Mana Mutation Menace (Journey to Chaos Book 3) (13 page)

Butchin,
Enaz
and
Hasina
Medical Mana
Mutation Center

Prosthetics, Treatment, Transplants, and Cosmetic
Surgery

Licensed by the Royal House of Ataidar 1963

Eric crossed his arms. “That’s just petty.”

“If this is his home, then he likely sees it as accurate.”

Monsters lay dead and bleeding at the cage’s boundaries.
Their bodies were burned, electrocuted, or simply broken. Others sat and stared
at the bars. Only an odd tail or abnormal limb marked them as anything but
human and Eric knew this to be only superficial. He himself had, or could have,
a monstrous appearance, but he was still human on the inside. However, the
monster was also inside him, so it stood to reason that they would have
monsters too.

“Hello,” he said and waved.

One of them approached the bars and mimicked him. She was
a woman as tall as Basilard with long orange hair and skin with the consistency
of sandstone. While her clothing was worn and torn, the gems embedded all over
her body gleamed.

She smiled and asked, “Can you open the gate?”

“Yes, I can. Were you trapped in here?”

“Yes. Queen Kasile the VI thought it was more humane than
killing us. It is difficult for us to make a living here.” She sniffed and her
bright eyes welled with tears. “Please let us out.”

“Right away!”

He pulled out his Dragon’s Lair badge, but Annala grabbed
his hand.

“This is obviously a trap.”

“This is obviously
injustice
. They’ve been imprisoned
here for years, ever since Kasile’s mother sat on the throne. Just a month was
enough to make
me
stir crazy.”

“Exactly, and so they must work for Nulso. Gruffle chose
this spot for a reason. They’re going to attack us as soon as you release
them.”

“They’re victims of Nulso! He ruined their lives with his
‘treatment.’ That could be
me
in there. How long until it happens
again
?”

“Eric…Think about this…”

“You don’t think I have?!”

He pulled his wrist away and slammed his badge against the
gate. Its lock flashed and the many runes and spells warding the entrance
shined briefly as they deactivated. A crowd of monsters gathered behind the
gate with the crystal woman at its head. The gate opened before them and they
filed out in an orderly fashion.

“Thank you for freeing us. Now we can eat to our heart’s
content.”

“You’ll have to wait until the stores open in the
morning.”

“Why wait when there’s food here?”

All the gems on her body flashed and bombarded Eric with
the spells they unleashed. Caught off-guard, he took the full force of all of
them. Only Annala’s spell shield, Mana Guard, prevented instant death, and even
then, he was stunned. Two wolf-like monsters came from the crystal woman’s left
and right and extended foot-long claws from each of their four arms with which
to cut him up.

“Targets acquired,” Annala muttered.

A complex magic circle with many subcircles rotated
beneath her feet. In her eyes, she saw a bullseye’s eye over every monster
outside the facility.

“Fire!”

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 only 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."