“Hold still Hoodian.”

  “P-Please don’t kill me!”

  Chimera held the soldier in her grip as she stabbed a tendril into her head, diving deep into the reptile’s memories. It revealed very little save for the idea that High Inquisitor Zala’tazz was able to transfer her body to different hosts.

  It was seen as some kind of divine rite, the willingness to give up your flesh to house her ‘spirit’ as an Inqusitor.

  “Damnit! She got away!” Chimera threw the now unconscious snake into the pile with the others that survived, pacing back and forth as she tried to piece together what she gathered and what she had seen.

  She, Bargo and Arrose came to this place called Highmount, which was a focal point for the magical powers for the secret to the moons around Steros. Each one of them housed an Elementalist, an Elfari instructed to bring life to the moons and through them empower Steros with resources.

  The Verdant Hood, invaders from another world, were closing in on capturing the one on Torsca, the metal refinery to the Elfari Empire, before Chimera and her crew were able to stop their plan. But before they could finish off the leader, a crazed religious zealot named Zala’tazz, the religious nut found a way to escape, leaving behind her subordinate as a doppleganger.

  They were successful though, Iaos, the Elementalist of Torsca was safe and freed from their control before she could be indoctrinated by the pheromone gas.

  Bargo was in the process of rounding up the last of the Hood warriors, gathering the females in a group as he wrapped them all in an elastic bonding agent courtesy of Chimera. It would bend and morph, but never release the person it was wrapped around unless she added the chemical necessary.

  Arrose meanwhile was giving medical treatmetn to Iaos, who after using so much mana was experiencing an overload. It was just like pulling a muscle, except with mana it also ate away at your energy stores if it couldn’t be sated with the mana in your body.

  Iaos looked very much like a desiccated mummy at the moment, slowly but surely coming back to her normal looks with the application of mana that Arrose was providing.

  Chimera didn’t have that issue anymore thanks to learning about Aura and her own perpetual energy generators, biomechanical wonders she created using her DNA that she gathered from various superheroes back on Asta. Still, she came close to pushing her own limits facing the Verdant Hood High Command.

  Next time I’m taking them both out, Zally and Lesrack!

  Her mind wandered back to her crew aboard the Meras, her ship that she built with the help from her new friend, the dryad aboard the ship who shared the ship’s name, and Bayleaf.

  Bayleaf was a bit of a special case, as she could be called a sister after her transformation. She used to be like the Elfari that followd her as well as an Imperial Harrier, one of the Empress of Steros’ elite warriors, but an experiment led to her being bonded to a piece of Chimera’s flesh which remade her into what she called a Terasi.

  Bayleaf revealed it was what ancient Elfari used to call people like Chimera, but that didn’t really make much sense because Chimera was supposedly based off of the Teras’emon, an alien race that existed on her home world of Asta.

  She meant to question her further on that, but the attack on the city of Anvilage and the kidnappings lead to her current mess, and she didn’t have the means to ask further.

  Chimera sighed as she rested on her butt, the weight of everything that happened pressed down on her thoughts.

  We won, right? Mission accomplished and all that. So why do I feel like something worse is coming?

  It was true that she was instructed by the Empress to provide defense of Torsca so that reinforcements could arrive to secure the foundry city. However, this cell of the Verdant Hood had likely been here for a few months based on the memories of the soldiers Chimera had sifted through.

  If they were able to get away with something like Zala’tazz teleporting nonsense, wouldn’t that mean they had something or someone nearby to grab her?

  “Come in Captain, do you read us?” the crackle of a hologram transmission buzzed as Bargo pulled it out and laid the listening device on the ground, drawing both Chimera’s and Arrose’s attention.

  “Mera here, Bark. How’d the worm hunting go?”

  An image of a sturdy Elfari with tree limbs wrapped in his clothing, covered in a robe of both sleek armor and leaves appeared. Before Chimera had met this man, he was a skinny twig, with limbs to match. Bark Ironwood, the Vice Captain of her ship the Meras took to her ‘upgrades’ better than a lot of her crew, save for Bayleaf herself.

  Now the man didn’t look a day past his prime, with the gaze of a soldier who had seen more fighting than Chimera had been alive.

  “If you are referring to that deep wyrm that nearly flattened Anvilage, then the hunt went well Captain. Commander Bayleaf and the Imperial Harriers are gathering what they can from the beast, and I believe that the civilian consultant Tessa is currently in possession of a strange artifact as well. We should have more details regarding it soon.”

  “Good to know. Our situation is mostly settled as well, though I can’t really say more without approval.” Mera looked up at both Arrose and Bargo as they shook their heads.

  The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

  The role of the Elementalist was a secret to most Elfari, even in the military branches. Only those tied to the Empress herself were allowed the knowledge behind the Elementalist and their contribution to life on the six moons.

  Though Chimera herself thought it was stupid considering that a damn traitor already had the knowledge and leaked it to the Verdant Hood.

  Glendara, once an Imperial Harrier aboard her ship, turned into a traitor that had been working with the Verdant Hood.

  Despite trying to help as many as she could, some of her crew had refused her genetic modification, which her unique ability allowed her to shift. Crimson R, the symbiotic suit that was meant to bond to a human and gift them the abilities of the Teras’emon, also had the ability to rewrite DNA pathways to allow superhero mutations.

  Combined with Sarah’s unique biology, Chimera could essentially remake anyone in her own image.

  Yet, even when some of her crew refused, she didn’t think twice about it. She wasn’t going to force people to change unless they wanted it for themselves.

  Now though…

  Mera bit her fingernails as she thought.

  Were all of those who refused spies like Glendara? I need to check the crew again, we might have a sabotuer.

  Bark pulled her away from her thoughts as he spoke, “is something the matter Captain?”

  Chimera turned back to the hologram, “have the crew assemble in the loading dock once they’re done with their work on the deep wyrm.”

  The Vice Captain shifted, “any particular reason I should give them Captain?”

  Chimera shook her head, “it’s a sensitive issue Bark, I’m not even one hundred percent of it myself, but it’ll be worth looking into. Just explain that it’s a new way to check for disease from the deep wyrm that I’ll be implementing, and check for reactions. Anyone you suspect, have them locked up in the brig or quarantine.”

  Bark caught Mera’s tone as he nodded, “danger level?”

  Chimera sighed, “consider them at my level and treat it accordingly.”

  Bark nodded as he gave her the Elfari salute, his arm faceing forward, bent at the elbow to have his hand over his heart in a fist.

  “We have a shuttle heading your way, just keep the signal going and they should be there in five minutes.”

  Chimera nodded as the communication device turned off, the signal still reading green after Bark disconnected.

  “Alright, so I’m just going to say this, but keeping Iaos a secret isn’t going to fly.”

  Bargo and Arrose stiffened at her response, “Captain, it’s the word of the Empress to keep them secret.”

  “And I’m sure that it was fine back when they were a secret, but Iaos was compromised already.”

  Arrose and Bargo both turned pale as Chimera explained about her fight and encounter with the rogue Harrier, along with the fact that the pheromone gas worked on someone like Iaos.

  “Dear sweet Mother Tree…” Bargo shook his head, gritting his teeth.

  “The Empress must be informed, the rest are totally fucked if this is true!” Arrose reacted a bit more panicked than Bargo.

  “Once we get back to the Meras that should be no problem. She’s coming with us though, I’m not leaving Iaos here to get kidnapped again.”

  Bargo broke from his thoughts at that, “but the moon? She needs to remain to maintain the spell necessary-”

  “Not anymore she doesn’t.” Chimera interrupted with a smirk on her face.

  Iaos seemed to stir at those words as Chimera walked back inside the temple, which prompted the rest of her crew to follow.

  The temple that housed the focal point of the spell glowed faintly as the magic began to fade. Without Iaos in her chair, it would likely end and cause the cataclymic fallout that would bury the moon in death.

  Instead of that however, Chimera merely pulled something from her chest, a small organic thing that held a few tentacles and one probling eye stalk.

  “I give you, Iaos 2.0. Show them what you got little buddy.”

  Chimera smirked as the little blob nodded with the stalk, and with a stretch of its tiny tendrils, hooked up to the chair.

  The spell hummed, and glowed with a magical flair as the tendrils sunk into the chair. Mini-Iaos shifted, turning into a blob-like clone of the original, her eyes and face smiling softly at the group.

  “It may seem strange, but this will work.” It spoke to them, settling itself into the chair.

  Iaos and the group were panicking at the knowledge of what they just witnessed which made Chimera smile.

  “Welcome to terraforming, where the magic is fantastical and the methods out of this world! With Iaos 2.0 here, the moon’s spell will be maintained. Though I think this is the best part.”

  Chimera directed their gaze to the spell underneath the chair.

  “This spell was pretty inefficient, and the method was a bit mean. I mean, sacrificing someone to maintain a spell to keep the moon alive? I don’t really know who decided on that, but I’m not someone who would force that crap on someone for the rest of their life. So 2.0 here is gonna fix that.”

  Iaos 2.0 waved at them, “A perpetual energy generator will soon grow over my body, and once the spell and its functions are transferred to the generator, it will become a part of the moon and maintain the spell forever, a natural biological life giver. No sacrifice necessary.”

  Iaos the original turned her head back and forth between the two, disbelief combining with a small hope in her eyes.

  “S-So, my duty is done? I… I do not have to return to this dark place?”

  Chimera gave her a thumbs up, “should be all settled, right 2.0?”

  2.0 nodded to her, “you are free to pursue your own life now, my creator.”

  Iaos broke into a smile, her solemn face now crying with tears of joy as she almost fell to the floor. Were it not for Arrose holding onto her, she likely would have.

  Chimera puffed out her chest a bit.

  Mom’s going to be so impressed when I see her again. Not only did I make a girl cry, but I figured out how to terraform a whole moon!

  Sarah’s soft smile played in her mind as Mera nodded.

  Doing good things is its own reward sometimes.

  …