***Tirnanog, Jeng, The Forest***

***Henrik***

“I tell you, Brook, as soon as I get the chance I will apply for a different job. Even if I end up doing menial labour or get sent on a suicide mission far, far away. Everything is better than dredging through this cursed forest! You can’t see ten metres through the foliage and there are critters everywhere. Have you heard about the leech thing which chewed off the calf of a guy from the second scouting unit? With my luck, I will suffer the same fate if I stay here for long enough.” I shook myself at the thought. “Just get me a ticket out of this forest.”

“One might think a task as easy as searching for some shedded iobeetle carapaces should be the preferred work for a sensor like you,” Brook replied distractedly while his attention was on something hidden in his bag. “This job is as easy and safe as it gets out here.”

“Just saying,” I replied weakly, knowing Brook avoided socializing with the rest of the unit. It stood to question how someone like him had ended up in this position.

I would have loved to know what Brook was trying to hide in his bag, but sadly I was one of the lesser specialized sensors and Brook was above me in rank. It wouldn’t have done me any good to openly root around in a superior’s business.

Sadly, my only ability of true renown was my sense of smell – which only told me Brook was playing around with some electronic device, judging by the slight smell of ozone and plastics in the air. Probably some old tech from Earth, though there was a note of something biological in there which reminded me of creature cores. It was faded and old, but it was definitely there.

While I would have liked to theorize further on the nature of Brook’s secret, there was no certainty that the two smells were connected. While odd, it wasn’t exactly uncommon for hunters to carry around trophies of besting especially powerful monsters.

If I hadn’t wasted most of my early mutations on combat abilities while dreaming of power and fame, I would have probably been able to make out what took so much of Brook’s attention.

“Why don’t you concentrate on your job and lead us to that carapace?” Brook suggested while closing his bag.

He narrowed his eyes at me and I hurried my steps onwards, pretending to be eagerly doing my job. I inhaled deeply through my nose and mouth, allowing the different aromas of the forest to flow through me to make full use of my olfactory sense while I turned my head slightly to narrow down the direction.

“It’s coming from this way,” I pointed, glad that the forest wasn’t very windy thanks to the thick foliage. Frustratingly, it was the perfect environment for my ability, even though I despised it so much. “Smells like it died recently too.”

We had to cut our way through a section with dense bushes. I wasn’t doing so well with my short sword, but Brook’s halberd made quick work of the thicket until we arrived at a small clearing.

One of the forest’s enormous trees had fallen, taking down a bunch of the smaller ones with it. This allowed sunlight to filter through the forest’s canopy which normally absorbed almost every ray of light before it could reach the ground.

Next to the trunk of the fallen tree giant was the hollowed-out carapace of a truck-sized iobeetle, its outer shell shimmering beautifully in various shades of green.

A flock of zippers rushed away from the corpse as we approached. Some flew up to the tree branches while others disappeared in the underbrush, though they doubtlessly stayed close to the flock. Zippers were highly social animals.

It looked like the little monsters didn’t fight for the body because they had finished their work already. If there had been meat left, they wouldn’t have given up so easily on the remains.

I eyed the ones on the branches warily, knowing very well they were perfectly capable of taking us down if they wanted to. But for some reason, they were among the few species who weren’t unforgivingly hostile towards humans. At least as long as they weren’t unduly provoked or their nests weren't nearby.

The former was easy enough to avoid and the latter was unlikely. As far as I knew zippers preferred high and rocky cliffs for their nesting grounds, so we should be safe enough even if this flock looked larger than usual.

All the deaths around Jeng’s mother tree must have attracted a lot of the little critters.

I approached the iobeetle, wondering what happened to it. It didn’t look like one of the old sample specimens we had been shown by the Jeng. Because of the shortage of iobeetle shells, the Jeng had temporarily given up on their monopoly and allowed hunting teams from Hochberg and Aerie to help with the harvesting.

The uncommon cooperation between the clans was surprising, but what did I know about the political machinations of our leaders?

If the Jeng were to be believed, iobeetle shells could only be harvested from beetles who died of old age. The beetles had no natural predators in this forest. To find a young one like this seemed unusual.

I took another step, just to assure myself of the shell’s scintillating brightness. The beetle certainly hadn’t died of old age, but I also knew of nothing which could take down an iobeetle in its prime.

“I don’t have a good feeling about this, Brook,” I said warily while I studied the remains and the zippers who were watching us from the branches. Normally, the little scavengers would be gone as soon as they were done with a corpse.

The few instances when they stuck around people were when they expected there to be more leftovers to be had. Either because the person in question was about to kill something... or was about to be killed.

“Brook, I think we have to book it and get one of the other search parties for support. Something isn’t right here.”

I turned, only to find Brook nowhere to be seen.

My guard’s sudden absence sent a surge of fear down my spine and I turned, scanning the clearing for where he could have gone while my precognition sense tingled alarmingly.

When I saw no sign of him, I ran back from where we came, following Brook’s scent trail. I had no idea whether the scent was the one he left when we came to the clearing or whether he had taken another route.

But I hoped he had just fled back the way we came the same as I was doing right now. If so, I would catch up to him sooner or later since he wasn’t the fastest guy around.

Had the bastard left me behind intentionally? Seeing the scene before us, he must have been quicker to come to the same conclusion as me and left me to delay whatever had killed the iobeetle! What a bastard! Once I got back to command I would make sure he spent the rest of his days cleaning the latrines!

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If I got that far.

Whatever caused my precognition to flare up seemed to be getting closer because the sensation didn’t ease up! Either it was catching up to me or I was…

I burst out of the thicket before I could finish the thought, only to come across a grizzly scene. There had been another searching party on our heels: Carina and Shamil.

They were...

They were...

Shamil was lying on the ground with half his face chewed off and a dark, empty hole where his left eye should be. And Carina was in the grasp of... a thing.

It was vaguely humanoid, but its flesh was warping and bubbling as if a thousand maggots were moving beneath. And the creature’s mouth was attached to Carina’s face, seemingly sucking something out of her.

The creature dropped the dead woman when it noticed me, pulling a long, barbed and sinewy tongue out of her head as she fell. Turning my way, it was still morphing as it approached.

I wanted to scream. To run. Draw my weapon. Do anything! Do something damn it!

But I couldn’t.

I was rooted in place.

~~Fear.~~

~~That's right.~~

~~Fear me.~~

I blinked at the thoughts which weren’t my own. They were wrong, but I could do nothing against it. My whole being was paralysed with fear.

The monster raised its arms, its three-fingered hands morphing to five as it laid its cold, leathery digits upon me.

And above us, the zippers watched in anticipation from their branches.

***Tirnanog, Mount Aerie***

***Astra***

I dodged the first blow and tried to block the second one, but Magnus overpowered me! Relentlessly driving his strike past my defending arms, he slapped his open palm against my breastplate, causing me to stumble backwards and pushing the air out of my lungs.

The power behind it stunned me for a moment. This kind of training was not in my favour because of the difference in our physique.

With my slimmer build, I was faster than him, but I couldn’t compete in pure physical power. Ever since I had gotten his strength mutation, I had become a little bit sloppy regarding other people who couldn’t compete in speed and power.

Sparring with someone who could keep up with my speed and power forced me to adapt my techniques. It wasn’t wrong to remind myself that there were people out there who could overpower even Magnus in pure physical strength. So not getting caught at all was definitely to be preferred in my position.

I allowed my mind to wander a little as I retreated to recover from the blow. According to my wishes, Magnus wasn’t holding back too much when we were sparring. His hand-to-hand combat abilities had certainly skyrocketed to impressive levels since he arrived in Tirnanog. First through his mutations and then even further thanks to the training regime he was imposing on himself.

He had received precious training on Earth, but according to his estimation, he was no more than a knowledgeable amateur back then. The mutations only allowed Magnus to put the theoretical knowledge about combat techniques to good use.

Magnus approached and I took a step sideways and away from him to give myself more time. I hoped a delaying tactic would make him impatient and create an opening.

Last night we had finally gotten an opportunity to sleep and have a little chat with Gaia. Sadly, the entity had once again professed her inability to help Magnus with his slightly worrying attitude towards combat. However, she admitted the instinct to madly throw himself against anything threatening a mate was something he got from his zipper mutation. It was nonetheless something he had to learn to control on his own.

Seeing I wasn’t ready to engage, Magnus returned to his neutral stance, a new technique he was working on. With his legs a shoulder-width apart, one a step before the other, he didn’t look particularly threatening with his palms held in a prayer position.

I had already witnessed its deceptiveness first-hand, half-blinded and surprised by the sparking lightning arc he had generated between his palms upon separating them to strike at his opponent.

Thankfully, I was much more resistant to electricity than the average person. Using our electric powers against each other was like dousing each other with water. Though, if we got serious it could get unpleasant.

I circled around him as I mentally went through the events of the last few days.

After helping out at the Old Camp, we returned to Balthasar and brought him news of our elders approving of the agreement. On the occasion, we also had to bring Isaac for another play session with Charmaine.

Thalia and Mark were in good health when we arrived and were slightly high on trying out their newly improved evolution. In terms of pure physical strength, Thalia was now definitely my superior, though she was nowhere close to my speed and had to compensate with her precognition. The new mutation had also improved the pair’s senses across the board – not to the level of a dedicated sensor, but it was nothing to be ignored either.

I still doubted either of the two could take us on in hand-to-hand combat, but that wasn’t necessary. Thalia’s greatest weakness had been her physical ineptitude. If she could hold out for long enough to entangle her opponent in her mental ability, she would have as good as won the fight.

Also, Balthasar had spoken with his people. According to him, some malcontents didn’t want to move, but he assured us the problem would be sorted out in time and we could inform our elder that his people would take over the Old Camp.

On the elder’s side, we had organized a few airships with skeleton crews to pick up Balthasar’s Mycelists.

Magnus ended my introspection when he suddenly moved in to attack, no longer willing to give me more time.

It was what I had been waiting for.

Instead of foolishly countering his strike head-on, I dodged this time, enduring the lightning as I grappled with his outstretched arm. Kicking off the ground, I brought my legs up, intending to take him down with a flying armbar.

But Magnus saw the move coming and stepped into me, not allowing me to bring the move to a textbook finish. Instead of managing to wrap both my thighs around his arm, I only awkwardly managed to clasp onto him with my pelvis beneath his armpit and my legs wrapped around the opposite side of his neck.

I tried to correct the mistake by bringing my filaments to bear, sending out dozens of them from between my armour plates to wrap him up.

Magnus countered with his filaments which was followed by a few intense moments of struggle during which he managed to grab a bunch of filaments emerging from a gap in my neck armour. He used this leverage to pull my torso closer to his side so I couldn’t apply enough force with my armbar for it to have any impact.

The further entanglement caused him to fall over and after a few seconds of silent struggle between our filaments, we both were at an impasse.

“Why do our spars always end like this?” Magnus asked with a small undertone of frustration in his voice.

“Because we aren’t truly going all out?” I suggested. “Technically, I won this one because I am on top!”

“I could have decided to fall forward and knee your neck if I wanted to hurt you,” he pointed out.

I gave it a moment of thought, considering how we had ended up in our current position. “Technically, but it would have only hurt-”

A gasp from the garden’s entrance drew our attention where we found Kiera Tate, eyeing us with a mischievous expression. “If you two are busy making more of those interesting little ones, then I won’t bother you further. Are you by chance studying the Kama Sutra?”

“We are not!” I shot back, whatever this sutra thing was. “Can’t you see that this is combat training? Or why else would we be in full armour!? And what’s the Kama Sutra?”

“A perverted old book about living well, finding a partner, and the art of sex,” Magnus explained. “Though, I think what Kiera was referring to was the part about different sex positions and practices.”

I thought about it for a moment. “Why haven’t you mentioned such a thing exists? I have found our love life quite stale recently. Bondage isn’t all it’s jacked up to be. Maybe we should try out this Kama Sutra.”

“Hell, no! I am still angry at Thalia for suggesting bondage to you. What is it with the Tates and their interest in sex practices!?” Magnus began to struggle once more. “I’ve only taken a look at that book once and most of the described positions looked damned painful!”

“Only if you are the average human,” Kiera pointed out. “I found the prescribed arts quite enlightening. The fifth strata has a copy in their museum if you are interested.”

“That’s good to know,” I said, reminding myself to take Magnus on a tour. He had been with the clan for almost a year, but he had barely seen anything of our culture and traditions. What a shame.

“Arrr! Damn it! Why are you even here, Kiera?” Magnus asked.

The gynaecologist hit her open palm with her fist. “I knew you two distracted me from something important with that display of yours. But I thought you should know that the two little ones are about to come out!”

“They will hatch now!?” Magnus asked, sounding a little terrified.

“Born!” I corrected and struggled to get up. “Let me up!”

“I am not as fast as you with untying those knots!” he complained while giving his best to untangle his filaments from mine.

“Hogwash! Free my legs at the very least!” I ordered.

He managed it and I swung my legs up, turning us around and once I had both feet firmly on the ground I stood up, shouldering Magnus like an awkward backpack.

Then I ran back to our quarters.

“Wait! Wait! What the fuck are you doing!?” Magnus complained.

“Not missing their birth!” I replied. “You have time till we get there or they might be confused about seeing a strange Siamese monster once they're out.”