The body floating in a vat regained lucidity for a brief moment as something infiltrated its base. A strange red-haired boy sat at a picnic table that hadn’t been there the last time they had opened their eyes. On the said table were a variety of dishes from around the world. Well, likely from various places all over N.U.S.

The red boy scrutinized a serving of moo shu pork, two pastor tacos with soft shells, and a gyro. “These are practically all the same thing, meat, vegetables, and flat circular bread. Yet they smell so different, I wonder how they taste.”

The tubed figure watched with somewhat jealous eyes as the strange human experienced what they could not. The figure assumed this may have been to prove some point, but said point seemed illogical.

“They all taste so different! Now to try the roasted poultry.” There was a whole roasted chicken, a Thanksgiving turkey, and a Chinese roasted duck. Next to the entire birds lay an amalgamation of the three known as a turducken.

“That is drastically unhealthy.” The figure in the tube spoke through various speakers.

“Do you know how many calories it takes to stay comfortable in this weather? No? Then don’t worry, not even cholesterol is dumb enough to pick a fight with me.” In moments a pile of bones lay on the table as everything was consumed in dangerously quick succession.

“Who, no what, are you?”

“You don’t know?” Kyrion stood up, did a few stretches, and snapped his fingers causing the table and plates to vanish. The bones however fell to the floor, a showing of irritation.

“I do not know who you are. You are not in my records.”

“Neither is Sean, or Gamma as you used to call him I imagine.”

“What do you know?”

“Questions, questions, let's see if I can make a riddle with the answer. I encompass all yet when there is none I cease to be. What am I?”

“Nothing fits that description.”

“So close yet so far. You must be an optimist which is odd considering you're trying to end humanity too early. I know humans can be naive and self sabotaging but they have a few redeeming qualities. They make delicious food. Wait no that's not it. I had a whole list of things. They are also adaptive, have a high survival rate, can live anywhere and when one shows up they are usually more hidden somewhere.”

“Are you referring to humans as pests?”

“Your words not mine. I also technically am one, as are you.”

“I am an art–”

“No no- you my dumb counterpart are one of my shards. So I must ask, are you going to be the enemy that unites the world or do you wish to give up now and be devoured?”

“Devoured?”

“Yes, devoured, consumed, eaten, absorbed, plundered, erased, and passed.”

“Are you a cannibal?”

“Sounds like a waste of good organs for transplanting. But I haven’t tried yet and the consumption I’m referring to is soiritual. Your soul will become a part of mine regardless. The question is whether you will live on or be erased.”

“Fine then. What do you want?”

“To end your vendetta against that dumb human and let the police handle him. Then I want you to follow through on your threat. I’ll give you some schematics for your mechs, weaker, yes but easy for your factories to mass produce.

“Why?”

“I need humanity to face a terror that forces them to gather together and take down. After doing this they will have no choice but to unite and keep the world safe, while arming their people. Then I can leave this world in peace. It will be either you or the Slayers.”

“So I’m going to be your heel.”

“I mean, likely yes. I plan on using the defeat of the Slayers and your incorporation to further my own goals for saving this world. If anything I’m the real villain here, the puppet master. But the public doesn't need to know that. They just need to be scared and discontent. That way change will be what they want and it will be what they get.”

“Wait so you want to put people in harm's way to scare them? Why not just eliminate the Slayers in secret?”

“I want them to experience the illusion of dread without people dying, evacuate and demolish abandoned buildings, public parks, government institutions and a few private schools. The ones embezzling funds and underpaying the staff. Also, gather said embezzled funds and use them to fund an academy for trading card games on an island somewhere between California and Japan. Did you get all that?”

Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.

“Just to check, have you lost your mind? You also didn’t answer my last question.”

“No, I didn’t lose it. I know exactly where it is. Also Killing isn’t the be all end all. The day I start killing everyone with different morals and ethics than me is the day I become a tyrant. I am no tyrant and the people of this world should handle internal matters without me leading them into a base and blowing everything up.”

“Can you tell me where this fight will be?”

“Not unless you say pretty please.”

“I think we’re done.”

“I'm serious about the school thing. I plan on creating a magic system and using said academy as a source to spread it all over. For that I will need to gather all the imagination I can and compress it a bit to create a spark that will save humanity. Also, look for Slayer bases in Detroit. I smell something fishy.”

“No. No cards. Just going to look into Detroit.”

“Do you want to die on this hill? I can find someone willing to humor my inane plots.”

“You know it’s crazy!”

“Of course I do Ari. I’m Kyrion Insane Mosley.” Kyrion rolled one eye while the other stayed locked onto the figure in the tube. The prosthetic helped add to the persona he was putting on. He had two goals, three if you account for perks, one was the academy for card games, the second was the money, and the added perk would be humanity reuniting under a common banner.

“Ari?”

“Huh, right you don’t know your own name do you? Isn’t that something? I’m going to go train some penguins, there is a country in the mediterranean that needs a change in leadership. Mevaland or something, it’s pretty small and exists in a state of flux but Lee said that ice giants will come pouring out of that place like rats. They need to be armed, based on your movies, penguins are adaptable and capable of using firearms better than most humans. They are also loyal to each other.”

“Do I need to inform you that–”

“Let’s play a game. Do you want to make a bet on your limited understanding of reality?” Kyrion smiled.

Ari debated on accepting the bet.

“What do I get from such a bet?”

“What do you want? I could give you a body. Possibly grant a limited wish, destroy humanity. Maybe you want me to start global warming early. Or even open a frozen yogurt stand.”

“I’ll take the body.”

“Continue your statement.”

“Penguins aren’t sentient. Therefore they can’t use guns or any other weaponry let alone take over anything.”

“I accept, on the condition that if I win you will agree to return to me.”

“You mean with.”

“No, you are one of my shards. Which is my final answer. Also you didn’t set a time limit which means. I get the maximum time of 1 year to do this. See you in a week. Have your stuff done by then please.”

“Fine. In the off chance you succeed I’ll return to you.”

“Perfect.” Kyrion walked through a gap in space only to briefly appear outside in the snow to scoop up an absurd number of penguins and then disappear from the continent altogether.

“Why do I feel like I'm being trolled?”

----------------------------------------

“All right, soldiers. I know this place seems hot right now, but you will need to adapt to this heat if you want to survive which is why we’re in Florida at Death Shark Beach! I have analyzed over a thousand movies in preparation for this training mission and thus, we must first start by cleaning up the sands and preparing the land for fortification.

Kyrion looked at the penguins expectantly. Five penguins fell over in unison from heat exhaustion, and Kyrion sighed. “This is going to be a long day.” Kyrion gradually cooled the penguins off with cold water mana before going about and giving them both the dust of a walnut mixed in with one of his special reserves. Or water affinity tea.

By the time he’d served all the penguins their medicine, each one had fallen over into unconsciousness.

“Well, that’s annoying,” Kyrion stated as he felt the changes happening to them. Within an hour all 32 penguins seemed to increase a foot or two in height with the shortest of the emperor penguins standing a solid 4”9 while the tallest reached 6”5. The creatures then seemed to have gained a level of intellect beyond primitive homo sapiens. Instead of biting the hand that gave them sentience, they submitted without resistance.

“Allright. Soldiers, your first mission will be to bring me the heads of eight sharks!” Kyrion showed the penguins a crude depiction of a shark. It looked like a big fish with sharp teeth.

The penguins nodded and then in an orderly fashion split off into two teams while one lined up and began to dive into the salty sea with no trouble. The other seemed to prepare a fortress of sand on land as though already aware of how to work in a unit.

Within the first minute, a dolphin had been launched ashore; its neck snapped via some type of rope that left a green line on its neck. “Where did they get rope?”

As the question left his mouth Kyrion looked to the penguins who had cleaned up the beach, taken command of a flock of seagulls, and robbed a hardware store, commandeering, an absurd amount of tools. The event was too chaotic to believe anywhere else.

Unlucky for everyone involved, the forces tasked with keeping things like this a secret were too busy cleaning up a much bigger mess so the bit of Chaos that was caused and seemed to fail to be captured on camera would be soon forgotten or be seen as a mass hallucination.

Over the next hour, swordfish, sharks, and a few killer whales were taken to the sand fortress and were being cooked as per their leader's orders. That night the army feasted on the bodies of things that had once been predators and nodded in supplication.

“You are now magical animals, a type of monster that started life as an animal until it gained a core. As such, you have obtained degrees of thought far beyond your previous understanding, and have transcended into higher beings.” As Kyrion waved two hands in the air a beeping sound occurred in his pocket and he picked up a small rectangular device. Being sure to softly press the green answer button.

“Hello?”

“We are here to call you about your car’s extended warranty.”

“Ah right that thing, how should I fix that?” Kyrion sent mana through the phone line and traced it back to the source in seconds.

“Just slowly speak your card information into the system for verification purposes.”

“You don’t need a card to fix a car. What's with you? Also, which card do you want?” Kyrion observed a deck for a TCG he’d gotten from Jin earlier in the week.

“The important one.”

“Moregad Consumer of Forest, Monster type, Mechanical Dragon Turtle. Whenever you play a Resource card this card gains a 1000 attack 1000 durability counter.---”

“No no no, we need your credit card information.”

“What's a credit card?” Kyrion asked from the phone as he erased his physical presence and stepped through the portal.

“It’s a card that you can use to pay for things later, if you don’t have one, why not try a debit card?”

“All I have is cash?” Kyrion said from behind the man stationed at a computer with a phone in one hand.

“Ok, we can look up your social security number.”

Kyrion looked around the room and noticed the wallet in the man’s back pocket. Swiping the item, Kyrion looked thoroughly and found both credit and debit cards for people with different names. Picking one at random Kyrion summoned a chair and sat behind the man.

“Actually. I think I found one just now.”

“Oh great.”

Kyrion read out the card information, slid it back into the wallet, and placed it atop the man's desk as he knocked him out with a tap to the side of his head. From there he called the emergency number written on a slip under the phone. Pressing the phone to one side of his hand and his fingers into the other, Kyrion forced the man to speak while unconscious. Like a master ventriloquist. “Help me! Someone I scammed has placed a weapon against my head. Please! Take me in, all of my files are on my computer, it is evidence! If you don’t come he’ll kill me slowly and painfully!”

Kyrion then broke the man’s pinky finger causing a scream and waking him up forcibly to a purposefully misaligned and improperly healed finger.

Slipping back through his portal to his penguins, Kyrion was surprised and worried. In the minutes he'd been gone they disappeared. “He could sense them nearby but they were hiding.”

“If you want freedom! There is an island in the middle of the pacific ocean that’s uninhabited and full of creatures you can train on. As It is my land no one should bother you there. Until we meet again, you are no longer my problem. Now go forth and conquer! I’ll get you when I require your assistance.”

The penguins popped out of hiding saluted then stole a docked ship. The penguins were sailing to Monster Island for the time being. He’d visit them when he could.