Mana Mutation Menace (Journey to Chaos Book 3)

by Brian Wilkerson

  She released her arrow and it split into a dozen energy duplicates. The real one soared for the crystal woman while the others targeted her minions. Six of them found their targets and killed instantly while four more injured. The only ones to avoid the barrage entirely were the crystal woman and the knife wolves by using the bodies of others as shields. Then the solid arrow radiated sound that cracked many of the woman’s gems before she smashed it.

  By now, Annala had fired a second arrow, which created just as many duplicates, and now they only had three targets. The monsters dodged acrobatically, but the wolves were ultimately impaled by three each while the original found its mark in the crystal woman. Again, it produced the gem-shattering frequency and reduced her body to dust.

  “Don’t underestimate elf tech!”

  Her bow depowered and she knelt at Eric’s side, inspecting him for injuries. When she found nothing serious, she shook him and called to him. He woke up with a start and slashed her with the right hand of the grendel, eyes slitted and throat snarling. An instant later, his eyes rounded and he paled at what he’d done.

  Four gouges marred Annala’s lovely face and her blood ran freely to the ground. She clutched them and curled up. She sobbed at the tremendous pain; pain that he caused her. Without intending to, he’d hurt his most precious person.

  “Trickster…! I’m…I should leave…”

  “Eric... wait.”

  Eric was walking back to his bridge house. Over his shoulder, he said, “At least if I’m a reaper, I won’t kill anyone accidentally.”

  Annala stood up and, still clutching her face, she said, “Then you should close the gate before something else gets out.”

  Eric smacked himself and ran back to the gate. Several monsters were gathered on the other side but hesitated to approach something that easily killed a baker’s dozen of them. He put his badge against the gate and, while it closed, Annala pushed him through it. She stepped inside herself before the wards reactivated and sealed them both inside.

  “Annala, what are you...”

  The elf-girl faced him and he paused.

  “Doing...?”

  Her face was unmarred and unblemished. There was no trace of his savage attack anywhere. She chuckled at his confusion.

  “My Seed of Chaos fixed the damage. No matter what you do to me, I’ll recover from it immediately. There’s no need to fear.”

  “That’s the same thing Nunnal Enaz said to us.”

  The group of monsters was gathering. It was forming a circle. They were no longer cowed. They were enraged and provoked.

  “You look like her. You’re her spawn, aren’t you?”

  The circle was complete. A tight band of monsters pressed in on the couple from all sides.

  “As far as revenge goes, it will do!”

  Annala fired an arrow, but without time for coordinates or specialty, it was a simple multi-shot and little different from a mana barrage. It only killed a couple and injured a few more. She didn’t have time for another draw, but Eric took care of that.

  He blocked all of them by expanding his barrier to include himself and Annala. There were eight of them total, all fully grown and bashing it with all their strength. He grit his teeth against both their assault and his own instincts.

  I don’t need grendel strength. I have my magecraft and my Annala.

  Annala notched an arrow and another magic circle appeared beneath her feet.

  “Keep them back for thirty more seconds.”

  Threats. Eat them. Threats. Thrash them. Threats. Slaughter them.

  The barrier started to crack and the monsters increased their offensive.

  “I’m not ready!”

  Eat them! Eat them! Eat them! Eat them!

  The barrier shattered and Annala released the unfinished arrow into the air. It soared straight up while monsters attacked its shooter and her partner. As per its instructions, it directed a beam of specialized magical power toward six of the eight monsters. Then it went inert and fell to earth.

  Annala was slashed, bitten, and all around bloodied. One of the remaining two monsters was now pinning her to the ground so it could eat her internal organs. Eric was no better off but still on his feet and fighting. His opponent was so disfigured, Eric couldn’t determine its gender or species, only that it was humanoid. It struck him fast and hard, never enough time for a spell or a mana bolt. He didn’t even have time to pull out his staff. It continued tenderizing him and the chanting of Eat them! Eat them! Eat them! Eat them! Eat them! pounded in his mind.

  At last, it took over.

  Eric’s eyes slitted and he grabbed the Disfigured’s next punch. Lips separated into a grin, he crushed his opponent’s fist. While it recoiled in pain, he pressed his advantage by tearing the arm straight off and using it as his new staff. He slashed and struck and impaled just as he did under Basilard’s tutelage until he pushed the arm through the creature and used it as leverage to pile drive its head into the ground.

  Then he kicked the second monster off Annala and straight into the bars. Containment runes activated and charbroiled it. It fell to the ground as a well-done chunk of meat and Eric ripped open its torso with his fangs. Annala was forgotten in his hunger.

  Then, after several mouthfuls of meat, he dragged the corpse over to her and tried to push pieces into the hole in her stomach. It was filled with golden-brown light and so were other places on her body. The bleeding stopped and her wounds closed. Even her organs regenerated. She sat up and groaned, “Everything hurts.”

  “What is that golden stuff?”

  "As I was saying, it’s a Seed of Chaos. Elves call it 'The Great Mother's Love,' humans refer to it as 'the Elven Pool,' and Orcs as ‘the Seat of Madness.’ It's the source of our immortality, perpetual healing. While human cells die and divide countless times over the course of their life until their telomeres are exhausted, elves never grow older than the prime of their life. There is no beginning or end for us; only constant renewal. That is why the reapers dislike us and why the sowers recruit us. We are walking primordial life."

  By the time she finished explaining this, her healing factor had finished its work and Eric’s eyes returned to their human appearance.

  "What about the clothing?"

  Annala smiled sheepishly. "My mom made it for me. It’s self-mending clothing that is still sturdy enough to avoid tearing in the first place under all but severe circumstances."

  “You need such clothing?”

  She tugged her ear and looked away. "Let's just say I have something in common with Tiza and we bonded while you were missing."

  A lightning bolt of darkness struck the ground between the two and forced them apart. It was Samael, standing high and proud.

  “That is an understatement. Annala Enaz, you have a death wish.”

  She took a heroic stance and laughed. “That’s absurd. I am a mentally healthy and well-adjusted individual. My therapist said so when I started the school year.”

  “Yet you fight reapers, one of the only things that can kill an elf. You created that bow of yours despite knowing that it only inconveniences us. You have flirted with the boundary between life and death ever since your human uncle died and your elven aunt went insane.”

  “I’m working on it,” she said through gritted teeth. “Soon it will be able to attack your core in the astral plane and your kind will truly die if they cross me.”

  “You may start on the local reaper, Eric.”

  “What!?” the teens chorused.

  “Mr. Watley, you reverted to your monster instincts. You have lost our wager.”

  "WRONG!" Annala shouted. "He acted in my defense and that is something monsters are incapable of. Monsters seek only self-preservation. There are studies of monsters defending their young, but this is explained as the result of the instinct to send one's genes into the future and thus more a form of self-defense than true devotion like that of sapient parents. A monster would feast on the dead bodies, but he on
ly acted to prevent them from feasting on me. Thus, he is not a monster, but the noblest creature imagined by humans or elves: a lady's knight! As long as he acts in my defense, he cannot be considered a monster regardless of how he acts."

  Samael smiled her scarily serene smile. "If that is how you wish to argue, Annala Enaz, then you will not mind upping the wager."

  With the pointer finger of her left hand, she poked Annala's forehead and a starburst of white formed in her hair. Annala shivered and sagged as Death's power spread through her immortal body. Eric raised his staff, but she waved for him to lower it.

  "A knight protects his lady, but a dragon eats her. That is how your literature goes, does it not? Thus, if your knight becomes a dragon, then he will eat you. This is no idle threat. As the right hand of Death, I have power greater than any reaper. They can remove a soul from its vessel, but I can destroy an immortal vessel."

  She looked haughtily down her nose at the pair and flipped her hair.

  "Eric Watley, I will have my contract."

  When she disappeared, the only living creatures in the courtyard were the elf, the demon, and the maggots feasting on the long dead corpses. Everything else was rotting.

  “Thanks for defending me.”

  “No problem. She’s bluffing. She may be able to kill a spirit-bound immortal, but I am powered by Chaos itself. I exist outside of her authority.”

  She tugged her ear.

  “Did you….you know…lose control just now?”

  “No. I was fully aware of myself the entire time.” He walked to the front door. “A monster wouldn’t know staff combos, now would it?”

  “O-of course it wouldn’t.”

  The first room was a derelict reception area. There was a desk gouged by claws and debased with waste. Two chairs lay in pieces before it and shattered filing cabinets behind it. A rusted and dimmed metal sign proclaimed, “Appointments and Information here” above it. All around it hovered a thin Fog.

  Sitting in the seat behind the desk was an out-of-place girl. She had long and clean hair, clear skin, bright blue eyes, and an immaculate outfit. Most suspicious of all was a complete and total lack of visible mutations.

  "Welcome to the Butchin Medical Mana Mutation Center,” she chirped. “A human with elven mutations and a grendel with human mutations are well within our power to cure."

  "We're not here for a cure,” Eric said. “We're looking for someone."

  The receptionist appraised him with cheer and pep. “I know you want to look around and decide if it’s right for you. Lots of people have identity confusion after mutation. It’s not easy to accept that you’re not what you think you are.”

  “Shut up and tell us where Gruffle is!” Annala demanded.

  The smile fixed itself on Annala. “Don’t worry. Many of our clients wish to look like elves. They’re beautiful; both genders. Unfortunately, some people go overboard and forget that they are truly human. They start cutting themselves to prove they have a healing factor.”

  Annala fell back and tugged her ear. Eric grabbed the receptionist by her hair.

  “Tell us where Gruffle is or I’ll rip your head off!”

  Her face didn’t shift a micro-expression. “Aggression is our most frequent success story. We’ve saved twenty people from execution as a public menace. Unfortunately, this means less work for the Dragon’s Lair. They’d really like to kill a grendel.”

  Eric’s eyes slitted and he ripped her head off. Her neck fell to the desk and gushed blood.

  “Killing a grendel is a status symbol,” the head said. “The local monarch rewards you with gold and weapons.”

  “Eric!” Annala cried. “What have you done!?”

  “She’s not real!” He passed his left hand through the head and its image rippled. “It’s an illusion. Just like the fake you in the video.”

  The head and the body vanished and in its place was an image of Gruffle.

  “Well done, Grendel, but I suppose any monster could tell if its prey was real or not.”

  “Gruffle, I’ve kicked your ass thrice already. Don’t you remember lesson four?”

  Gruffle smirked. “Oh, I know lesson four better than you do. For the safety of the general public and your own good, you will be confined to our facility for the immediate future.”

  The doors swung shut and the windows shuttered. Wards activated on both sides to reinforce them, then the eldritch light of Order shielded them from Eric’s Magic Sight.

  “Please cooperate with your new handlers. Your wellbeing is their priority.”

  Semi-human creatures marched into the room. They all walked upright like a human, but beyond that, they shared no physical similarities. Regardless, they wore the same uniform. In their hands, or equivalent, they carried a noose on the end of a pole. It was the sort of thing dog catchers would use on strays. There were six of them in total. Two of them stood guard in front of a door marked “stairs” and the other four divided into pairs to apprehend their charges.

  Eric clapped his hands and withdrew his staff.

  It emerges from my hand. It strikes down my foe. Claw or a spear? Claw or a spear? Claw or a spear?

  The words stunned him long enough for both of the catchers after him to get their nooses around him. One at his elbows and the other at his neck. They activated a rune and an electric current ran down the length of the poles. His scream of pain mingled with a roar of fury.

  “Eric!”

  Annala, who had been fending off her own attackers, was momentarily distracted by his cry. In short order, she was restrained and electrocuted as well. Her bow and daggers were taken from her, but before they wedged Eric’s staff from his hand, it retreated into his soul. More restraints followed until both of them were utterly unable to resist.

  “The therapist will see you now.”

  Gruffle wiggled his fingers and his image vanished like a trickster’s.

  The repository was falling apart. Peeling and holey walls were supported by crumbling pillars. Debris lay across uneven and warped floors. As the guards dragged their captives up the stairs, they passed nests of feral avian. Their nests were made between intersecting beams that reinforced both. Like the monsters outside, they looked human with spare parts. The most monstrous thing about them was the savage look in their eyes; slitted like Eric’s.

  The room for the therapist was on the second floor. It was a small room with three sturdy chairs and a desk. There were cabinets too, but these were torn apart. Much of the room was crammed with similar waste and ruin, making the solid state of the chairs and desk all the more noticeable. The trussed-up Eric and Annala were placed in two of these chairs and secured with straps. An image of Gruffle appeared over the third.

  “Brother-killer and Static Elf, the doctor will —”

  “Sheriff, please cease with the derogatory nicknames.”

  A spider dropped from the ceiling and into the final chair. Red hair coated his body and blue eyes shone in large sockets. His four arms were tipped with spider, human, and lizard hands, and his four legs likewise. He wore a white lab-coat and dress pants and his lizard tail around his waist like a belt. He gestured for the guards to step aside, then he began the session.

  “Hello, Mr. Watley, Miss Enaz. I am Hr. Peter Conner and I will help you come to terms with your new identity. Rest assured that I will do everything I can to make you comfortable.”

  “We’re not here for therapy,” Eric said. “I have come to arrest Gruffle in order to win a bet with a reaper so she won’t turn me into one of them.”

  “I see...” Conner wrote this down with two hands while gesturing to Eric with a third. “How long ago did you make this ‘bet’?”

  “It was half an hour ago. She appeared in the courtyard a couple minutes ago.”

  “I see...” Conner put his pad away and stepped closer to Eric so he could place a hand on the boy’s shoulder. “The good news is, you’re not alone. Grendel are associated with death, so many of them believe t
hat reapers follow them around.”

  Annala rolled her eyes. “Eric, when you explain it like that, then he’s not going to believe you. I might not believe you if I hadn’t been there.”

  Without looking at her, Conner held up one finger. “Just a minute, Miss Enaz. I want Mr. Watley to know he has my full attention. Grendel do not like being snubbed.”

  “I’m not a grendel. I’m human.”

  Peter Conner retreated up his thread to the ceiling and crawled across the webs to an old record player secured in the corner. He turned it on and a scratchy and skipping version of an old song began to play. It annoyed the guards and made Annala wince, but Eric snarled.

  "Legend says and eye witness reports confirms that grendel dislike the sound of revelry. This song is played at celebrations from happy hour to birthdays and marriage. You have the strongest reaction against it because you are a grendel."

  "No, I'm human and I simply dislike that song."

  Conner dropped back to the floor and loomed over Eric. "Kallen Selios did not reverse your mutation. She simply rebooted your brain. You are a grendel that looks human."

  Eric grounded his teeth. "I'm not a nameless monster. I'm Eric Watley."

  "Eric Watley died on Mount Heios. You are a grendel that thinks he's Eric Watley."

  "You're wrong!"

  A horrified look crossed his slitted eyes.

  "According to our organization's intelligence, Ataidar magecraft can implant memories, correct? In one week, world leaders will meet to discuss medical use of Mana Mutation, correct? You are the first to regain sapient, correct?"

  "Stop! This isn't helping him!"

  Peter Conner turned to face her and made eye contact.

  "If you insist, Miss Enaz, we can turn to your case. Your hair is not as brilliant as a natural elf’s and your ears are not as pointed. You cannot shapeshift. A human could achieve this look with hair dye, simple plastic surgery, and a regeneration spell. You've obviously been traumatized by your experience as a daredevil and have concocted this elven identity as a defense mechanism."

  Annala’s response was both distressed and bored. "I've heard all that before. If you want to get under my skin, you'll need new material."