[The Bee————————]
[The Bee————————]
[You have————————]
[The Bee has agreed to undo their actions.]
[The Dragon has used Divine Intervention! The alerts have been hidden and erased.]
The verge of death. As usual, the irony of a dead man’s soul saving a dying bee wasn’t lost on me. But the ingredient of death was only now making itself obvious. Every Mind we had absorbed had been on the verge of death, and while I wasn’t sure why that was the case, I knew that, when it came to Mind, life and death were the keys to understanding the secrets that the Bee had discovered. Not that there was anything I could do with it right now; all I knew at the moment was that this feeling of peace I had reminded me of that hazy time I spent in that endless river of lights.
It didn't last. As clarity returned, I saw two things at once. There was Yelah’s body, face-first in the dirt, taking shallow breaths. And there was dirt in my eyes.
I watched, without making a move myself, as Yelah - or rather, our new body - shakily pushed against the ground, spitting up clumps of dry soil. The CBU was pumping away full-force, ensuring that Yelah’s actions were a reflection of Queen’s intent. I felt my human arms push against the ground slightly too hard, making me land on my butt, but I wasn’t moving them. Queen was.
“Great heavens.”
Yelah’s lips didn’t move, but I still heard Queen’s voice in my head. Of course. We were still a combined Mind, so it was never like she was actually leaving in the first place. It was such a strange sensation, though. Like the most visceral possible form of an out-of-body experience anybody could ever hope to… experience. Thank the Bee for the practice we’ve had seeing and hearing and controlling other creatures through the Link at the same time, or we would be totally discombobulated by this situation. Not that we weren’t feeling sick and confused.
Queen flopped onto her back, making odd twitching motions with her shoulders. Was she trying to fly on instinct? Her thoughts were a whirlwind, the alien sensations and movements of her body overwhelming her brain, only making her poor attempts at human movement even more awkward. I watched her flop around for a bit more, certainly not relishing in her plight. Maybe it wasn’t fair of me to think so, but seeing someone else struggle to get the hang of their weird monster body was a bit exciting. Would she figure it out? How long would it take? What struggles would she need to go through for her to become accustomed to the ridiculous, foreign situation?
“Goodness gracious. This is such a disquieting experience, Enno. Everything feels warm. Yet warm at the same time? And my limbs are wobbly. Gosh, my neck! It wobbles! Also, why can’t I see properly? Everything looks dull and lifeless. And narrow. Ah! Where is behind me? I think I am going blind.”
A familiar tug pulled on my memory, and I felt years of experience flow through my Mind, everything from my first steps as a baby that I didn’t even remember all the way to the casual walk through the city streets on the night of my death. That cheater! She was using my professional decades-long career as a human to get used to her human body! Her twitching and flopping slowed to a stop, and her neck every so slowly craned up to look at me as she lay on her back, arms and legs splayed.
“And what stopped you from doing the same with me, you dork? Have no fear; I am perfectly capable of acclimating myself to these conditions. Eventually. Anyway, how does it feel for you? To be trapped as I am?”
Though her words dripped with catharsis, she wasn’t being malicious. More like petty. Like when we did the first experiment, I did, unfortunately, find myself trapped in Yelah’s body, unable to move or breathe or do anything at all. Everything her body did happened at Queen’s command. It was… disturbing, to say the least. It wasn’t like when we watched through Ben’s eyes to observe a scene out in the forest or something like that - that was more like watching a movie or tv show. This was far more tangible, quite literally, as if an outside force was taking over every fiber of my being. In that case, the irony was indeed lost on me. But, sad to say, my experience would probably be nowhere near as torturous as Queen’s, considering I still had a body to control.
Well, even if I wouldn’t have as bad of a time as she did, the whole point of this was giving Queen freedom. So now she had it. Or was getting used to it. For so long, she had been relegated to the background, almost tossed aside to make room for me. She still didn’t have the vindication of having control of her own body, but this was the best we could do for now. One day, we would make things right, or maybe we would become so ingrained with each other that we wouldn’t think it mattered. But for now, her humming and deft flexing of her new fingers told me she was happy even with this paltry, temporary compromise. Plus, knowing her, the first priority wasn’t affected by things like justice or fairness. It was about time that the family properly met their other Mother.
“Are you mad? There is not a chance in hell I would meet my children in this state. Help me get the hang of this fleshy thing first, then tonight, we can have a delightful dinner as a family.”
I sighed. Of course. I turned to lead her over to the river, which would probably be as good a training ground as any, and I didn’t move.
Hm?
“Is something the matter?”
A bit of panic rose in my chest. I tried to turn, to float in any direction, but nothing happened. Experimentally, I waggled my antennae, my legs, and butt, and it was all fine. I was still in control of Queen’s body. But I couldn’t move. My concern mounting, I tried to pour a bit more Mind into moving. Nothing. The percentages didn’t move, my Floating Lock didn’t change. I was stuck, floating in the air, the Float Lock doing its basic job but leaving stranded in suspense.
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What the hell is going on?
“You cannot use Mind? Let me see.”
Abruptly, my body jerked to the side, then I went upside down. Hey! What the fuck?
“Huh. Huh? How is this possible?”
I shook up and down as Queen rolled onto her stomach and crawled towards me. If I didn’t stop shaking soon, I was going to waste plenty of good egg-making material! In desperation, I reached as deeply as I could, and with as much Mind as I could muster, forced myself to stop freaking moving.
Abruptly, I froze mid-shake. It worked! I heard a bit of a worrying crunch and got the breath squeezed out of me, but I stopped getting tossed around like a dog’s chew toy long enough for Queen to realize her mistake. Oddly enough, though, the stopping force seemed to originate from somewhere else.
“Oh dear. I’m starting to feel ill too. Sorry about that, Enno. But more importantly, what in the world is happening? Am I controlling my Mind? Like, truly, properly controlling my Mind?”
It’s my Mind too! I gulped down my nerves and whatever else was coming to the surface and tried to figure out what the hell was happening. But it didn’t take long, because oh so conveniently, the CBU had a very precise answer.
We were jumbled up. Queen’s Mind and my Mind were so inexorably tied together that, of course, we were stuck with each other regardless of how many bodies we had. I knew that. That was the whole reason I was stuck feeling my noodle arms dragging my human body through the mud and couldn’t do anything about it. What it hadn’t anticipated was the effect on our Mind, as in, the magical psychic powers that governed this world.
Queen flexed her fingers, and I concentrated, and, from Yelah’s body, a tendril of Mind slowly reached out and grabbed a random stone lying around. I twitched my antennae, Queen concentrated, and a hundred pebbles shot into the air, uncontrolled and spinning wildly. I let out a worried moan. Across from me, Queen’s new human vocal chords giggled. This was going to be a nightmare.
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It took a few hours for everything to fall into place. I tried to make sense of what the hell was happening with our Mind. Much of that time was spent upside down, as Queen had no idea what she was doing with our excessively efficient Mind. On the way to the river, I eventually just used what Mind I could to just carry the both of us, so as not to overwhelm her. Queen, with my instruction, began to practice controlling her human body doing simple actions, light exercises using the lazy river, and studying my time as a human. She technically had some practice with such a thing, but that was manipulating Mind to move individual body parts or muscles or whatnot. Now, she had to learn how to crawl and walk and talk. Like a baby.
What had happened was, on the surface, quite simple. There were probably some complicated esoteric mechanics behind why or how, but the gist was that Queen had almost complete control of our Mind, originating from her original bee body. Any Locks or Abilities, I could still technically manipulate, but it took so much concentration it gave me a headache. But tapping was the real problem. I couldn’t tap our available Mind from her body. Which was the body I controlled. And that was probably because, for some reason, anything I tried to do with our Mind spread outwards from Yelah’s body.
[Combined Mind:
Acquired by: Attaining the impossible feat of hosting multiple Minds in one body
Impossibly, you have multiple Minds within your body. This unique trait caught the gods' attention, and this Ability was granted. Efficiency of Mind = Base Efficiency x Number of Minds.
Mind Efficiency: 5x
]
Now, that was one of the nice things. Yelah’s Mind had, in fact, been brought into the Combined Mind Ability, so it was still rattling around in there. Somewhere. That meant all our numbers were even better than before, which I would never complain about. However. It didn’t fucking matter! Because I could only use 5% of our Mind at most! That was no exaggeration. I tested it. Thoroughly. Through Yelah’s body, I could only tap into 5% of our total Mind. What was I, some sort of replacement for the stupid-ass Life Lock now? Which was still 5% by the way.
Now, to be completely fair, at our current level of power, 5% wasn’t a small number at all. Based on how much Mind it took to lift the Shaft and carry it over Yiwi back when the Combined Mind efficiency multiplier was 4, with it being 5, I might just barely be able to lift the Shaft with this 5%. It was a bit of a toss up, and I didn’t want to try it for fear of dropping it, but it might just be possible. That meant I was in the realm of superhuman, as compared to the average human in this world. Even most mercenaries didn’t have the capability of such a feat on their own.
Queen fell face first into the river and began to drown. I tapped my chin. This whole body-takeover thing had already caused a host of issues and had proven more complicated of a problem by the minute. This new variable was totally different. It wasn’t a setback or even a problem. Just… weird.
A quick yank brought Queen’s head above the surface as she gasped for breath. Pulling her up was trivial for our Mind, requiring fractions of a percent for me to do. I tried to right myself, as I was still upside down. My body was currently several meters away, nearing the old tree line, and exerting my allowed Mind from that distance wasn’t hard at all. However, keeping an eye on my usage, it was definitely more than had been needed to stop Queen from going to visit the river of lights. I knew Mind usage was affected by distance, but the concentration and usage I exerted was absurd compared to when we used Mind from our bee body. Maybe the body had something to do with it?
Queen coughed up water, letting her thoughts clear before she spoke. For a moment, she seemed to think, her human head even turning slightly as if listening to something, but eventually, she simply coughed again and hummed in my head.
“Ack. I would’ve appreciated some help a bit sooner. The CBU has been thinking the same thing, hasn’t it? In my estimation, we had already theorized about the connection between bodies and Mind before. One Mind, one body, correct? What we are trying to do goes beyond even the ordinary unnatural. We are still a single Mind, not entirely whole, attempting to be two bodies, one and/or two Minds. Though my share of Mind is the one ‘inhabiting’ Yelah’s body, your Mind must still play a part. I am not sure why things have turned out the way they have, but if the piece of our Mind responsible for making this possession work inhabits Yelah’s body, it makes sense that this piece can only act through her body as well. And since it is not the body where our actual Mind inhabits, well. It stands to reason that it would not be nearly as effective.”
Sensible. Sensible, but I still could scarcely believe it was the case. It meant that now, all of a sudden, I could only do a fraction of what I was capable of before with Mind. And Queen could do infinitely more. Not that I was tapping Mind to do much anyways. But it would make every action of ours a million times more complicated. We’d have to coordinate our bodies and Minds in such a way that I wasn’t even sure was feasible. And if Queen’s body was ever far away from our main body, we’d somehow have to keep everything from falling apart, work together, and manage our life simultaneously. In perfect sync.
I thought having constant company was exhausting. And the universe went right ahead and gave me overtime.