Mana Mutation Menace (Journey to Chaos Book 3) (4 page)

“The color of chaos is superior to the color of order,” he
muttered. “By that, I mean gold and silver. The highest organization is
reflected here. You know, I bet if I memorized what all these are, their names
and countries, Talbot would find it harder to consider me a monster.”

Kallen beamed. “What you just said would make it harder
for him to do that.”

She spread the coins out and pointed to them, naming them
in turn. Eric repeated them after her. After several cycles of this, Kallen
scrambled them up and asked Eric to name them. He did, and on the first try.

“As I understand it, money can be used to obtain many
things but, strictly speaking, it is only physical things. Something that one
can hold in one’s hand; not love, for instance.”

“Yes, that’s true.”

“Is there a law against paying someone to allow me to eat
them? For instance, they give the money to their family in a will or we make a
contract stating that I give it to a charity of their choice. Is something like
that feasible in Ataidar?” 

“As a matter of fact, it is. You’re not the first grendel
to live in this country.”

“I’m not a grendel. I’ve said that several times now;
three times, in fact.”

A sigh born of frustration escaped Kallen’s throat.

“We’ll build up to that. For now, let’s continue bringing
your memories up to speed and reintroducing you to sapient society. It seems
like the best way to approach that is watching more Dragon’s Lair footage.”

Eric nodded. “Yes, I’d like that. Thanks for helping me.”

Kallen beamed. “You’re welcome.”

She pushed play and they watched more footage of the
Dragon’s Lair and its mercenaries. Most of it was Latrot’s War of Starvation
since it was part of the public record. This included rare footage of Lunas
Latrot in the lair itself begging for help. Kallen took great pride in possessing
this one. There were also stories unrelated to the war such as Hasina doing
contractor work for the ICDMM. Eric shivered at these scenes. It was a
contradictory feeling of both family and threat. Then he yawned.

The next several days consisted of more tests and more observations.
The scientists spent hours poking and prodding Eric for data. It was the same
set every day to prove consistency and the lack of relapse. It was upsetting,
to say the least. Other tests were about his memory to prove that he could
build new memories and wasn’t simply acting out old ones. Soon Eric was
mouthing along with the proctors just to prove a point.

Sometimes, Kallen took him for a tour of the facility. She
showed him the locations of interest and explained their purpose. He talked
with her about them with the cameras overhead catching every moment.

The pair of demons walked by the monster containment wing
and Kallen talked about the people inside it. She recited their names, their
background, how they mutated, and other aspects of their identities. Then she
asked him what he thought of them as a grendel; not human but grendel. Before
Eric could protest, she insisted.

“It’s for posterity. We want to map a survivor’s thought
processes to better treat those that come after you.”

Eric relented. He responded that he thought of the
monsters in the cages as “threats and food.” They walked about the laboratory
and security guard lounge and Kallen said much the same thing as before. Eric
responded the same way: “threats and food.” Next, they stopped by the armory
and Kallen explained the kind of weapons that were used by the guards here;
state-of-the-art equipment guaranteed to bring down B+ class monsters. Eric
responded with “obstacles and food…maybe.” 

“‘Maybe’?”

“I feel confident that they won’t work on me. According to
you, I gave Basilard a hard time and he’s one of the most powerful people I
know. Also, they might be tasty, but I won’t know that for sure unless I put
them in my mouth.”

Suddenly, Kallen stopped. Holding her arms behind her
back, she spun to face Eric. Tilting her head coyly, she leaned forward towards
Eric. Finally, she asked him, “What do you think of me?”

“That’s easy. You’re….uh….um….On second thought, it’s not
easy.”

Kallen leaned back. “Why not?”

“You’re not family or food or an obstacle, and definitely
not a threat or neutral. ‘Friend’ is close but doesn’t feel close
enough
.
What else is there? I’m inclined to say you’re ‘me,’ but that doesn’t make any
sense.”

Kallen bit her cheek to keep her expression straight.
Ideally, he would come to the right conclusion on his own. Telling him
outright, in the state he was in, was likely to confuse him or drive him away.
As much as she wanted to be honest and forthright, she couldn’t say it.

“Hey, maybe it’s because you’re a Modern Demon too, so I
feel some kind of kinship.”

He proceeded to ask a series of questions like the general
picture of demon life and how to coexist with humans peacefully. He still
insisted that he was human and not a grendel but felt it was best to be fully
informed about what his life was going to be like after he was released. Kallen
hid her disappointment and answered his questions as best as she could.

“I’m sorry if this isn’t helpful. The problem is that
we’re both anomalies, so society doesn’t know what to do with us.”

“My guild already has a reputation for strangeness and
violence. I don’t think I’ll get any more than a second glance. Is Lunas Latrot
a threat?”

Kallen blinked and looked fearfully over her shoulder. The
last thing she needed was Talbot or his goonies thinking that her friend was
plotting regicide.

 “That was random. Why are you asking about him?”

“I’ve been thinking about those videos we watched and how
you said he was a ‘vicious imp.’ I also remembered my little sister talking
about suitors. I want to make sure he is suitable as a suitor before anything
happens. Based on that radio, he is a
dominant
predator.”

Kallen blinked again. This was getting worse by the
second.

 “Her Majesty is your little sister?”

“She is a girl younger than myself who is important to me
and whom I protect from threats and support emotionally. Tiza is also my little
sister and Nolien my little brother.”

“That’s something you should
not
say in public.
It’s okay for Nolien and Tiza because, as you said, everyone thinks your guild
is a nuthouse. They’ll tolerate eccentrics. But if you claim that the reigning
queen is your sister, given your relationship with her, it will cause
problems.”

“If you insist. Now, if
Her Majesty
were to legally
hire me to carry out lawful royal justice following due process in response to
some capital crime Lunas committed and was convicted of in a fair trial, how do
I best go about killing him?”

For a moment, Kallen didn’t say a word and Eric feared he
missed some trivial part of this human thing called “tact.” He was sure he hit
all the points of legitimation and avoided monster terminology like “eat” and
“threat,” even though that was what he was thinking. Lunas Latrot was as
infamous for his control magic as he was for his silver tongue, and Eric wanted
to be ready for him, but he had to play this silly human game. Kallen’s eyes
sparkled.

“That was fascinating!” she exclaimed. “To take a grendel
thought and couch it in sapient legal terms that are personally appropriate can
be nothing but sapience.” To one of the cameras, she said, “Talbot, did you see
that? That’s quite a thought process!”

“Well?”

 Kallen had plenty of advice. It was obvious that she did
a lot of research about Prince Lunas of Latrot and knew many things about him.
In the ear of someone else, it would sound like a crush obsession, but to Eric,
it was reasonable observation of the enemy. All this knowledge was put to use
in various plans to kill him. It was just as obvious that she thought about his
death all the time. Some of the plans were needlessly gruesome, and during one
plan in particular, her eyes shifted into triangles and her nails became claws.

“He thinks himself a hero and would love to slay a dragon
for the sake of a princess. He’d love it even more if that dragon were her
knight and he could twist its death to endear himself to her and trap her in
his own lair.”

“Kallen, I’m feeling better by the second, but I haven’t
recovered that much.”

“Okay, then. Lunas wants to isolate Kasile by estranging
her from her allies, making them into threats, and then killing them to make
himself seem like her only ally so he can exploit her.”

Eric’s eyes slitted.

“If he
does that to my little sister, then
he
will be the one slew.”

Kallen pointed at the nearest camera and declared, “You
would do the same!”

Everyone in the control room was native to Ataidar and
most of them nodded in understanding or agreement. Talbot, himself from Roalt,
shrugged.

All of this was yet another memory test to prove that he
was sapient and capable of remembering the layout of the facility. Eric
compared it to teaching a rat to navigate a maze, with cheese as a reward. Nonetheless,
he learned it until he could give the tour himself.

“One might say he’s
more
intelligent now than
before,” Tasio remarked after a week had passed. “He never learned to navigate
his guild this well.”

“Go away, you pest!”

Tasio blew Eric a kiss and vanished.

Then there were stretches of time that were just for fun.
As Kallen explained it, monsters didn’t have the capacity for fun. The only
pleasures they knew were eating and mating, and those were driven by the
instinct to survive and propagate, rather than pleasure for its own sake. In
this way, Kallen acquired game room privileges for Eric. Most of the time, they
played alone and Eric preferred it that way. More than the games themselves, he
was coming to enjoy Kallen’s company. He didn’t want to share her with anyone,
and especially not those humans that made her a lab-rat. Then one day, they
entered the room to find Tasio playing ping-pong with himself.

“Congratulations on your victory.”

Eric slugged him in the jaw. Tasio spun in place over the
floor, and even when he stopped his body, his head continued spinning on a
pivot on his neck. He finally stopped completely by grabbing his head with both
hands.

“Tsk. Tsk. Unprovoked aggression,” The Trickster said with
a finger waggle.

“There’s nothing ‘unprovoked’ about it in regards to you.
That is the third time I’ve punched you and the second time deliberately.”

“Now, Eric...”

“You let me
mana mutate
. You watched it happen. A
punch is the least you deserve.”

Tasio snapped his fingers and, once again, he was wearing
a red and black pocketless uniform.

“So if I can’t handle a bloody nose, I should crawl under
my bed?”

Eric grabbed one of the ping-pong paddles and threw it at
Tasio. It passed through his body and clattered to the floor.

“Don’t start that again! I appreciate you twisting
Talbot’s arm into not locking me up, but it’s your fault I’m here in the first
place.”

Tasio snapped his fingers again to dismiss his cosplay and
return to his standard Shakespearian outfit. Then he picked up his ball and
restarted his game. This time, he played against the wall. With the utmost casualness,
he said, “You didn’t need my help. You killed the dragon, saved the damsel in
distress, and here you are, safe and sane.”

“Sane?! I’m not a trickster, you abyss-cursed nutcase!
I’ve attacked people. I’m still thinking about eating them. My memories tell me
one thing and my senses tell me another. It’s like I’m looking through a
funhouse mirror. I’m just now starting to make sense of it all.”

“I thought you said you hadn’t changed.”

“I’m possessed by a grendel. That’s all.”

“That’s patently ridiculous. For proof of it, you should
ask Kallen. She will show you the truth.”

Winking at Kallen, he disappeared. She ran out of the
room.

Nine days after he woke up in his cell, Percy called Eric
to a meeting room. Also present were Kallen, Talbot, guards without nametags,
and scientists that forgot their ID badges. Percy invited Eric to sit down and
announced the results of the genetic tests.

According to them, Eric was a normal human. By blood,
x-ray, and hair sample, there was nothing about him that was any different from
any other human male his age. Not even his otherworlder status could be found.
Indeed, there was a greater biological difference between post mana mutation
Eric Watley and the one that arrived on Tariatla during the previous spring,
than between the post mana mutation Eric Watley and other Tariatlan humans. The
tests had been repeated three times over and the results came back the same
every time.

“See? I’m not a grendel. I just have some lingering
monsterness lurking in my mind. I can control it. For example...”

Eric brought out a listening crystal and played a
recording of Quikis Limberpug. It was three minutes of sexism and hatred about
Kasile. Through it all, Eric’s expression was as stoic as Percy’s.

When the record finished, Talbot asked, “Where did you get
that?”

“Kallen gave it to me. I find it to be disgusting and
offensive, but I’m not going to kill the guy over it because that’s not
something a law-abiding citizen does.”

Talbot glanced at Kallen, who stared back. He glanced at
Percy, who gave no sign of anything. Finally, he spoke again,

“Yes, it is clear that you are
not
a grendel...”

Eric stood up. “Thank you! Can I leave now?”

“…at this moment,” Percy finished.

Eric plopped back into his seat. “What do you mean ‘at
this moment’? You can’t keep me locked up because you’re afraid that, at some
point in my life, I might re-develop monsanity.”