LIGHTNOVELONLINE 222 – Twin Return Pt. 1
Deep underground, a chitinous pod cracked open, segments of its shell rising in a motion akin to the opening of a spider’s fangs. From its fleshy interior, a flood of oily fluid spewed forth, draining away through the grated floor. A gangly figure lurched forward, hanging by numerous umbilicals as a puppet would from its strings.
After hanging limply for a few seconds, the shape twitched to life, arching its back as the lower half of its face unfurled in a manner much like the pod. Its lamprey-like tongue whipped back and forth, a gurgling hiss rising from its throat. One by one, each umbilicus was torn free, retracted back into the pod. The moment its occupant was free of its confines, the fleshy machine closed shut.
Coughing and retching, the evoy reached for a nearby grafting table, dragging himself to his feet. Slowly, his coughing turned into laughter. His mind swarmed with an influx of new memories — half his own, and half tinged by the thoughts of another, by the thoughts of a feeble man who had once come to him, offering up his life for the chance at strength — Cabral.
The gangly evoy shuddered in place, stumbling to one corner of the room, where several showerheads protruded from the stoneand a mirror hung from the wall. With the turn of a handle, scalding water poured out and washed the oily ichor off of his body, exposing his bone-white, smooth chitin. Malformed, devoid of any protuberances, untouched by Vedesis. An abomination whose existence and method of birth insulted both the Vedesian Swarm and the Twin Churches.
The White Evoy glared into his reflection. At rest, the shape of his face almost resembled that of a human — almost. Even his eyes were more like those of men than of evoy, only with black sclera and white irises, and possessing the protective shell of translucent chitin that evoy eyes did. As he was now, he felt even less at home in his own body than normally, his spirit yet to fully settle back into his original flesh.
Once he was done, he made his way through the subterranean complex, passing by vast arrays of grafting equipment, tubs and tubes filled with nascent flesh that ranged from small nubs to entire organs to limbs, eventually reaching a chamber separate from the rest of the complex, one that resembled a living space the most. Instead of being carved into bare stone and reinforced as a mine would be, it was more like a small apartment, only far underground.
He collapsed into a padded chair that waited at the entrance. The bulkhead door slid into place behind him without making a sound. With the turn of a key, the chair rose up astride six insectile legs, and with the push of a control stick it walked over to the workbench at the other side of the room, its small engine churning and thaumine tank bubbling. The chair was not an item of necessity — Cabral had left it here, and the White Evoy found it too convenient to dispose of. His eyes idly wandered over the many tools, bits, and pieces scattered across his workbench, but he eventually gave up and just sat back in his seat, tilting it back by adjusting the posture of its legs.
For some time, he sifted through his thoughts and new memories in this manner, staring absently into the ceiling.
Eventually his thoughts began to wander, as did his eyes, falling upon a set of chitin plates which he had modified for the eventuality of interacting with Vedesians in his true form. They bore exaggerated ridges and hooked spikes. Moreover, they were adorned with Vedesian icons, wrought from melted-down Igarian idols and seared into the chitin. These Vedesian icons, however, bore the mark of his resentment, emblazoned with scripture that spited the goddess on the sides embedded into chitin, out of sight. The inner sides of these modified plates were similarly emblazoned, blending rebukes against Vedesis with protective warding to reinforce them. In this manner, he would be inured from her influence when he wore them. Had he been able, he would have grafted himself to alter his appearance long ago. While his tolerance for inorganic grafts was near-zero, he had the opposite issue with organic graft-stock. His body aggressively assimilated all organic grafts, reshaping grafted flesh to fit his natural form. The same issue arose with organic, evoy-specific adaptations of the Mamon Coupler paradigm — the transformations all came out as slightly larger versions of himself, with any unique traits he tried to introduce having minimal physical presence.
Only that which Aristedes had referred to as “Abara Morph Tsetse” could be considered a success, the last attempt at the end of a three-decade-long struggle. The fact he had to use another’s body and soul as a catalyst didn’t bother him in the slightest, the only problem was the difficulty of sourcing good material.
Finally, his many disparate streams of thought gathered into one flow, and he sprung into action, feverishly reaching for tools and wet storage capsules as he began working once more.
“Aristedes… Oh, Aristedes, when next we meet, I shall have such sights to show you,” he muttered.
Reality flooded back in all at once. Krahe snapped upright, glancing left and right, at once searching for threats and grabbing for her gun. Reassuringly, the gun was right there, in her hand. For a moment, she felt fine, but only for a moment. Her most recent memory was dragging Casus down the mansion steps and coming face-to-face with that unsettling, owl-like woman.
To start with, she was back in the safehouse. Moreover, she felt fine, as if she had slept off everything from the raid. That wasn’t entirely impossible, if she fully bought into the Molting Tonic’s regenerative capabilities.
But… As she looked around, she quickly noticed small hints as to what was really going on.
To start with, she checked inside the cabinet, taking out a book at random. She had seen Casus reading it before, but hadn’t done so herself, and when she opened it, inside she found the contents of a particularly amusing conspiracy blog she had read once. After checking the safehouse to ensure nobody was here, she made her way down to the street. The city was unnervingly quiet, even taking into consideration the safehouse’s location at its very edge.
Then, she took a left turn into an alleyway she hadn’t gone down before, and Audunpoint fell away. Krahe found herself right back in the cramped corridors of Sector 9. She was flanked to either side by rows of tiny shops, all free space taken up by ads that ranged from LED screens to posters to holograms, selling anything and everything. Even still, nobody was here. Oh, there were shopkeepers and customers, but none of them were real, none of them moved or acted like people. Everything felt ephemeral, like nothing existed unless she paid attention to it.
