Chapter 96: The Might of a Remnant.

  Foreign Psy entered my body, my mind, my essence. Tainting me and the lake within me with different colors. My cells found the resonance in that taint. Recalling the powers that now coursed through them.

  I saw the Drake in the form of a bipedal she-goat. Birthing thousands of dissimilar young from a colossal ovipositor connected to his abdomen.

  Some had wings and some had scales. Some had antennae and some had feathers. Some had fur and some had fins.

  Yet all were as the Drake, but younger. More subservient. More loving.

  They loved the Drake as children would their mother and the Drake loved them back. For they were the only beings in the multiverse that wholeheartedly accepted his quest for perfection.

  I saw the Drake welcoming a guest to his cathedral of flesh. A pale-green quadruped with seven-fingered hands where a dog would have front paws.

  The newcomer had a flat, ape-like face and a long prehensile tail that ended in yet another hand and his fur was coated in misaligned barbed tendrils that ran the course of their body.

  In contrast, the version of the Drake sitting across from him looked somewhat regal. Gentle, even.

  Three of its upper limbs cradling a larva with rows upon rows of shark teeth while its one free arm reached for a glass full of some aquamarine beverage.

  “It is such a lovely occasion.” The Drake began. “When I get to meet another of my kind.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Let me go!” The other creature pleaded.

  Their exposed fangs doing little to mask their terror and desperation.

  “Oh but of course you do. My sweetling.” The Drake purred. “You are a Savant. Like me.”

  “I don’t know what that is.” The creature protested. Their shoulders straining against bindings that I could not readily see.

  On closer inspection, I realized that there were no bindings. Their whole body had been fused to the chair of bone and another, barely visible worm had attached itself to the base of their spine.

  ‘Yeah. He’s not going anywhere.’ I thought with reluctance. My mind evoking a prayer for whatever poor soul I was watching right now.

  “No?” The Drake intoned. “How funny then that you would challenge this humble Seeker of knowledge and physical perfection so openly.”

  The Drake’s mouth seemed to purr and the simple motion caused the structure to shake. Walls and masonry quivering like shivering muscles. The insectoid attached to the guest squealed too and the poor soul it was attached to let out a silent scream.

  “I don’t!” The challenger bellowed. “I don’t know what you want! Let me go and my people will reward you! I’m worth a goodly ransom!”

  Ooooooh.

  I didn’t claim to be an expert on the Drake, but even I’d seen enough of him to know that was a bad move. If he hadn’t been feeling sadistic by that point, he sure was now.

  The Drake cooed. In a way that made it seem as if he were a gentle mother calming down a riled-up child.

  “Ransoms and promises and broken dreams. How delightful. How very novel. But darling, sweetling, don’t you know? Such trifles and formalities are so blasé. You come across as so desperate. A poser or worse, a poseur. Why would I accept cold dead trinkets and empty words in place of you? Especially when you are here in front of me. Very much warm and very much alive?”

  The Drake tapped the table in front of him.

  The captive began to scream in exquisite agony. His cries soon cutting off into a silent plea. So that only his face was left twisted.

  Then the Drake tapped again and that face was paralysed in that expression.

  “Much better. Oh my but you truly are so expressive. You’ll make an excellent mantlepiece. Or maybe a bed. A little one for my children. Or perhaps I shall make children from you. Do you think your intestines recall your powers? My sweetling?”

  The Drake remained seated but motioned so that the chair opposite him was lifted into the air by tendrils that descended from the ceiling.

  “Do you think they will remember your pride? Your delicious confidence? The very air with which you carried yourself into my palace? Freezing everything in your path?”

  The guests face did not change, but I could tell his own eyes were tracking his captor. Still aware and suffering.

  “Oh you cut such a dashing figure sweetling. Here, I’ll show you once more in case you don’t quite recall all the details.”

  A nearby wall to their right shivered and its surface turned into black glass. The panel then changing colors like a chameleon to simulate an actual screen.

  The captive’s eyes went wide.

  “See? There you are. With your fat, ugly wench and your vapid, useless sidekick and the twenty other sycophants trailing behind you. None of them are doing anything. No. It is all you. You alone froze my palace over from the entrance to my realm. You alone turned my home into a mausoleum. But they shared your arrogance and…”

  The Drake stopped.

  “Oh? What is this now? Is this surprise I see in your gaze? Oh, I see. You did not think you were being watched.”

  The Drake spread its own face into a smile that did not reach his eyes.

  “My sweetling. My poor, poor, stupid sweetling. Honestly. I don’t know how often I’ve had to repeat myself.”

  He rose for the first time. Effortlessly growing to three times his previous size.

  “I am the Seeking Drake. Master of all that is living. The flesh keeps no secrets from me.”

  I felt the Drake’s own mind tremble. Knowing very well that he was more incensed by the fact he had been underestimated, rather than the actual attempt at his life.

  “Did you think my range was limited because I was a Shifter? Did you think you could kill me from a safe perch? Like some common monster out there in the Tutorial or the greater Labyrinth?”

  The Drake began to circle his guest. Mouth now dripping with envenomed saliva.

  “I am life itself. In all its splendor! I am the climax of its eternal quest for supremacy! For dominance and ubiquity! I am every cell in your delicious body and the primordial ooze from which your single-celled ancestors crawled out of! I am the one who yearns for perfection! I am the one who embodies that pursuit! I am the Seeking Drake! I will not be disrespected by the likes of you, sweetling!”

  The Drake made a croaking noise from his throat and the very skies above the castle parted. A bolt of hardened blood gouging a hole through the bone ceiling with the sound of a thunderclap.

  The projectile melted into hot goo as it struck the floor. Losing most of its momentum, before it congealed into a living, crimson mantle that rose up to drape itself around the Drake’s current form.

  “Oh but you are all the same. All you Projectors. You change the universe by twisting its energies and its matter to your whims and this somehow leads to you deluding yourself into thinking that you are superior. That all that exists is a toy for your amusement.”

  The Drake cackled as it snuggled into its new dressings.

  “Yes. Yes sweetling. I see that pride in you still. I see the glint of it in your eye. You see meat and think of carbon. You see bone and think of calcium. You see the contracting of lungs and the beautiful, rhythmic beat of many hearts and you see kinetic energy. Motion and the movement of gases and liquids to make chemical reactions happen. And in your hubris you think to yourself that is all there is to it. That such blessed processes keep occurring only because you allow it. After all, what is a cell if not a collection of molecules? What is a life if not the end result of many chained reactions? What is Psy if not the means by which to control the underlying forces of those reactions?”

  The Drake placed a forefinger on the captive.

  His mouth sealed shut. Lips and teeth sewing into themselves until not a trace remained.

  The poor sod began heaving through his nose, but it was all in vain. A closer inspection revealed that the Drake’s touch had caused his lungs to erupt from his body. Seemingly without his notice. They were now drawing in air with mouths of their own.

  “Enhancers and Telepaths can be annoying too. In their own stupid ways. One sees life and sees the basis of their empowered self. Another sees life and sees the foundation of the mind. They come a little bit closer and they are generally more open minded, but none of you understand. None of you have the brainpower necessary to change! To absorb new ideas! Why, if you and yours had half the wits the divines gave their centipedes, then you’d be begging me to teach you! Crawling forwards on bended knee and pleading for me to share my wisdom!”

  This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

  The Drake looked less and less feminine with each sentence. Their body sprouting horns from unspeakable places, even as their muscles ballooned.

  “Life is not the basis for anything, fool. Life is not some curiosity for you to sneer at! Life is precious! All of it! It is the collective struggle of billions upon billions of years! It is the one aspect of creation that gives any meaning to anything that happens! Life is rare, vulnerable, yet inevitable. When the conditions are right, more life will always sprout up. More beings will struggle and die and kill and make love and evolve into better versions of themselves! That or die trying!”

  The Drake’s rear limbs were spreading out now. Like the roots of a tree. And like roots, they tore up and upturned the floor beneath them. Cracking slabs of tiled bone with casual ease.

  “You are blind to its totality! To its potential! Tell me, sweetling, what can you do that life cannot re-create? Use force? Ha! All muscles can do that. Freeze things? There are tens of thousands of organisms in this section of the Labyrinth alone that can do that with chemicals they produce. Shock things? Bio-electricity is far more potent and far more sustainable than anything you and your flunkies could conjure up! Why, just look at this robe of mine! It came down with the force of a thunderbolt and still became something else afterwards! What more proof do you need? To see that Shifters are the true heralds of Psy! The ones who can best embody the wish to alter our place amongst all other thing! You Projectors change the worlds around you, when you should be changing yourselves!”

  His roars were those of tigers by that point. Deafening through the haze of the memory.

  “Each mote of life in this entire subdimension is a part of me. An extension of me. From the lamps you passed to the very tiles you were walking on. From the walls in my home to the bushes in my garden. They are all me. They have my blood and sinews and yes, even brains. You do not need to be a Telepath to be interconnected, my sweetling. They all carry my pheromones and act as relays for them. Lengthening the reach of my signal. Of my authority.”

  The Drake caressed his captive’s body. Causing it to change.

  “From the moment you breathed in the air in this realm, you were under my sway. Under my influence. Stop and think for the first time in your life and you will see it too. Your blood, bone and sinew knew me as their master within a fraction of a second. They knew me and loved me and wished to be part of me too. Even as you began throwing out blasts of ice to incapacitate me. As if that is all it would take to stop me! What!? Did you think you could do what others couldn’t because you were a Savant? Did you figure my hand could not reach you if the world itself was frozen? Did you have the audacity to consider yourself my equal? My better!?”

  ‘That guy is definitely ending up as furniture.’ I thought bitterly. ‘If he’s lucky.’

  In that same vein, the vision gave me a new appreciation for Sarcophagus Solomon and the abilities I had developed.

  This guy had presumably frozen over most if not all of the Drake’s dimension within seconds of entering it and that had barely been enough to slow it down.

  Meanwhile, Sarcophagus Solomon relied only on [Inexorable Presence X] to see him through and that had worked out much better.

  ‘Though I suppose the other me also had the good manners, or good sense, to ask for an invitation beforehand.’

  Whatever the case, this display of skill showcased how much drones could do for a crafty Shifter. How they could extend the reach of pheromones, and therefore, the reach of abilities like [Solomon’s Bio-Chemical Thaumaturgy X] or [Solomon’s Perfect Vicissitude X].

  ‘It might seem distasteful, but I will have to get used to doing that too. I’ve been relying too much on my Telepath side and that has clearly stagnated my creativity and power development.’

  That much was obvious, after this display.

  I personally had no need of drones to extend my reach, so I had never even considered using the ability like that. Which led to me not quite understanding how flexible and truly frightening the power could be, since I could do worse with my cobweb and [Domination].

  ‘Maybe I should start limiting myself to Shifter abilities only? The feedback I get from my instincts and my cells is different from the one I get from my mind-reading and future-sight, so it might be helpful to focus on one at a time. At least until I am more used to the former.’

  “Oh but don’t you cry for what you’ve lost, my sweetling.” The Drake cooed once more. “You shall die, as you wish. Then you shall live and reproduce and die and live again. All under my gentle caresses. Oh, don’t look at me like that. Of course I have an ability to revive myself. What? Did you think it was a myth? Merely the whispers of cowards and doddering old grandmothers? Honestly sweetling. That is so close-minded of you. Even death is but a form of life, for what is death, but a new beginning?”

  I felt the Drake’s next caress as if he had done it to me.

  Then my vision snapped back to reality and many more things made sense.

  Oooh. That hit the spot.

  Like a shot of whisky followed up by a shot of rum. And another shot of whisky.

  I could feel the tender spots beneath my fingernails flexing and unflexing. My blood now having a missing piece of the puzzle. A missing element that was made to be used beside my already existing abilities.

  I brought up the ability description once more.

  My eyes then read and re-read the part about drones once more.

  “Ah right. The power was combined from [Organ Independence] / [Produce Adhesive] / [Produce Acid] / [Produce Pyro-Chemical] / [Produce Cryo-Chemical] / [Produce Electro-Chemical] / [Pheromone Hierarchy] / [Pheromone Trail] / [Pheromone Attraction] / [Pheromone Diversion] / [Hijack] and [Infection]. Yeah. How very fun. What was it Prudence said? That she didn’t feel like turning into an ant queen or something?”

  I had thought that it was fair enough back then.

  The joke was on both of us though.

  The idea of birthing new life from myself, didn’t seem so alien anymore.

  Much like with [Predator’s Instincts] I had a little dark voice in my head. Now whispering that a single me could become many smaller me. And many smaller me were hungry.

  Then that voice became twisted. Perverted. Like my other instincts had when exposed to the Drake’s…

  Ah.

  (Gnome).

  I searched through my cobweb. Looking for the new branches created by my decisions.

  Sure enough, my former predictions were not wrong. The few cells that remained, despite the burst of regeneration, would not be able to leave with their lives.

  Too many backup routines, too many contingencies.

  Far too many re-enforced doors standing between them and any new infusion of biomass.

  It would have been futile, even if I didn’t come down to finish it off for good measure.

  That didn’t mean he didn’t leave anything behind though.

  The corpse, if one could call it a corpse, stubbornly clung on to some semblance of life.

  Chunks of regenerated flesh still twitching within the vat. Looking almost bloated in a way.

  Almost as if it were still, growing.

  And that shard of the Drake had its own combined abilities. Including those derived from all the different instincts.

  But it wouldn’t be enough to change me unless there was a breach. Unless the actual, physical pheromones hit me.

  Then I recalled the Drake’s words.

  ‘Even death is but a form of life, for what is death, but a new beginning?’

  Then the corpse contracted for the first time. Right before it exploded and released a cloud of red mist all over the place.

  I called on [Inexorable Presence X]. All the Psy in that hemisphere died.

  The cells with them.

  At least, they did so for a second. Before twitching once more. Calling out to a kindred spirit.

  To me.

  “TALL MAN!!” I shouted at once. “Blow this place to kingdom come! Also, take me away to Pandemonium!”

  Spectral hands dragged me backwards and then downwards. Making my body phase past layers of reality, even as my literal (Gnome)ing arms were falling off.

  The last thing I saw of that particular material reality, was my own limbs growing limbs of their own. Bloodied stumps erupting with needle-like fangs and insectoid-like eyes. Crystalline dragon-fly wings breaching the skin around my former elbows before filling the air with incessant, obnoxious buzzing.

  I landed in the manse. On my rear.

  The Tall Man standing ominously behind me like a disappointed nanny.

  “Don’t look at me like that.” I said with irritation. “I had that totally under control. I predicted he wouldn’t make it out and he didn’t. I predicted I would come out of it alive and I did. I predicted it would be better to take care of this problem sooner, rather than later and that turned out to be the case. I mean, just imagine what would have happened in a couple thousand years when some yahoo went spelunking down there. I was completely…”

  The next few words came out as slurred, drawn-out mumbles and gurgles. As my face, mouth and tongue melted away. Transforming into skittering roach-scorpion hybrids that rapidly made their exit.

  Unlike the Drake’s cells, these critters were akin to an open book. Their minds open for me to read.

  ‘Flee!’

  ‘Reform!’

  ‘Return to glory!’

  ‘Make the master!’

  ‘Remake the Drake!’

  ‘Seek out perfection! Go back to perfection! Eat this new world alive!’

  Sadly for them, this was not the kind of world they were used to.

  This was the realm of emotion, fantasy and limitless possibility.

  So, the walls and floors and indeed the very air around them grew fangs…

  And devoured them in turn.