The Chameleon Loop

The Sequoia national park disaster gained widespread attention to the Hunter Corps inadequacies. One E gate being misranked could be forgiven, but two E gates in a row –one an S rank and the other a C+ rank– was a blunder so criminal that two special committees were formed. Congressmen and Senators formed their own committees and launched independent investigations into the Sequoia National Park hunting camps. Attention that brought thousands of soldiers to Nox’s tent, a curse disguised as a blessing.

Firstly the blessing prevented Dr. Hooker from berating Nox, though he completed his rounds of testing, confirming that Nox was now an officially E ranked blood hunter with dramatically enhanced sensory capabilities and a minor healing talent. With his most impressive feat being reading every line of the Snellen eye chart, placing his vision well beyond 20/10.

Ashley was taken to a medical wing and quarantined. With all visitors prohibited, a fate that befell all hunters. Though they were ordered to remain within their TEMPER units and could request an escort to the weightlifting room or ‘track’. Which was little more than an informal dirt path that had been beaten into the dirt by dozens of hunters and soldiers running thousands of laps.

With the quarantine locking down all TEMPER units, and their lack of internet access, Nox’s cabin fever was quickly escalating. Though he had one distraction in Mary-sue. Since she was officially assigned to a separate –higher ranked– camp, and was only on loan to the Sequoia National Park camp, Mary-sue was allowed to select her accommodations. And moved into the Hawke’s TEMPER. A simple concession meant to appease her commanding officers. Elizabeth Hawke was ecstatic to have an old friend join her, but Nox felt as though his horny aunt had overstayed her welcome. Armed rangers with black balaclavas were posted outside their TEMPER unit, with a portable awning deployed just so the various politicians could stand in the shade.

Each of the officials had two questions for Nox, what went wrong with the gate assessments? And how did a therapy hunter like him survive an S ranked dungeon? He answered them on autopilot, too distracted with the diverse stenches hidden within their pockets and his hatred of all politicos.

After all, these were the elected jury who had stripped him of rights. They were responsible for Elizabeth’s cancer, and his father’s death. Yet they came here and asked him with wolfish smiles, “How can we prevent casualties?” or “What can we do better?” and the most loathsome of all, “I’m sorry, thank you for your service.”

He hated that excuse most of all, largely because taste was a sense closely related to scent. With Nox’s heightened senses the two disparate senses mingled in near perfect synesthesia. Forever cursing Nox to taste the scents around him, much like a serpent. And when the Texan Senator shook his hand and thanked him for his service, he could taste the man’s terror. It reeked, just like Nox had reeked when he faced the minotaur, or when his sweat glands had constricted upon encountering the feline dopples.

The senator was sincere in his apology, and that only made it cut deeper. He knew what congress had done was wrong, but voted for it out of fear, the one true herald of every coward. For he would rather allow Nox’s family to suffer, bleed, and eventually die than risk his own sorry neck. Worse still, Nox understood him completely. If their shoes had been placed on the other’s sole, Nox wasn’t sure if he would have chosen differently. Could I vote for humanity to die rather than condemn a few hunters?

Wafts of cocaine brought him into the present, where the New York congresswoman was giving his MP-7 a side eyed glance, despite being escorted by double the number of army rangers than any other politician. Her stench – a mix of amphetamines and condensed sewage– made Nox’s stomach churn, giving him the perfect excuse to escape to the nearest port-a-potty. An hour later when he returned, Mary-sue was entertaining politicians from Oregon and Florida, both of whom took turns distracting her while the other leered at her chest.

Although, given how low cut her sundress was, and how much time she had spent lifting the girls, Nox had to wonder if that was her goal. Not that Nox was an expert on push ups, but he had picked up the general idea living with three women for the past year. An inescapable topic when they only had the single-roomed TEMPER to share.

A week of cordial interrogations passed, without Ashley returning. Or anyone being allowed to visit her.

“That’s it.” Shouted Nox, retrieving his 1911 and several spare mags. “I’m going to go get Ashley.”

“You’re going to ‘get’ her? She’s a stronger hunter than you are Nox. What exactly do you think will happen if you run around base shooting sapiens?” Asked Mary-sue, not looking up from her disassembled Kalashnokov rifle.

“We can’t just stay here! I have to see her!” Shouted Nox.

Elizabeth walked between them, staring into Nox’s eyes. Mana crystals floated in the jelly behind her pupils, another sign of mana cancer, or Aetheric Lithogenesis as one senator –a former doctor of some kind– had called it. If the crystalization was reforming this quickly, she had another two months to live, assuming she was lucky and crystals hadn’t already filled her veins and were, even now, tearing her apart from the inside.

[See my kids start families and experience what it means to love your child.] Appeared over Elizabeth Hawke’s chest.

“I’m worried about her too, lets go see her together, all three of us. Just leave the guns here.” Said Elizabeth, her voice cross-shredding Nox’s resolve like an industrial paper shredder.

Words refused to form, and the 1911 slipped from his hand, landing on his bed with a soft ppfff. Elizabeth took his hand, and dragged him to the door, pressing her free hand against the hard plastic slab and foggy window that served as their front door. Mary-sue sighed, as if she had already divined Ashley’s condition. She rose from her seat, walking with an inconsistent cadence and her eyes shut.

Mana emanate from her, identical to her divination sweep inside the dungeon. What are you searching for May? Thought Nox.

A swift knocking at the door interrupted all their thoughts. Four green silhouettes, one oddly shorter than the others, darkened the foggy window. Too bright to be the regular watchmen, yet they wore the trademarked Realcamo uniforms that only the army used, lacking any sign of suits or congressional aides.

Confused, Elizabeth put on her best smile, opening the door and welcoming the new arrivals. Sergeant Jimenez and two rangers Nox recognized from inside the dungeon pushed their way inside the TEMPER. Jimenez himself pushed a wheel-chair bound Ashley, her eyes bandaged haphazardly, with pus leaking out of her purple bruised orbitals. She was a mess, a neglected disaster of repeated concussions, sitting limply within the confines of her wheelchair. Arms and legs strapped into it so she wouldn’t fall out.

Spittle dripped from her slack-jawed mouth, as if she lacked any cognitive function. Nox’s eyes widened in horror. Unable to comprehend how she had fallen into this state. Then the scent assaulted his tongue. A sweet yet rancid odor that warned of wet decay, of necrotic flesh that had gone untreated.

Not daring to believe his own senses, Nox activated his talent and viewed Ashley’s tag, fearing she was crippled and trapped in a prison of her own paralyzed body. Instead the tag was empty, free of any desire at all. Ashley was gone. Everything that made her precious, made her who she was, had been stripped away.

“She’s your problem now.” Sneered Jimenez, shoving the wheelchair into Elizabeth’s shins.

It connected with a hard thud, making her wince in pain. Though the tears that followed were for an entirely different reason. Mary-sue removed the bandages covering Ashley’s eyes, finding the skin and eyeballs rotting from a gangrenous infection. Something that a single bottle of antibiotics should have cured outright.

“What did you do?” Growled Mary-sue.

Mana collected around the C ranker, answering her fury.

“Don’t forget that we’re on base, hunter. None of you can touch a human or it’s straight to the JAG. Then you’ll get to see exactly what fun we had with her.” Said Jimenez, giving Mary-sue the bird as he turned his shoulders to leave.

‘Ah, wyverns are fed, minotaur is reset, and we are ready for round– Oh, am I interrupting? That’s fine, please continue, human territorial disputes are always so interesting, especially when you are fighting over mates. Though, you do have three… Is it really so hard to share one?’ Said Loki, simultaneously confirming that he understood humanity well, and that he would never be able to understand them fully.

Nox treated the voice in his head as he always did, like an unwelcome parasite that he couldn’t kill. But Jimenez was within reach. Muscles or not, Nox was stronger, his hand trapped Jimenez’s wrist, yanking him backwards.

Exactly what the sergeant was hoping for. Both of the rangers drew sidearms, and a cocky grin spread across his face. Until he locked eyes with Nox. Then he knew what death looked like. The E ranked hunter placed a boot against Jimenez’s shoulder and pulled with all his strength. The two rangers on either side of him opened up with their glocks, each pistol holding nineteen rounds of hollowpoint ammunition.

But the stinging bullets were nothing to Nox, for he was a blood hunter. He’d endured the pain of immolation and dismemberment more times than he could count, so when the bullets pierced his skin and rebounded off bones he pulled harder. Intending to tear Jimenez’s arm off at the shoulder. Instead, the man’s elbow gave way, screaming as the skin, fascia, sinew, and steroidally large muscles were ruptured by E ranked strength.

“Should have used crystal bullets.” Said Nox, tearing Jimenez’s arm free and dropping it.

Jimenez teetered backwards, falling onto his ass in confusion. His stump flailed, mind unable to comprehend the loss of a limb. Nox’s boot connected with his ribs, breaking four of them with enough violence to pierce his worthless lungs. Copper swagged lead bullets dripped out of Nox, pushed free of his body at the cost of his entire mana bar. Yet the cost didn’t deter him, Nox caught hold of Jimenez’s remaining arm and pulled that free, spraying blood across the TEMPER’s plastic door.

The sergeant’s screaming brought the two –properly armed– rangers into the TEMPER, who upon seeing Nox standing over an armless Jimenez opened fire, blasting him with sixty mana crystal rounds. Projectiles that sent him back into Loki’s embrace.

‘Hehehe, don’t think you’ll be getting out of trouble so easily.’ Laughed Loki, his words echoing louder than all of Nox’s screams as he suffered another round of immolations, dismemberment, beheading, and now gunshots.

Pain was becoming difficult to remember.

But when Nox awoke he was confused to find himself in the labyrinth once more, Mary-sue at his side and Nox’s face ten feet in front of him. He looked down at his body, finding a shield, a glowing blue sword, and a steel breastplate.

“May, who am I?” Asked Nox, with Taylor’s voice.

“Don’t joke around like that.” Snapped Mary-sue, already manipulating the mana around her.

Sweat beaded on her forehead as she attempted to redirect the dungeon’s mana. An exercise in futility as Nox’s mana bar crept up to 200%, popping up a dozen warnings.

Nox’s body turned to look at his mind and scowled.

“I traded bodies with the therapy junky?” Said a voice that could only belong to Taylor.

All hope vanished for Nox as he realized with total certainty that his mind was now in the body of his least favorite hunter. And his least favorite hunter was now inside him, in the worst possible meaning of those words.

‘Don’t worry, if you die without killing Theseus, I'll give you another chance in this body.” Said Loki, meaning every word.