“Well?” Kallen asked. Her voice was stronger now and more even. Her tears were gone as well, but Eric could sense a fragility.
“I thought about it and consulted with the Four Basic Avatars,” Eric said. “I’m interested, BUT I have questions and things I want to work out first.”
Kallen jumped up, smiling and eyes shining. “Really?! What?”
“First question: Will I explode like the others?”
“Tasio is doing his best to prepare us so that we never ever explode or mutate.”
“So that’s a ‘maybe’?”
Kallen attempted a nonchalant shrug. It was scarily close to a sob. “We all die someday, right? This has a chance of granting true immortality. Tasio has had thousands of years to work out the kinks: becoming gods, the proper ritual, merging and—”
“Excuse me, did you say ‘merge’?”
“It’s not as bad as you think!” Kallen said quickly, holding up her hands as if to calm a frightened animal. She noticed this and dropped her hands. She took a breath and started again.
“It’s not like the two of us will be replaced by a third person. It’s more like we’ll be spiritually conjoined twins; two souls sharing a chaotic body. Since we’re soulmates, we have a high chance of making it work. Once we’re the Chaos Avatar, we could make a second body and shift between them. Or we could continue like before without a change, except, of course, the omnipotence.”
“In that case, will I stay the way I am or will your personality bleed into me?”
Kallen stepped closer. “We’ll stay separate individuals at the fundamental level. That’s the point. A union that is at the same time separate is part of the Theory of Chaos.”
Eric shifted on his feet. He didn’t step back or forward. “What about Annala?”
Kallen waved her hands and created ten illusions of the Ten Elemental Avatars. Each image contained two figures; the avatar itself and its familiar. Eric recognized Fiol and her crowned tiger, as well as Eaol and his mountain mole, and Wiol and her chimera. The others he knew of from reading but hadn’t met in person.
“Annala is going to be our ‘familiar,’ so to speak. She will carry part of the load and help us ease into the ascension. You can think of it as the third leg of a stool.”
Eric’s image was a triangle instead. From his standpoint, it wasn’t stable.
“If we’re going to be working together forever, I want to know how this three-way relationship is going to work.”
Kallen answered easily. To Eric’s ear, it was the ease that came from hours spent in front of a mirror. “She will be your princess; that is, the one you marry and make babies with. I will be your partner, sort of like how Malize and Laharg are partners. Her relationship to each of us is essential: my little sister and your girlfriend. She cares about us both.”
“Tasio, did you plan for her to become a priestess?” Eric asked.
“Sai” was still braiding Kallen’s hair as she replied, “Did I plan the series of events? No. Did I plan the outcome? Yes. It’s simple, really. You are marked for death by Order. Annala hates Order abstractly and protecting her big sister and boyfriend gives her something concrete. Only Chaos can fight Order and voila! Priestess in training and aide for the Chaos Avatar Ritual created.”
“She could be anywhere in Noitearc right now,” Eric said.
“Funny thing about Noitearc,” Sai said, “time doesn’t exist outside of its world fruit. When you two are ready, I will find her and bring her back. From your perspective, only seconds will pass.” Sai draped the finished braid elegantly over Kallen’s shoulder. “There! Doesn’t she look pretty?”
Kallen blushed and waited.
“Yes, Kallen,” Eric said. “You look very pretty.”
Kallen blushed brighter and Sai gave her a thumbs-up.
Eric paused to think of any more concerns or roadblocks. Finding none, he stepped forward and said, “I’m in. Let’s become the Chaos Avatar. What do we need?”
Kallen squealed and hugged him. The sudden and intense happiness flooding Eric’s mind made him swoon. Kallen braced him and then sat him down in one of the theater’s seats. He came to in a moment after she let go.
“Sorry! I’ve been waiting for you to say that for years and to think that it’s finally happening and not in a dream, and...it’s not a dream, is it?” Sai yanked her braid while simultaneously giving her a wet willy. “Fantastic! Not a dream! Now, as I was saying, it’s not hyperbole to say that I’ve never been happier than I am right now and, since we’re soulmates, you’ll feel that in a big way if I—”
Eric put two fingers on her lips. The sudden influx of happiness returned, but he regulated it better this time. His eyes didn’t shake or flutter and this increased the level of elation threatening to overwhelm him.
“What do we need?”
He removed his fingers and Kallen said, “The first thing we need to do is apotheosis into proper gods. With our respective enlightenment, all we need is a catalyst. I was hoping you could swing some Sacred Fire from that royal friend of yours. It will be much safer than a chaos seed.”
“I’m still sitting on a royal favor from when I helped defeat Duke Selen Esrah.”
Kallen squealed and glomped him again. Eric ended up on his back with Kallen tightly squeezing him and nuzzling him. She was so happy, she reverted to her chimera form. Eric followed suit and allowed her intense happiness to send him into a blissful trance. The neighing of a horse broke it.
A unicorn burst through the theater’s doors, galloped down the aisle, and then jumped onto the stage. It became human mid-spin, so that by the time it was facing Eric and Kallen, it was a human boy with a horn in his forehead.
“Eric! Miss Selios! Thank Wiol I found you at last. I have great need of your help!”
The two demons jumped up and drew their spears. “What’s the problem?”
“How do I control my monster side?!”
Eric and Kallen blinked. They shared a look. Then, as one, they put their spears away and jumped up on stage.
“Let me guess,” Eric said. “You were shouting at each other and then one of you gave the other a shut-up kiss. Now you feel too awkward to be in the same room.”
Nolien looked away in shame. “It was me.”
“Really?! Mr. Gentleman?” Kallen punched his shoulder. “I didn’t think you had it in—”
“You don’t understand! It...it was...not me. I pushed her against a wall and held her against it. I transformed halfway...All I could think about was...” Nolien swallowed “... replicating.” He shivered. “If she hadn’t been wearing that armor...I...I might have...”
Eric sat him down and placed an arm around his shoulders. Nolien recoiled and Eric transformed his arm into that of a grendel. This put him more at ease. Either that, or some instinct told him to hold still.
“I went through that too. Why, I jumped Kallen several times walking to the Winter Blaze festival. This was because I was attracted to her, and she’s my soulmate.”
“Really?”
“Really, really.”
Nolien turned to Kallen, who was sitting on his other side. “You’re still talking to him?”
“The silent treatment would have been cruel,” she replied. “He was hard enough on himself.” She patted his back. “He was like you are right now.”
“What I did, and what I tried to do, is unforgivable! I should quit the Dragon’s Lair and become a hermit in the desert.”
Wiol’s vision flashed in Eric’s memory. There were several possible futures where Nolien went truly feral and provoked a tragedy. Killing his family, raping Tiza, creating a plague resistant to healing magic; all these things could be prevented by self-exile. He said nothing.
“I thought it was odd that you were adapting so quickly,” Kallen said. “Looks like I was right. Both of those actions are extreme. Eric, tell him what I told you after you assaulted me.”
“The mutation did not create the desire,” Eric said w
ithout shame. “It only removed my inhibitions about expressing it. Were you attracted to Tiza before your mutation?”
“Yes, but I knew she hated nobles and their society, so I was content with silence.”
“Good, then your non-existent monster side isn’t making you do something you yourself wouldn’t do,” Kallen said. “You are still in control of your actions. You don’t have to worry about controlling a ‘monster side’ because there is no monster side.”
Nolien scowled. His eyes turned red. “Is that supposed to make me feel better?!” He rushed to cover his mouth and sighed in relief when he saw fingers instead of hooves.
Eric tapped his forehead. “Aren’t you glad that there’s no monster in here? There’s just you, the noble and chivalric healer. Your inner teenager got a hormonal boost, that’s all.”
“Maybe that’s why unicorns only appear before virgins...” Kallen said.
Nolien paled. Eric glared at her grin.
“If you only have trickster things to say, then don’t say anything at all. Hey, Nolien, didn’t you say that your left hand only wanders when Tiza is in reach?”
Nolien nodded. “Yes, but I’ve learned to manage it.”
“Then the solution is clear,” Kallen said.
“What is it?!”
As one, The Trickster’s Chosen said, “Romance her into becoming Lady Heleti.”
“I can’t do that!”
“Why not?” Kallen asked.
“She’s scared,” Nolien explained. “She thinks she’ll lose herself to another personality if she did that. Given what Mareth Jacquins did to her, it’s a reasonable fear. I didn’t understand at first, but I do now. I can’t ask her to do that for my sake.”
“It’s either romance,” Eric said, “or cutting your penis off.”
“Can’t I just go back to private daydreams? I don’t want to hurt her.”
“You’ll keep having outbursts until you do something about them,” Kallen said. “Trust me. It happened to me, it happened to Eric, it’s happening to you, and it will happen to future victims of monsanity. You have to embrace the change or you will be controlled by it.”
“You want her, she wants you,” Eric said, “so all you have to do is assure her that she won’t turn into an upper-class twit as soon as you put a ring on her finger.”
“You make it sound so easy...”
“Well,” Kallen said, “there is one other thing you could do...”
“What? Ask The Trickster? I hope it doesn’t come to that...The Goeyu Hunt! One of many annual hunts organized, hosted, and led by the Heleti family... A kill count competition, followed by a bonfire: eating, drinking, bragging. No manners or fancy dress required!”
Eric patted him on the back. “There you go.”
“...shift social duties onto my sister...” Nolien thought out loud. “At least temporarily...no way she’ll be unattached long...best-friend-in-law...guild instead of hospital...” He stood up and strolled away. “Lady Tiza the mercenary...surely I have at least one ancestor...”
“Well, how do you like that?!” Kallen exclaimed. “We’re already doing the work of the Chaos Avatar!”
“We’re not done yet,” Eric said. “Now we have to find Tiza and do the same for her.”
Inside the Guardian Lodge, Nilo pointed them to the gym. They acknowledged her with a nod. They heard Tiza’s battle cries from the hallway.
She was sparring with the village guardians and doing well, considering that her opponent wasn’t shapeshifting. She was still wearing the armor from Gunrai. Its runes were active and glowing. About a minute after The Trickster’s Chosen arrived, Tiza yielded. She thanked her opponent and then pointed at the new arrivals.
“I’m not talking to Tenderfoot! I don’t care what message he told you to send me. That jerk kissed me without asking and then ran off like a coward.”
“He feels awful,” Eric said. “He begged us for help in controlling his ‘monster side.’”
“GAAH! That...AAH!” Tiza stomped around the mat. “He’s not just a jerk, he’s a wimp! Can’t admit that he...How did I let someone like that...!”
“We told him there was no ‘monster side,’” Kallen said. “This led to him admitting that he’s wanted to kiss you for a while now.”
This statement reversed her anger. The red of her puffed-up cheeks now had a different origin. “Well...That’s too bad...He blew his chance.”
“He agrees with you,” Eric said. “That’s why he said he’s going to quit the Dragon’s Lair and become a desert hermit.”
Now Tiza was in a state of panic. Her worry and concern could have been seen even if her visor was down. “He can’t do that! There’s no way he can take care of himself in a desert!”
“Isn’t what he’s done unforgivable?” Kallen asked.
“No! Of course not. I...” She wrung her hands together. “I was just going to let him sweat it out a little. Make him squirm. He’s such a relic with those gentlemanly habits and chivalric stupidity that a cold shoulder would be worse than anything else...”
“He’s making plans for his future,” Eric said. “It was something about ‘shifting social duties to his sister.’”
“I gotta stop him! Where is he?”
“Around Remho’s temple theater.”
Tiza ran out the door before the final word left his mouth. The two chaos knights faced each other and did a double high five. The guardians applauded.
“The Trickster chose well,” one of them said.
“We’re not done yet,” they chorused.
Outside the actor trickster’s theater, their happy couple was caught in the throes of romantic awkwardness. Nolien kept his hands tightly clasped behind his back. Tiza fiddled with her gauntlets. Neither looked at the other.
“Did we miss the mutual love confession?” Kallen asked.
Both of them jumped in surprise and shook their heads.
“I’ll take that as a ‘no.’ So what’s the problem?” She put an arm around Tiza. It was a lot like Eric saw her doing with Emily. “Don’t you like him?”
“No. I don’t. He’s just...”
“A stupid and squishy healer that you have to take care of because it’s your job, I get it. This tsundere act would be a lot cuter if you weren’t being controlled.”
Tiza threw her arm off. “I am not being controlled! I escaped her years ago!”
“Escaped who?” Kallen asked.
Tiza looked lost. “I...I don’t know...someone...She did something to me...made me act a certain way...”
“Mareth Jacquins, the botanist; yes, I know all about that,” Kallen said.
“You do?!” the not-quite-a-couple asked.
“Oh yeah. She was a minion for my mom at Siduban and invented a serum made from the Green Dust plant. It’s traditionally used for vision quests, like Annala’s, but she used it for brainwashing.”
“Order instead of chaos,” Eric summarized.
“Yep,” Kallen said. “Tiza, what you need to understand is that what she does is a lot like mana mutation. She scrambles the victim’s identity in order to put it back together the way she wants. That’s what she was working on at Siduban; treatment for monsanity.”
“Kallen’s fellows at the ICDMM theorized this is why you recovered so quickly that one time you got monsanity in Ceiha,” Eric said. “You had experienced something similar in the past and so your mind subconsciously knew how to put itself back together.”
“That’s all so fascinating, PROFESSOR, but what does it matter? It happened, I got away, and now it’s over.”
“That’s just the thing,” Kallen said. “It’s not over. You’ve been acting the opposite of the way Marth Jacquins wanted you to. You don’t belch as loud as you can because you like belching but because it is a counter against her conditioning. You went to the other end of the room because she drove you there.”
Tiza stepped backward and her visor fell forward. “That’s...that’s not...”
&
nbsp; “Denying ‘tent’ behavior is not freedom,” Eric continued. “It boxes you in. You refuse a future that could make you happy because of your fear. She controls you even now.”
Tiza stared silently at a tree.
“How could you?!” Nolien demanded. “We didn’t tell her for this very reason!”
“True,” Eric said, “and I believe that she is now ready to handle it.”
“What gives you the right to make that decision?”
Eric sniggered. “I’m the Trickster’s Choice; since when do I need a right to do anything?”
Nolien sighed. “Here it goes...Okay, what makes you think she can handle it?”
“The fact that she came here in formal dress, the fact that your girly bruiser sister is her new best friend, and the fact that she thinks you need her to take care of you.”
Tiza lifted her arm and punched Nolien in the cheek. He dropped like a stone.
Eric lifted an eyebrow. “Okay, Tiza, you need to stop with the tsun—”
He dodged a knife hand strike and then blocked a side kick. The first was a close call and the second made his hand sting. He transformed into a grendel and continued blocking her strikes. Even with his metal skin and thick muscle mass, he felt each blow.
“It’s not me! The armor’s moving on its own!”
The air around her shimmered and the next instant saw her encased in ice from the neck down. Kallen’s crystal glowed with the light of Ice avatarcraft. Her eyes were even colder.
“Gunrai’s products don’t malfunction,” she said. “He’s doing this on purpose!”
Hatches opened on Tiza’s helmet and four lasers emerged from it. They opened fire on Eric with mana beams. He sidestepped. They fired again and tracked him as he dodged around Tiza.
Kallen grabbed the lasers and they shocked her. Gritting her teeth, she transformed into a chimera and ripped them out. She threw the lasers to the ground and stomped on them. Then she covered her eyes as the armor burst into white flame.
The divine ice was melted by the divine fire. Now free, the armor kicked Kallen in the gut. She grabbed the foot to diminish its force and then used it as a lever to smash the armor into the ground.
Transcending Limitations Page 27
