them does something, anything, that sets you off.
Because of this, you bite their head off. While the survivors are crying, the
city guard is hunting you down. You kill more of them before they put you down.
That is why it’s not good enough.”

Eric scowled at him.

“Mr. Watley, you asked for a goal; something you could
achieve to prove to me that you are not dangerous. I have given you what you
wanted.”

“But Uncle Talbot—”

“
Stop calling me that
. I have a job to do and I
take my job seriously. If just one life is lost because of my leniency, then that
blood is on my hands. That is why I am serious.”

 “Yes, sir...”

Tasio appeared in a poof.

“You’d think for a girl with three heads, she could come
up with something better.”

“What’s he talking about?” Eric asked.

“It’s nothing!” Kallen said. “Or rather, it’s something,
but it’s nothing you need to worry about now. I’ll tell you later. It will be a
surprise.”

Tasio shrugged and disappeared.

Kallen walked over to Talbot and talked to him about
something in a hushed tone. Before he could eavesdrop, Eric was pulled away by
the scientists for more tests.

Over the month or so since he woke up in the medical tank,
there had been no end to the tests, experiments, and evaluations. Now that he
could transform parts of his body into a grendel, they could finally confirm
that, yes, he was indeed a grendel. In retrospect, it was obvious. When his
body transformed, his cells would naturally transform along with them. He
looked human because his DNA was human. When he looked grendel, it was because
his DNA was grendel. There was something else that facilitated the change.

Everyone agreed that this “something else” was chaos. After
all, it was a lesser form of chaos that transformed him in the first place.
Mana was constantly flowing through everyone and everything and it was chaos
itself that built and sustained the universe. So far, it had proven difficult
to pinpoint exactly where this chaos existed in him, but they were not about to
give up.

 They measured his strength and compared it to orcs’. They
measured the durability of his metal skin and compared it to dragons’. They
determined his body could survive in the Arctic cold unassisted for much longer
than a human’s could. They took every sort of sample of every part of his
grendel form (Up to and including peeing in a cup. It was more like a bucket.)
and studied them to find out what made him tick. They even remodeled a certain
room to flash every notch on the light spectrum in order to determine exactly
what a grendel looked like.

Groundbreaking data came in every hour. In the three weeks
since Eric’s first voluntary transformation, new ideas about mana mutation were
proposed and old ideas gained the strength of theories. The scientists were
thrilled and referred to this month as the Miracle Month of Medical Mana
Mutation Discovery. For Eric, it was one of the worst months of his life.

Some of the tests had been painful, some invasive, and
some annoying or boring. He made his complaints, and while they were heard and
noted, they accomplished nothing. Talbot simply told him to grin and bear it
for the sake of
posterity
;
it was one of the “safety hoops” he had to jump through. Worst of all, he still
couldn’t contact his guild or anyone in it. All he could do was speak with
Kasile over their private line. What he heard made the month even worse.

She talked non-stop about Lunas. How kind he was and how
wise and noble; it was sickeningly sweet. More worrying than that was how she
agreed with everything he said and put it into her policies. She had become a
puppet queen and she didn’t realize it. While he endured yet another chill
test, he talked to her again and she mentioned marriage. The only reason there
wasn’t a ring on her finger at that very moment was Siron’s intervention.

It was the final straw. Now was time to leave.

Eric dashed to the airship hangar and Kallen’s
Albatros
IX
. Not bothering with his newly re-learned politeness, he opened the door
mid-step. In the main area of the ship, Emily stood straight without her shirt
while Kallen healed a wound on her stomach. At the sound of Eric’s entrance,
she turned red and grabbed her shirt.

“Don’t grendel knock?!”

“Why are you covering up? According to my human memories,
I’ve already seen everything under there.”

“JERK!”

She gut-punched him and stomped into the cabin. Eric
stepped back from the force of the blow and was momentarily winded, yet his
instincts did not label her as a threat. This puzzled him. When he recovered,
he asked Kallen a silent question.

“She was coming back from assignment in the Tangogese
Swamp.” Kallen wiped up purple stuff from the spot were Emily stood. "There
was a gash from plolantic that was I curing.”

Eric shrugged. “Okay. Right now, I need your help with a
different sort of monster.”