Andrew's aura settled into some sort of frog-goblin thing as it shuffled around the outskirts of its tribe. He'd debated whether to go after a sapient creature or not, but ultimately he decided it was necessary. During his and Greg's 'spars' over bodies, they'd noticed a level of cohabitation was possible, where instead of stealing the body, Andrew and the being he possessed could share it. If there was a beneficial aspect to his ability, it'd probably exist somewhere in there, as anything that didn't involve other people would only benefit himself.

Andrew silently observed the frog-goblin as it continued to search the nearby tunnels for food, gathering various fungi in a small basket. He wasn't exactly sure what to do at this point. What could he do for the frog-goblin? He swept his awareness around its body, but came up blank. He couldn't do anything to the frog-goblin's mind, other than listen to its thoughts, which were currently all about how much it sucked being old and how much it hated being relegated to gathering fungus instead of being allowed to hunt. He could control the body, but that wasn't exactly helpful. There were a few injuries and what not, but- Andrew tried flexing his aura. Nothing. Andrew frowned slightly at that. Why wouldn't his aura heal these injuries when it healed his like they were nothing?

He blinked as he realized it had to have something to do with the core. The core was where all the information on how a being should be resided, so without a core, the aura didn't know what to fix, since it was all just stuff to it. The aura was just the medium through which information propagated, not the information itself. So if he wanted to heal… Andrew turned his attention to the frog-goblin's core, focusing his intent on it. One of the things he'd learned by this point was that aura was all about intent. He used to visualize his interactions with cores like he was fiddling with knobs and sliders, but it was all just a way for him to translate his intentions. All he actually needed to do was touch the core and be clear about what he wanted to do.

As Andrew focused on the core, he considered what he wanted to do. Heal was obvious, but not exactly clear. He paused to consider what he did for his healing, but it didn't really help. All he did was flex his aura, and everything sort of fixed itself. Andrew hesitated for a moment, before shrugging mentally and giving the core a poke, trying to get the core to reset. A ripple flowed out of the core, startling the frog-goblin, and… nothing? The frog-goblin's aura was a bit brighter, but that was about it. *Huh.* Andrew frowned, studying the core. It'd obviously done something, it just wasn't noticeable. Now that he thought about it, it wasn't all that noticeable when he switched out cores either… It took time for the effects to propagate in creatures other than him.

Andrew pulled most of his aura out of the frog-goblin, leaving just a bit to see what would happen over the next few days, before jumping into another one to consider what else he could do. He could transform creatures, and maybe heal them, though both took time, so… he frowned. There wasn't much else he could do, was there? His ability essentially boiled down to transforming, healing, and manipulating aura, and that was it. Well, that and condensing cores, but- Andrew paused as an idea hit him. Whenever he ground down a core, he could drag his aura through the being to recondense a core. So… what if he did that for something that didn't have a core in the first place?

Andrew flowed out of the frog-goblin and into a nearby rock. He wasn't sure what having a core would actually do for a rock, but honestly he was just happy to be doing something that wouldn't fuck anyone over. Hopefully. He pulled his aura through the rock, and… condensed a core. *Well, that worked…* Andrew muttered. There really wasn't any reason for a rock to have a core. It was a rock. He supposed he could use it for his transformations? Like adding it to his carapace to increase its defense… not a bad idea, actually.

Andrew crushed the core and left the rock, considering what he'd just done, along with the nature of his aura and cores. Ultimately, aura was a way to transmit and store information. The core was condensed aura, a solidified blueprint that the aura transmitted to… matter? Telling it how to form? But then why have DNA? Unless DNA was informed by aura? Or was it vice-versa? With the rock, its form existed before the core did, hadn't it? But then again, if he altered the core, he altered the form… but also, injuries didn't get fixed just because they weren't included in the core. Unless, of course, he triggered a reset… maybe he shouldn't factor in the weird bullshit he could do.

Andrew threw out that line of thought and started over. He knew why cores had information on abilities and such, because abilities didn't necessarily have a physical basis, so you needed a core to use them, but you didn't need explicit information on how a body worked to move it, right? Everything that happened in a body had a physical basis, so the information in the core should be superfluous. Otherwise, bombs would need cores to explode, and that just wasn't true. So what were cores doing with this information?

The first thing he had to note was that cores described the ideal form a being should take, not necessarily the form they had. The body developed based on that ideal, but was altered by the various influences that occur throughout life, gaining and losing weight, getting injured, aging, and all that, diverging from that ideal form, though still keeping its basic shape, until… they die? The dead didn't have cores… Andrew blinked. Did a core just know what a body should look like so it knew when to leave? So it knew when to say 'oh, this body can't function anymore, time to move on'? That… seemed oddly likely, particularly when he considered how Victoria would stick inside her body after it died.

Andrew shook his head. He might be overthinking this. Maybe the cores had the information because there was information to be had. When he drew his aura through the rock, he got all the information on what it was, despite the fact that he could do little to nothing with that information, since… well, it was a rock. Or maybe there was something else going on that he wasn't in a position to understand. As confusing as it was, it didn't particularly matter unless he could actually do something with it.

Andrew refocused on cores for a moment, particularly what he could do with them. He could draw his aura through an object to create a core, then transform based on that core. Which meant… he could be adding a whole lot more to his transformations. Stone carapace, actual knives for claws… a computer for a brain, maybe? Yet it still didn't give him anything he could do for other people… though if the healing worked out, he supposed that'd be something. He just wanted a way to actually help people. He was so tired of just being there while the others worked to solve the major issues of whatever World they were in. He couldn't help people get stronger, he couldn't create food or supplies, he couldn't store anyone in a separate world where they'd be safe, all he could do was maybe fight someone if they were a problem. He supposed he could always transform people, but that didn't exactly make people stronger, it just gave them a different power set, plus most people weren't exactly comfortable with turning into something completely different. And if the healing worked out, that'd be nice, but Chris could do it better, so it didn't exactly feel necessary.

Andrew frowned. What could the ability to store and transmit information do to help people? Andrew paused before letting out a snort. Maybe he could create some kind of auric internet. Though he'd probably have to do something like create Bonds between everyone… probably not the best idea, even if he knew how to do that. Could he do that? Not something he was eager to test. He had too many Bonds already. Not that he regretted them, but… they just made things awkward, for little to no benefit. Well, no benefit for him… Cathryn got immortality and an ability out of it at least.

Stolen novel; please report.

Andrew cocked his head. How did that work? Was the information related to the ability translated through the Bond? But the information itself didn't determine how strong an ability was… that required energy. But all the energy stayed with the Beast, so where did the Bonds strength come from? Or did the location of the energy not matter as long as it was designated as part of an ability's strength? That seemed to be the case with the Cultivators in Rune World. As long as their energy was connected to their core, it empowered the rest of their body, even if it wasn't actually in their body, unlike Victoria's points which only empowered the parts of the body they were actually in contact with. Could he do something with that?

Andrew dove back into a random frog-goblin, and immediately ran into a problem. He couldn't actually see energy. *Man, I suddenly understand all of Victoria's complaints about not being able to see cores.* He muttered, shaking his head. Still, he had a work around. All he had to do was take all the aura, and he'd automatically connect to the energy. That would mean killing the frog-goblin though… could he- oh. Oh. Wow, those were some nasty images. Yeah, he was totally okay with killing this guy. He locked the frog-goblin's body down, ground into its aura, and tore apart its core, before condensing a new one.

Andrew let out a breath as he fully became the frog-goblin, rolling his shoulders as his other self could finally turn his attention to other things. Now all he needed to do was figure out how to make the frog-goblin's power his own. He paused. He may need a second body for this. A few moments later, he'd found another frog-goblin that he felt more than comfortable killing based on the other's memories and he had another body to work with. His aura stretched between the two, poking at both cores as he tried to figure out how to do this. Just trying to connect them didn't work, he knew that much. Thinking back on both times he'd been Bonded, he remembered both times had involved physical contact… his two selves held hands as he tried to connect the two again, and nothing.

"Hm." Andrew hummed, frowning slightly. Maybe if he did the trick with condensing his core? He spread his aura through both bodies, condensing his aura down to where they touched. As the aura hit the cores, it got caught, the rest condensing into a line, solidifying into the Bond. The two Andrews blinked, releasing each other's hands and- suddenly the Bond broke. "Shit!" Andrew cursed, grabbing his other self's hand again and recondensing the Bond. What was he missing? He looked between the two cores, his eyes narrowing. The Bond had condensed, but the aura around the two cores was still… loose, like it was waiting for something. What was missing, what was missing… fuck, all he wanted to do was share their abilities!

Andrew froze as the Bond suddenly solidified, before facepalming. Of course! The Bond needed intent! It was aura, it needed to know what it was sharing. This time when they released their hands, the Bond stayed. Tentatively he raised one of their hands, focusing on a nearby rock, which shot right into his palm, using the telekinesis from his other body. Andrew grinned. Now this he could work with.

*

Andrew did some more experiments with the Bond, figuring out a few limits. First, physical power couldn't be shared, no matter what intent he put into it, which was slightly disappointing. Additionally, the shared abilities were either or, they didn't stack, so while it did allow him to share power across his various selves, it wasn't quite the boost he thought it'd be. Finally, no matter what, the Bond was a Bond. It was there until one of you died, and there was no escaping the mental aspects of it, which meant multiple Bonds could get a bit… intense. Though the fact that his other selves were already mentally connected could have been making the situation worse… either way, it wasn't something to enter into lightly, which also diminished its usefulness.

But still, he finally had a way to help people! Pairing his power to theirs, Bonding couples, he could even Bond people to weapons, adding a summonable aspect to it like Beasts. Figuring out he could add the summonable aspect to the Bond had been groundbreaking, and he was already full of ideas for how to abuse it. It was a great way to give people some survivability without needing to connect them to Chris's World.

Now all he had to do was take care of the rest of these frog-goblins… cause after taking over four of them and going through their memories, it was becoming clear that this entire tribe was a problem. Andrew hesitated for a moment, before letting out a sigh, giving in to Greg's advice. It was time to be a monster, and maybe in being a monster, he could see a way to be better.

The first thing Andrew did was decide that he'd only use his aura to handle the tribe. Walking out there and tearing into them using his stolen bodies would get the job done, but it wouldn't teach him anything new about his ability. He crushed the cores in all but one of the frog-goblins and pulled his aura out, flowing towards the strongest aura in the tribe, considering how he wanted to do this. He could just pull its core out, but again, he was trying to explore. Plus, he was already starting to get a headache and trying to yank the cores out of all the frog-goblins would turn his brain to mush. So what else could his aura do?

Anything that would go directly against their will would be the same as yanking out cores, so he needed something more roundabout, like Victoria poking at hidden grudges to start a conflict, but what? He couldn't do anything to the mind, besides talk to it, and the body… Andrew blinked. The body… cells were alive, weren't they? Could he do something with that? Andrew focused his attention down, diving into the individual cells of the body, which did have their own auras and cores. *Huh… interesting.* Andrew muttered, reaching out and pulling at a cell's core, taking it out with barely any effort at all. Andrew blinked, moving to tear out a larger swath, but this time there was some resistance, the cells seeming to band together to resist him.

Andrew clicked his tongue. Of course all the cells were connected. They were all a part of the body after all, like a giant network of Bonds. He paused at that thought, before shaking it off. Something to consider later. If he couldn't kill the body separately from the rest, which he honestly should have figured wouldn't work, he'd need to try something else… The urge to just take this body and start killing was building as he ran out of ideas. Everything he did involved butting against his enemies head to head! The only thing he could freely affect was himself and dead- Andrew froze. Could he turn himself into something deadly? Like a cloud of deadly insects or parasites. Maybe a virus? Nah, that'd take too long. He also didn't actually have cores for any particularly deadly insects or anything. Something to pick up later.

But for now… Andrew pulled out of the strongest aura and dived into some nearby rocks, giving them cores and adding an ant and knife core, creating stone ants with bladed legs and mandibles. Unfortunately, his ability didn't care about mass, only the whole, so it took him a bit to build up a proper swarm by finding individual rocks. At least, until he figured out dust was also a whole, and soon a giant swarm flew towards the tribe. Panicked frog-goblins scrambled away as the swarm descended, tearing the slowest to pieces before they could even mount a defense. Abilities flew at the swarm, fire and electricity burning through it, while barriers rose to keep the rest of the tribe safe. The swarm quickly regenerated as aura lashed out to kill one of the barrier ability users, allowing the swarm to dive inside, tearing into the tribe. Occasionally one of the barrier users would manage to protect a group, but a quick lash of aura would end it, and the swarm would descend yet again, until all that was left in the room was corpses, and the swarm.

One of the ants turned into Andrew, while the rest fell dead and dissolved back into dust and rocks as the aura pulled out of them. Andrew looked around with a twisted expression. "That… was pretty monstrous."