Maxine examined Vellus Callaran's limbs in the clinic's examination room and nodded approvingly to herself. He's healing much faster than I expected him to. His leg has already regrown past the knee. Although, I expect it to slow down quite a bit when it reaches the more complex bone structure of his feet. There are just so many small bones in that area. As for his left arm, it's in a similar state to his leg.
"So, how are my limbs doing?" Vellus Callaran asked.
"Good, very good," Maxine said, "Your limbs are regrowing at a impressive pace without any defects."
"That's a relief," Vellus Callaran said, "I thought there might be a problem since they're regenerating faster than I expected."
"A worry that I shared when you pointed it out," Maxine answered honestly, "But it was a needless one since you're okay."
"Interesting," Guan said suddenly from behind Maxine, "Did you know that he's emitting a very subtle and unique pheromone? And his body seems to be producing it naturally. That explains how he managed to get close to you so quickly." Pheromone?! What the hell is he talking about? I would've detected it if something like that was in the air.
Maxine whirled around and glared angrily at Guan. "What are you talking about?" Maxine asked, "And why are you here?!"
"I only came to check on you because I suspected that he was using a method that I'm unfamiliar with to covertly charm you, but now, I know that isn't the case," Guan told Maxine, "If you don't believe me just scan your surroundings with your spiritual sense." Maxine humored Guan and found the pheromone that he was talking about. The only problem was that it was very dilute and only prolonged exposure would have any effect. What the fuck?! I thought pheromones were meant to attract a mate through smell. This one, however, only makes women feel more at ease and safe around him. I guess indirectly it would make women lower their guard around him. Which I sort of have. Combine that with his previous feats of valor and he would literately be the perfect person to get close to me in a short amount of time. That would make it much easier for him to covertly spy on me or set me up to be kidnapped. FUCK! Why couldn't daddy have just kept his mouth shut? I was just starting to trust Vellus, too.
"Uh, hello, sir," Vellus Callaran said nervously and while he was distracted with Guan, Maxine slipped one of her ravens into Vellus Callaran's shadow. God, I wish I wasn't so paranoid and could take Amanda's advice. But I can't possibly do that after daddy dropped that bomb on me. I need to be sure that he isn't here for another reason. It would drive me crazy not knowing.
"Hurt my daughter in any way and you will suffer in ways you can't possibly imagine. Understood?" Guan asked firmly as his eyes literately glowed with hostility. Not the best way to meet daddy, but it's better he knows about daddy's stance towards him. Oh? Daddy seems to be pressuring Vellus with his killing intent. No wonder he looks like he's about to shit himself.
"Y-yes, sir," Vellus Callaran said in an uneven voice as he visibly sweated.
"Daddy, was that really necessary?" Maxine asked.
"Yes, it was," Guan answered simply.
"Maybe to you, but not to me," Maxine said grumpily.
"Believe what you will. I'll see you back at the house," Guan answered and seemed to grab the air as if he was trying to tear open the air itself. To her surprise, he did just that and a spatial rift leading back to their home was torn open infront of him. The fuck?! Did daddy just strong arm the laws of space!? And what's scarier is he did all of that without making a sound. If this is to intimidate Vellus even more, mission accomplished. Any sane person would be experiencing pants filling terror.
"Is your father always like that?" Vellus Callaran asked with a shaky voice.
"Do you mean absolutely terrifying?" Maxine asked and after seeing Vellus Callaran nod, she continued, "He doesn't act like that around me or mom as far as I know. In fact, he dotes on me, but I imagine he reserves his scary side for people he doesn't like."
"If he's like that to people he doesn't like, I don't want to see how he treats someone he hates," Vellus Callaran said fearfully.
"It's best not think about it. It might give you to have nightmares," Maxine said honestly, "In any case, you should head out, so I can see the other patients."
"Yes, I understand and thank you again for seeing me on such short notice," Vellus Callaran said as he slowly wheeled his way to the door.
"Think nothing of it," Maxine said as she opened the examination room's door to let him out and receive her next patient. As he wheeled out of the examination room, she stared at his back with conflicting emotions. I hope I'm just being paranoid, but I can't take that risk. It's not only me who will suffer if I'm not.
Even though it made her feel guilty, Maxine split a small portion of her mind to monitor Vellus Callaran while seeing patients. He didn't do much beyond looking at the sights and eating various foods. The longer this innocent behavior went on the guiltier she felt about the whole thing, but she persevered. She needed to keep an eye on him for a few days at the minimum. If someone was spying on her, they would demand daily reports.
She was asked several times if she was okay by her patients and by the time the time she finished, Emily walked up to her with a look of concern written across her face. "What's wrong?" Emily asked, "You look terrible and I know for a fact that you can't get sick."
"I'm having an off day," Maxine replied, "I'm going home and lay down."
"Alright," Emily said with concern, "Just take it easy, okay?"
"I will," Maxine said as she quickly left the clinic and created an arch to return home. She promptly ran to her room and laid down in her bed. However, she never stopped watching Vellus Callaran. Thankfully, he returned to his hotel around the same time that Maxine got home and it was at the moment that she saw his face riddled with guilt.
She struggled not to make any assumptions when she saw that look. She almost sighed in relief when he pulled out a vibrating communication disk. Maybe, he feels guilty about leaving his family behind to come here. But when she saw the face of the very same alchemist that tried to kidnap her some time ago appear above the communication disk, that thought instantly crumbled to dust.
"Report," the alchemist demanded.
"I don't think I can do this anymore," Vellus Callaran said while avoiding eye contact.
"I don't care what you think you can do or not. Now, report," the alchemist snapped.
"Fine," Vellus Callaran said in a downcast tone, "Maxine's emotional defenses are just as firm as they were the last time we talked. She absolutely refuses to come into physical contact with men, myself included. And I doubt she will ever trust any man again once she finds out about what I've been doing."
"Keep your opinion to yourself," the alchemist commanded, "But is that really all you have to report? Don't you care about your family?" Vellus Callaran's head whipped up and glared fiercely at the alchemist.
"And I wonder what would happen if Maxine or her father were to discover what you're trying to do," Vellus Callaran snapped, "Her father literately promised me that he would make me suffer unimaginably if I were to hurt Maxine. Do you really believe that a person with his reputation would spare my family after giving a threat like that? Your threats are practically harmless in comparison. At least, if I come to him with what I know about you, I might end up dying painlessly without implicating my family and you would've made a dangerous enemy."
"Are you done?" the alchemist asked, "Because we both know you won't do that. You wouldn't risk ruining your relationship with Guan's daughter. I've seen how she comfortable she is around you and you appear to be rather smitten with her as well."
"Perhaps, you're right, but I no longer need to say anything to her. She already knows," Vellus Callaran said sadly as he looked straight at Maxine's raven within his shadow, "Isn't that right, Maxine?"
"Yes, it is," Maxine said calmly through his shadow, but her mind was a mess. I want to be angry at him, but I can't. Vellus was just trying to protect his family, but I trusted him. I let him get past my walls and he took advantage of my emotions to spy on me. I would've even try to help him if he told me that he was being forced to spy on me. But it's still not really his fault. It's the fault of the fucker that has his family captive and the Alchemist Association for looking the other way while he does this shit. I'm done giving them chances to change their ways.
Maxine felt her rage climbing and felt the beast within her reared it's head. It's primal fury mirrored her own in that singular moment. To be more precise, it felt as if the beast within was sympathizing with her. So, in this moment, she chose to willingly embrace the beast within her, instead of fighting it like she usually did. On some level, she knew that she would need it's savagery for what she must do. It almost came to her as a surprise that she was able to retain full control over herself.
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
Maxine transformed into her battle form and used her energies to extract every last drop of her venom from her claws. Simultaneously, she grabbed dozens of alchemical ingredients from her dimensional ring for making various poisons. While she was doing that, she felt that something was off with her balance, but only took a mental note of it to look into later.
With a thought, she created six shadow clones and had them begin making various poisons. She couldn't act against the Alchemist Association until those items were ready, but the people manipulating the members of the UN could be dealt with in the mean time.
She spread her spiritual sense through one of her ravens inside of the UN and found that they were having an unannounced meeting. It seems the majority of the attendants in this private meeting are the people that give me the most trouble. Time to crash this meeting and find out who is manipulating them. I've put up with this shit long enough.
She shadow-stepped into a darkened room at the UN building and began to make her way to the UN assembly room. In the back of her mind, she had a brief thought that the shape of her shadow was wrong, but she was too angry to care about it at that moment.
When she finally saw the door to the UN assembly room, a few men blocked her way while shouting at her in a language that she wasn't familiar with and they were brandishing their guns at her. She was undeterred. It's not like a bullet could hurt her at this point.
They opened fire when it was clear that she wouldn't stop approaching and she kept walking forward as the bullets bounced harmlessly off of her skin. She responded by simply raising her eyebrow at them. To their credit, they didn't run, but super-imposed themselves infront of the doors. She calmly walked up to them and while making sure not to kill or injure them, she swatted them to the side with a simple motion of her energies before heel kicking the doors hard enough to render them into fine splinters.
The UN members were already halfway to their emergency exit when Maxine walked in and she sealed the exits with a motion of her energies. "Hello, gentlemen," Maxine said in a polite tone, "I clearly remember many of you complaining that I never came here in person. So here I am and all I get for my trouble is gunfire and you lot running away. I can't help, but feel insulted at such a reception."
"Ms. Levings?" the UN secretary asked in disbelief, "Is that really you?"
"Who else would it be?" Maxine asked while raising an eyebrow. I know that they've seen my battle form in either holographic or video format.
"Is this a new transformation of yours?" the UN secretary asked fearfully, "Or have you always been able to take this form?"
"I'm surprised you didn't know I could transform into this state. You always appeared to be well informed," Maxine said calmly as she spread her spiritual sense to touch the minds of the UN members, "But let's talk about my transformations another time. I've come here with a simple question: Who are the people that think they can mess with Earth's politics?" Like she expected, the UN members thought of the people manipulating them from the shadows and she saw five different faces. To her surprise, she also discovered from their thoughts that those people were currently in Earth's orbit. That simplifies things. I'll scan their ships with my spiritual sense and retrieve any Earthlings onboard before destroying those ships. Or better yet, disable them and bring them down for us to study.
"I don't know," the UN secretary said.
"I believe you, and I must also apologize to everyone here. I read all of your minds just now when I asked that question, so I know who has betrayed the trust of the people. This is your only chance to resign your position before I publicly reveal what you've done and we can all imagine the kind of scandal that would cause in your home countries," Maxine said calmly as she walked closer to them and switched to talking to them via spiritual sense, [If you don't believe that I'm able to read your thoughts, just look at my lips right now and tell me that I'm wrong.]
As she turned to leave, she unconsciously frowned in confusion when she got a better look at the UN secretary. He was shorter than she was. He seems a bit shorter than I thought he would. Now, that I think about it, so those guards were all rather small as well. However, she swiftly dismissed it since she needed to eliminate those trying to mess with Earth's politics.
She sent her spiritual sense through her ravens to scan the skies above Earth and found over a dozen ships in orbit. But, she recognized most of them as being merchant ships due to their size. It only took her a moment to spot six smaller ships and one of them was swiftly breaking orbit that had an insignia for the Alchemist Association. However, no one on board any of those spacecraft exceeded silver stage. I should've known they would send disposable people here.
Maxine shadow stepped onto a mountain that gave her a clear line of sight on all of those ships and pulled out her bow. She gathered nearby energies, along with her own, to form six arrows while her mind calculated the most effective angle and location to strike the ships to disable them. With a swift motion, she fired the six arrows and smiled when the ships' engines stopped functioning.
She raised her left hand up towards the skies as she formed six extremely long tendrils that reached reached out of Earth's atmosphere and wrap around the disabled spacecrafts. Those tendrils slowly reeled in the six spacecraft down to Earth to an open field infront of Maxine and she ordered her shadow wolves to appear in that field just before they touched down on the ground.
Once the ships were in place, Maxine flew towards them and raised an eyebrow at several cultivators that tried to make a run for it. Unfortunately, for them, her shadow wolves caught them and pinned them on the ground. She landed beside the one that was closest to her.
"You can't get away with this, monster!" a very tan woman with green hair screamed while Maxine's shadow wolves held her on the ground.
"I believe I can," Maxine said simply as she landed beside her, "You were technically inside of Earth's thermosphere and that counts as being in Earth space. That fact gives me every right to detain you for questioning. The fact that you tried to flee suggests some form of guilt."
"I wasn't doing anything wrong!" the very tan woman screamed at Maxine and Maxine swiftly stomped on the woman's knee. The woman screamed in agony as Maxine felt her kneecap shatter. At the same time, she felt the beast within smile with approval.
"I disagree. I have evidence that you, and the others present, were manipulating my people and I can't have that. So I'm going to an example out of you and the rest of the rest of these fools," Maxine stated calmly, "I'll send what's left of your bodies back home to be buried if for no other reason than for them to understand that my world is not to be trifled with." The very tan woman paled and Maxine stomped one of the woman's feet into a meat paste. Maxine ignored the resulting screams as she continued stomping the woman's extremities into paste and slowly worked closer to the torso. Unfortunately, the woman lost consciousness before Maxine got that far, so Maxine finished her off by collapsing her chest with one final stomp.
Maxine turned to the others and showed an angry glare that promised that they would suffer a similar fate and she delivered it to them with a cold expression on her face. She saved the man from the Alchemist Association for last and slowly approached him leaving bloody foot prints in her wake. The poor man had already soiled his pants, but he, somehow, still managed to look defiant while stewing in his shit-caked britches.
"Where are Vellus Callaran's kin being held?" Maxine asked him coldly.
"Why? You'll just stomp me to death if I tell you," the alchemist said.
"You'll wish I had stomped you to death if you don't tell me what I want to know," Maxine said as one of her shadow clones finished making a particular poison.
"Eat shit!" the alchemist roared.
"I gave you two chances to answer my question. Now, you will wish you had been more cooperative," Maxine said emotionlessly as one of her freshly made poisons appeared in her hand, "This solution will increase the sensitivity of your pain receptors by several hundred times. In other words, it will make the mere feeling of your clothes will feel like someone is dragging jagged blades across your skin. The mildest itch will be an agony almost too great to bear. The worst part is that it takes months to work it's way out of your system and since it's made using components from my venom, there is no antidote. Are you absolutely certain that you don't want to talk?" She didn't even bother waiting for his response before opening the vial and dipping a single needle into the mixture. She briefly brandished the needle infront of his face and waited a moment to see if he would talk.
"They're at the main headquarters," the alchemist said with a trembling voice.
"Thank you," Maxine said with a smile and jabbed the needle into his thigh.
"But, you said that you wouldn't do that," the alchemist said in horror.
"I never said that. I merely said that you'll wish that you had been more cooperative," Maxine said with a cold expression, "If you want someone to blame for all of this, blame the leaders of the association. They're the ones that started this and they know what they have to do to end it. I would say more, but you won't be cognisant for much longer." She could already see his face twist in pain and had her shadow wolves release him. There wasn't any further point in having him restrained. The pain that he will soon experience will render him completely immobile within the next few moments.
She took the time to collect the remains of the others and put them into her dimensional ring. She sent their dimensional pouches and rings into her room via a portal before pulling out her cellphone. She contacted a few people in the military to alert them to the location of these downed spacecraft. Afterwards, she scanned the interior of the ships with her spiritual sense, but didn't find anything of interest.
Maxine released a sigh and wished she hadn't needed to do such violence. However, something had bothered her earlier. Everyone had given her terrified looks and they were shorter than they were supposed to be. She knew that the appearance of her battle form was common knowledge amongst the members of the UN. The other worlders also behaved in a similar matter. If anything, they should've known exactly who she was the moment they saw her, regardless of which form she took. So, why did they act like they've never seen it before? Is it different somehow? It's possible that my battleform has changed again. It might've been a significant change for them not to realize that it's me. I might as well take a look at myself to see how monstrous I am this time. Maxine spread her spiritual sense out to cover herself and nearly stumbled at what she saw.
Somehow, her height had increased to just over six feet without her noticing, and she had grown another set of arms below her original ones as well as eight snake-like things hanging off of her upper back. They literately reached down just past her knees and due to new growths, her shirt had been practically destroyed. Leaving her tattered sports bra as the only thing that was covering her breasts. I can understand how I missed the height increase if it happened slowly enough. But how the fuck did I miss two extra arms and those snake-things on my back?!
All of those concerns evaporated as she felt barrier that kept her from breakingthrough to gold stage begin to fracture from the pressure of her transformation. Shit! I'm not ready for this! I need to change back to normal before this new form triggers my breakthrough to gold. Maxine desperately tried to revert back to her base form, but her flesh was resisting her attempts. And after only a few seconds, she knew that she wouldn't be able to make it in time. Fuck! Time for plan B. I hope this portable array that Horatio Quay made for me will be enough to keep me from dying.