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Unbelievable- he had grown so much more powerful in a single night. His power was minuscule compared to her family but his rate of growth easily surpassed the most talented people she had ever seen.

“Stay here.”

The enforcer restrained her with a soul tool and slid away on his twin serpents. Now he was truly doomed. No matter how powerful you were it was impossible to dodge the attack of an enforcer.

***

The boys quickly dismantled the frost bird and brought back a small piece for me to consume. The minions had also managed to tear off a small piece of the frog's flesh even though it hadn’t been killed yet. I split the meat between me and the boys and quickly shoved it down my throat. My body was immediately split apart by a freezing chill and a painful numbness. It felt as if my bones had been replaced with the core of a planet made of ice and my flesh had turned into millions of worms biting at each other. It was terrible.

My world was spinning and my body was giving me hundreds of different signals. One moment I wanted to vomit the next I wanted to eat. This was as bad as the time when I suddenly got sick after running up and down the stairs while eating watermelon. My center of gravity fluctuated rapidly and I began tilting in all directions. Who was the weirdo staring at me from those big ass snakes? Why were his eyes glowing? Fuck!

…

Where am I? Why is it so dark?

“What are you doing here?”

I flicked around and saw myself staring back at me.

“What do you mean?”

“This is our inner conscience.”

“But if I’m here then who’s in control?”

“Not me.”

I glanced around and found that strange man again. I tried summoning the boys but it didn’t work. None of my other powers worked either and I was about as strong as I was before I had gained powers. This was fucking horrendous.

“He doesn’t belong here.”

“I guessed so. Should we kill him?”

“That might work.”

“Together then, surely you can fight?”

“I haven’t been sitting around doing nothing in here.”

“Good, let's go then.”

We rushed towards the man and he suddenly began a strange movement. It looked like he was trying to manifest a weapon into his hands. We both simultaneously tried to do the same thing but nothing happened so we continued rushing towards him. When we reached him he was still struggling to create his weapon. I launched a punch into his balls while other me went straight for his neck. He crumpled to the floor and I grabbed his arm and locked it onto my shoulder. Other me jumped up and stomped down on his elbow, snapping his arm in two and disabling it.

I flipped onto the other side and punched him in the balls once more before grabbing his arm and locking it in place. Other me jumped up and broke his arm again. I reached around and pierced my fingers into his eyes then pulled his head back so his neck was exposed. Other me began throwing thunderous kicks into his neck and crushing his windpipe. His body struggled for a moment longer before it went still and I was snapped back into reality.

When I returned to my body I was still staring at the man on the snake. He slowly collapsed and his snakes slowly dissipated into nothing. I don’t know what that was but I guess we did pretty well. I quickly sent the boys to take a few bites before the snakes completely disappeared.

“Good work up there.”

That should be expected of me.

“I don’t know man, you kinda came off as a wimp.”

Conversing with you is impossible.

While talking I noticed that each of the chimeras had split into two chimeras. That weird guy did have two of the exact same snakes, from what I could tell everyone else only had one creature. But then there was that woman I had gained my powers from, she had three dogs. Maybe she was special as well? Too much thinking! I had one of the boys give me a little bit of their blood and drank it.

***

Clank!

What had happened? Soul shackles would only fall off when their user ran out of energy or died. Had the enforcer died? The answer was already clear but she was still trying to figure out how it could’ve possibly happened. Had rivaling forces killed the enforcer? There was no way that man could have resisted a full frontal assault on his soul. Soul to soul combat was an enforcers specialty, a space where only the power of the soul could be used. There were no special abilities, only your soul weapon and armor. There were rare occasions when young talents were able to defeat enforcers more powerful than them but those instances were few and far between.

In most circumstances they were able to overwhelm anyone weaker than them by account of their higher soul strength. It might’ve been unfair but it worked. From her place of captivity she could see the entire fight. Those fantastic beasts that had unfathomable power were clashing ferociously with all the other clan members and now they were joined by swarms of scythe armed drones. After a short moment of watching she had to rub her eyes to make sure what she was seeing was indeed real.

The beasts were splitting apart into two. Many of the beasts had been injured during the fight but after splitting they began rapidly healing. This! This meant they had consumed the twin serpent! She had become aware of their ability to gain the abilities of anything they ate the first time she had seen it but she didn’t think it could go this far. The twin serpents were a special summon that shared one soul, the other could not be killed if one was still alive. Any damage done would rapidly heal and fix itself if the other was not killed in time.

It didn’t seem that amazing when considering that summoners only had to wait a short period of time for their summons to recover before they could summon them again, but combined with their large bodies and tough scales they formed an almost impenetrable barrier between their summoner and attackers. Perfect for someone with the ability to sit behind cover and launch attacks like the enforcer. But in the hands of someone like Vaun it served as the perfect tool for enhancing the amount of chaos he could cause.

Speaking of, where was he anyways? Her eyes wandered into the center of the beasts and- no fucking way! On the back of one of the beasts Vaun sat shaking and another one of him was crawling out from his body! She could accept everything but this! Once your blood was mixed with that of a magical creature you lost your fertility! The problem of passing on your bloodline could be averted by simply having children before you transformed but Vaun hadn’t had children yet!

In essence that meant that she could not bear his child. The offspring of a man as powerful as him was guaranteed to have a strength that rivaled his. But now that he was like this there was absolutely no way of gaining his power. She could attempt to fuse his blood into hers but she would most definitely die. For now she could only stay by his side and hope he didn’t decide to kill her.

“There you are! I’m glad you haven’t been taken too far away.”

Vaun? She turned around and saw another Vaun looking at her. She turned back and saw the other Vaun still crawling out of the original Vaun’s back. How many of them were there!?

“Oh that. Don’t worry too much, we’re all the same person so it’s fine. Let’s get to the important stuff. How do I stop people from tracking me?”

“Imagine your soul as a light bulb. The stronger it is the brighter it shines. There’s two ways to stop this, you can decrease the power of the lightbulb or you can cover it. ”

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“So what next?”

“Imagine your soul.”

“Alright.”

“Now imagine that all the light coming from it is prevented from escaping.”

“Ok. Is that it?”

“Yes.”

“It doesn’t feel like that's it.”

“Normally we have an energy detector nearby to test if you’ve actually managed to do it but as you can see, we have nothing.”

What she really wanted to tell him was that people who reached this stage had already learned how to see their souls. This situation was only possible with a backwards troglodyte such as the one standing in front of her. She had no idea if it had actually worked or not but he should be able to figure it out sooner or later.

“Give me a sec, I think another one of me is trying to crawl out.”

***

“It’s completely disappeared.”

“What do you mean?”

“All of its signals have vanished.”

“Is it dead?”

“None of the agents have confirmed his death.”

“How about those hunters, could it be them?”

“We aren’t sure.”

“Send someone to ask. It was growing too powerful too fast, we will abandon our feuds if we must but we cannot allow it to continue living.”

***

Once I had finished climbing out of my body I tried summoning more of the boys to no success. On the other hand two new consciousnesses had emerged from the clones I had pulled from my reflection. Very handy I guess. From what I observed these new clones were connected to one another. Although I couldn’t summon more chimeras, the existing ones split into two and the minion eggs now hatched into two minions and one wouldn’t die unless the other died at the same time.

With the addition of the abilities of the poisonous frog the entire area was soon filled with toxic gas and all the attackers had dropped dead. The problem was that all of my neighbors had died as well. Hopefully Elaine wasn’t home. On the bright side the number of chimeras had gone up to fifty-eight which really meant the soul counter had gone up to twenty-nine. Me and the clean up crew roamed the area and disposed of any unwanted waste in the area.

There had been no new powers aside from the frost chicken and the poison frog… and the snake things, couldn’t forget those. It would be kind of cool to be able to shoot webs from my hands but I hadn’t been lucky enough to find a magic spider. I should probably find Elaine now. I had destroyed everything in the surrounding area so her scent would be nowhere near here but she had to have gone in some direction. I was sure that if we stayed on the outskirts of the zone of destruction we would catch her scent somewhere.

Hold on. Was I even sure if she had left the area? Fuuuck. No. She was fine. I would’ve known if she was there. Me and the clones walked around with the boys smelling for her scent. Mary had been thrown atop one of the boys and we quickly found the trail. We couldn’t turn on the jets because it would not only disturb the trail but it would also be impossible to follow it properly. For the first time since gaining their wings the boys decided to sprint.

***

“What have you been up to these past few days?”

“Nothing.”

“Are you sure you haven’t been hooking up with someone?”

“No! If anything he’s a criminal. Who even picks up random cats from the streets?”

“A lot of people pick up stray cats. The real question is why you stayed when you could’ve left.”

“I uhh… he held me captive!”

“I found you guarded by a measly woman who probably still hasn’t figured out what hit her.”

“Why are you asking so many questions? Shouldn’t you be more worried about the war that you and dad have started?”

“I’d be a lot less worried if my sister wasn’t running around the streets getting kidnapped by men with strange obsessions.”

“How’s dad?”

“Dad's fine, it’s mom I’m worried about. She might actually tear off your legs this time.”

“Can we still turn back?”

“Not happening.”

Thump! Thump! Thump! Thump! Thump!

The rumbling of countless pounding footsteps encroached on them before they could even realize that they had been surrounded. They weren’t visible but Elaine recognized the smell of intense danger from this morning. Were they not after Vaun but her? It made more sense now when she considered that they smelled like beasts. Vaun was more interested in spiritual beings and curses.

“Get on my back.”

She heeded her brother's instructions and clambered onto his back. He immediately transformed into a gigantic black tiger and pressed his back into a building.

“You must be the one they sent to get Elaine back. What is with me and finding girls whose families are chasing them? You’re pretty cool I guess.”

Vaun walked out of the shadows while talking and walked up directly to her brother and began petting him.

“Don’t!”

Her brother swatted Vaun into a wall and turned him into a bloody mess.

“Why so aggressive? I didn’t even hurt you. Is this the power of you werecats? It’s pretty impressive.”

To her horror all of his body parts shifted back in place and he stood up from the collapsed wall. In the short period of time he had been petting her brother she had confirmed that the smell wasn’t coming from him. He smelled more like an electrical fire mixed with a cool mintiness. A bittersweet smell to sum it up.

“What are you doing Vaun?”

“Well you know, you kinda disappeared. So, I decided to find you. It’s my only chance to have a cat girl you know?”

“It’s better you stay out of my matters, we live different lives.”

“Not this bullshit. I literally just got finished disposing of some bad boys who came to take my book of knowledge away from me. Don’t tell me that you are doing this for my safety either, if you do I’m going to punt you into the ocean. Be honest with me, do you want to stay?”

It had been fun messing around in the outside world but it was probably time she returned home. She couldn’t afford to be a burden to her family.

“…I think I should go. It’s not for your safety, it’s for the safety of my family.”

“Holy shit! An arranged marriage!? No fucking way! Who is it!? I’ll wipe out their family so don’t worry. What kind of fucked plot is this?”

“It’s not marriage, it's war.”

“War? Even better! Let me come with you guys, my house is kinda gone and I think it’ll be more interesting with you. Plus I can take you anywhere you want on this planet.”

“That won’t be possible, we will not reveal our home to outsiders.”

“So you could talk this whole time? I don’t know why you didn’t start with that. Like it or not I’m coming with you guys, don’t make me take the hard route. I don’t want to give Elaine a bad impression of me.”

“I’d like to see you-”

“Nope! We are not doing this. Mister Cat, listen carefully. You might not care about your life but I do. So we are going to resolve this peacefully and like civilized people. If you want I’ll even take a vow of marriage with Elaine right now.”

“I- what? Just mind your own business!”

“Okay fine. I’ll be honest. I just wanted to eat a shifter for their powers. I haven’t eaten you because you seem important to Elaine so I decided to just eat the other guys. That’s why I want to go with you.”

That was even worse! No one was stupid enough to bring someone who wanted to eat them into their own home!

“Now that you know my secret you have two choices. You can take me to go eat your enemies, or I can eat you right here. Don’t even think about escaping. Not unless you can fly at the speed of light.”

From the darkness hundreds of huge beasts emerged along with thousands of smaller blade armed creatures. Her brother was capable of handling swarms like this but the main issue was that she couldn’t.

“Just let him go with us, he won’t harm us.”

“How do you know?”

“Would you rather we die?”

“…Fine. Just remember that the only chance you’ll have to regret this is in the afterlife.”

“So where are we headed?”

“Not far, just the forest on the outskirts of the city.”

“I’ll follow you.”

***

I recalled all of the boys except for the ones we were riding on. I had split all the twins up and sent them in different directions, essentially making us invincible. Perhaps I should continue attacking the prisons. Yeah, I should. In the off chance that I do get captured I’ll just keep one of the main bodies somewhere safe. One of us is going with Elaine so I should be mostly fine. Along the way I had discovered that although I couldn’t summon more chimeras both of the twins had access to the chimeras.

The total number of chimeras would just have to be split between them. Which to be fair, wasn't really a bad thing. If I split up the chimeras and their twins the same way I did my twins then we would all be undefeatable. Simply put, my genius was almost frightening. We split into six directions and began our attack on the evil in this world, plus, if my math was right then the next set of twins would be available shortly. It still astounded me how there was absolutely nothing in this world powerful enough to stop me. Surely that wasn’t possible.

***

“Boss! Numerous reports of prisons being attacked are incoming!”

“Tell the hunters that we’ll give them the right to recruit the public! Just have them deal with this anomaly!”

“Yes boss!”

***

In a dark room protected by endless seals, talismans, guards, and enchantments a group of men and women with mystical auras sat around a table and discussed.

“Surely you are all aware of the current situation?”

“We should smite down this demon immediately!”

“That would yield far worse consequences, I have already sent my daughter to resolve the situation.”

“Don’t think we don’t know what you are planning. It’d be better to kill him than let him fall into the wrong hands.”

“I wouldn’t mind taking him into my forces.”

“Now’s no time to be thinking with your lust.”

“What is the likelihood that we are able to completely destroy him?”

“I’m unsure, the future is changing too rapidly. All my visions are blurred.”

“I’ll send my warriors to kill him immediately!”

“I will have my clan use our strongest sealing technique on him. I plead that those of us who are capable work in conjunction to curse him as well.”

“We will do so.”

“Then we have an accord. We must not fail our tasks, the fate of the world sits upon our shoulders.”

“I plead that we do not take this course of action, my daughter will not disappoint us.”

“Silence! We will not allow the wellbeing of the world to rest in the hands of a woman like you!”

***

After getting another pair of twins our rate of work increased exponentially. The only hindrance was that we weren’t very clear about which buildings were prisons and which were schools. The number of chimeras had already increased to thirty-nine and we were fairly close to getting another set of twins. Why was my vision darkening? Shit.

…

“You’re back?”

“So I’m here again?”

“Yep, take a look around.”

Holy fucking shit! We were surrounded by an endless crowd of people in all assortments of robes.

“This is so fucked, we might stand a chance if we had a knife.”

“Well, we don’t. I guess this is it for us. Not a bad ending to be fair.”

“No. This is a terrible ending. We were just about to change the world.”

“Well… we can go out the way we wanted.”

“I’m glad we agreed on at least one thing.”

“Together then?”

“Together then.”