Stepping out of the conference room and closing the door behind me, I walked as if in a daze to the restrooms. I splashed my face with cold water over and over, trying to push away the feeling of disgust and wrongness. A part of me desperately insisted that those final minutes of conversation were indeed with Kali, and yet…
And yet there was that tiny little voice wondering “what if?”. What if this whole thing was one massive elaborate hoax or trap? As illogical and absurd as it would be, it didn’t take away from the feeling at the pit of my stomach. Worse, even being mostly sure it was really her, it raised other uncomfortable questions. What if she got a call and the one being impersonated was me?
Splashing some more water, I promised myself that if I ever found out whoever was responsible for that, I’d punch them.
…
Ok, maybe not PUNCH them. Just the sort of “tap” that might break a few bones rather than instantly pop them like a meat balloon. A perfectly non-lethal punch. “God, this is just so…” The words lingered, but I didn’t finish, staring at my reflection with soaked hair and a dripping face.
Something about the anger I found in the mirror was not comforting. I made sure to take several more minutes of just breathing and splashing cold water on my face before finally stepping back to the bar.
“Oh God, Axel, you have you taste this!” Isia practically bounced out of her seat as she presented a platter containing a piece of cake. “It’s the best thing ever!” She beckoned me towards the bar, passing over the tiny place.
I spared a glance at Cate, the owner giving me a nod I could only assume meant she’d been informed of what had transpired by Kali. Though rather than focus on the platter, or the pastry, my eyes fell on the fork. Silver, with swirling designs engraved on it… familiar swirling designs. Frowning, I reached into the small pouch I’d been using to carry around stuff I didn’t want to risk getting pick-pocketed, pulling out a fork with the same engravings. The one I’d been carrying around was missing three prongs and looked incredibly worn, but it was the same pattern.
“Now that is a surprise.” The owner spoke up. “I never thought I’d see that little fella again.”
“You know Shadow.” I said.
“I know a lot of people.” Cate answered. “None of them are named ‘Shadow’, but I’m sure a few use that moniker.” She gestured at the fork. “But if you mean the one who stole that, then yes, I’ve seen her a few times.”
“Can you help-”
My words were cut off as she raised a finger, reaching under the bar and pulling out a blender. “Yes, some might call me an elder, but I’m neutral in this little fiasco you’re entangled in. Having said that, there is a really important question you should answer.” She pulled out two tupperwares. “Watermelon or banana?”
“Neutral… how?” I asked carefully.
“Banana it is.” Ignoring my question, she put one of the tupperwares away and proceeded to empty the other into the blender. “Don’t worry about the price, guests get their bill passed on to the one that invited them.”
Isia leaned closer. “Hey, if you don’t like this Kali girl, maybe we could get a full course?”
I snapped. “Could you please-” But stopped before I did anything, breathing in and rubbing the bridge of my nose. “This is important, Isia, please.”
“I’d listen to her if I were you.” The elder commented.
“Please stop ignoring my question!” I whipped around to look at the older woman. She just stood there, staring at me flatly. “Look, sorry, ma’am,” I said. “It’s just… you’re an elder, and if I can get just… Shadow’s…” My words jumbled, and I quickly sat back down. “Can you help me? Please?”
She shook her head. “I can’t intervene.”
“Can’t or won’t?”
“Cards on the table? It doesn’t matter on your end of things, kid.” Cate replied. “You wouldn’t give some considerable chunk of your life’s savings for a stranger. Same thing here.”
“Uhm…” Isia had been quietly watching the exchange, eating another piece of cake. “I feel like I’m missing a lot from this picture.” She glanced between the two of us before staring at Cate. “Who are you?”
“I’m the owner of the place.” The older woman shrugged in response, turning to look at me. “The real tickler is who’s your friend here. Or what, to be more exact.”
“I… am not a meguca.” I declared.
“That much I can tell.” She answered.
“But my blood is very similar to a meguca’s.” I answered in return.
“I don’t doubt that.” Cate made a vague gesture at my chest. “Though things go deeper than just the fleshy bits.”
“It’s related to cores… right?” I asked, partially on a hunch, mostly shooting in the dark. I remembered the description of the weird ability I’d used against the stonereaver. How it specifically pointed out it could only be used against cores that were imperfect… unlike those of a meguca.
Cate’s reaction to my question was one of slight surprise, her eyes widening ever so slightly. “Interesting.” She muttered under her breath as her eyes took a slight amber glow.
“Oh, those are some pretty augs.” Isia cooed. “Where you get them?”
“They’re not augs,” I said at the same time Cate had, the elder meguca making me feel as if she were staring straight into my soul. Somehow, I was certain she was using her powers in some way.
This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
She was the one to continue, putting down the milkshake on the bar. “Hm… You’re the one that made that ruckus a couple days ago, weren’t you?”
“Rukus?”
“Don’t pay it any mind, I’m just satisfying my curiosity.” She kept pinning me to the chair with those orange, glowing eyes. “Was that when you got hurt? The important non-fleshy bit, I mean.”
“I’m… yes.” I replied, briefly considering how much I wanted to tell her, and Isia by extension. “I was fighting monsters, but things got a bit too chaotic.”
“Drink.”
“What?”
“Drink.” She replied, finger dinging against the metal and looking at me impatiently. “It’s good, I can guarantee it.”
Tentatively and somewhat hesitantly, I obliged. The refreshing, cool sweetness of the beverage was eclipsed by the fruit’s flavor. “This isn’t banana,” I said, entirely certain of what I was tasting, there was a fatty texture to it, and an acidic touch that reminded me more of sour-drop candy.
She chuckled. “Is it good, though?”
I took another long taste. The flavor mix was new, but strangely invigorating. “It is. Very good, actually.” My stomach gurgled, reminding me I’d not eaten in several hours, and I found myself chugging the whole thing down. I hadn’t even put it down when I found a second one already waiting for me. “Uh…”
“It’s on Kali’s tab, I’m sure she won’t mind.” Cate offered, eyes glowing orange as she kept looking me over as if trying to solve some sort of puzzle. But whatever it was she was searching for, it seems she found it, as she let out a sigh and shook her head.
“UEGH. What in the sewer dump is this!?” Isia retched, gagging as she shoved away the empty metal cup she’d just took a taste of.
“It’s not banana,” The owner chuckled before turning towards me.
“Sorry, I got a little distracted there.” Despite my words, I took the second cup. I didn’t drink, however, eyeing Isia who was staring at me with a green expression on her face, I turned back to Cate. “I really need your help.”
“I’m sure you do, kid, but truth be told? You’re kinda fucked.” She answered. “The one that made you the way you are is not the most popular of the bunch. Not that I’d take a shot at her, mind you, I just don’t have much of a reason to lift a finger to help either.”
“What about the first meguca?” I asked. “When the doc took me in, she said the first cataclysm could’ve been avoided if some big mistake hadn’t been made with the first meguca.” I tightened my grip on the cup.
Cate frowned slightly. “That’s…” Her eyes glowed again as she looked at me. “Tell me, are you natural or not?”
“Does it matter? You sound like you’re certain I’m not.” I replied humorlessly. “Are you going to help me or not? You keep talking about neutrality and factions that I don’t know anything about, let alone care right now.”
“It matters whether or not you believe it is.” She answered, gaze unmoving. “You have all the signs of being cobbled together by someone that didn’t fully understand what they were doing. But at the same time, your core couldn’t have been made in some lab.”
“Well, I’ll let you watch it some more if that means I get to not have Shadow hunt me down.” I stated.
The elder let out a long tired sigh. “I will not intervene, not as an elder.” Somehow, she made the declaration sound as if she were admitting defeat. “Bear and Kali vouched for you, that carries a lot more weight than it might seem initially. I guess I can lend some help.”
“Help… how?”
Sitting there, staring at the older woman as she pointed at my chest. “You fucked up your core, part of the reason why that happened is because it was damaged from the start.”
I hesitated. “Like… a monster’s?”
“Fuck no.” She waved me off. “There’s a quality to cores, a shape. Monster cores are like a bunch of mismatching pottery pieces from a trash-bin, all glued together haphazardly with suffering and pain. The shape’s all wrong, the pieces don’t even fit, the material doesn't match, and it’s just hurting everything it touches and itself.” She gestured at herself. “A meguca’s is closer to a small sphere, usually very dense, but you…” Her brows furrowed as she gestured at me. “Yours is more like an amateur found a broken pot and tried putting it back together without glue, so they compensated by wrapping it in whatever they could fashion into rope.” Her brows furrowed even further. “It’s almost as if your core is… no, it’s not relevant right now.”
Though I felt a part of me understood what she was talking about, I also was rather certain I was entirely out of my depth in the subject. There was, however, one hopeful little sliver of thought. “Is there some way to fix it?”
“There might be, you understand I’ve never found anyone with a core like yours.” She tapped the counter, letting out a thoughtful hum. After seeming to finally settle on something, she reached out across the bar, she offered her hand, and I stared at it for a moment. “Don’t worry.”
Tentatively, hesitantly, I grasped it.
A jolt ran up my arm, I jumped, except I couldn’t let go, Cate’s grip had become iron. It was like trying to move a statue.
“Do you know what kintsugi is?” She asked, her smile amused, even as the tingling traveling up my arm intensified. “It’s the art of mending broken vases using gold. Think of what’s about to happen as something along those lines.” Her smile cracked, showing a darker edge to it. “It’ll hurt like a motherfucker, though.”
The tingling turned into the sort of numb pain of knowing something should hurt intensely, but being too anesthetized to feel it. At first, it was merely localized to my arm, but it soon spread into my chest, and at that point the numbing was gone. My mouth clamp shut and I choked on the scream I’d been about to let out, body tensing up then going limp immediately after. It got worse from there, a new wave of searing heat slowly poured itself into my body, filling the tip of my limbs and moving towards my chest. The heat burned everything, my mouth tasted of blood, and the heat burrowed itself so deeply into me that I felt my chest was going to explode.
My ears were ringing, my vision was white, the world was spinning. I’m sure there was something being said, something happening, but everything was reduced to that singular sensation of my insides getting melted.
I didn’t even realize the experience was over until I blinked and found myself face to face with the floor.
“Axel?” Isia’s voice was trembling, a soft hand pressed against the side of my head. “Axel, you ok?”
“Been better.” I croaked, blinking away teary eyes and looking up at Isia. She was glaring daggers at Cate, the sort that would’ve also involved pulling out a gun if she could. The bartender didn’t look remotely bothered by this as she popped off the blender and leaned over the bar to offer the drink to me.
“Strawberry?”
“Thanks.” I muttered through lips that felt as if they’d fallen asleep. The cool, smooth sugary flavor washed over me in waves of fruity delight, making all the pain slowly evaporate.
“Feel any better?” Isia spoke hesitantly, and I noticed Cate was also looking at me curiously.
“Yeah,” I said, relaxing with a long sigh as everything eased off of me. Despite the very nasty recent experience, my whole body felt as if I’d just woken up from the most restful sleep ever. “I feel better.”
“Good.”
Isia proceeded to punch me, right in the nose.
“What the hell!?” I recoiled, it had hurt, not enough to break anything, but it had hurt.
“I fucking knew you could glow, but you went all ‘nuuuh, must’ve been a trick of the light’ bullshit!” Isia snapped, reeking of tension and adrenaline. I saw a slight shake in her hands as she clutched them tightly. “God damned gonk!”
Level Up!
Upgrades Unlocked!
The system chirped happily, not bothering to explain what it meant with “levels” or anything else, really, just rubbing up against me all smug and excited to show me new things.