Lukes “hideout” was actually a pretty sweet shelter. A cave with a small opening on the side of a wall. It was fairly large and had several sections to it, like rooms. One of them had a large crack in the ceiling, which Luke had used as a chimney for a small fire. It would have been dark in the cave, but Luke had hung a series of mirror-like shards strategically on the walls. The light from a small fire was multiplied, giving the cave a low, cozy glow. One wall was dedicated to tools. The pack, filtration device, two of the health sprays, and a knife. Several hand-made tools like a net, stakes, a shovel. A hatchet caught my eye. Not a hand crafted hatchet, but a real one. There was also three strange blades, each about two feet long. They reminded me of scythe blades. His stew was boiled in a large turtle shell. The shell was metallic on the inside. It was a simple fish boil, but it was delicious.
Balor refused to wait outside, and he sat glowering at Luke. He was given a concave shell that acted as a bowl, same as me. He ate at his fish slowly with his fingers. King couldn’t climb into the cave. He whined and cried until I told him I needed him outside to keep guard. This stirred some instinct within him, and he took post immediately.
“This is a nice place you’ve got here.” I said, impressed. “How long have you been setting this up?”
“I know, right? Total pad. I found it day two, been here ever since. Only leave whenever I need new fish. You were lucky I found you.” We leaned against the walls, which were low and curved. It was surprisingly comfortable. Still, I felt tense. I didn’t know this guy. He could be a mass murderer for all I know.
I gestured to the hatchet. “You got a hatchet? I didn’t get one. I had everything else in my pod. Lucky.”
“Yeah, I found it attached to the wall of the pod. It was right next to some extra ration bars. That’s what I mostly ate. But five of those only lasted me a week. I, uh… kind of lost one.” God damn it. I didn’t search my pod carefully enough. “After I landed, I ran from some bird thing. Straight into a jungle. Stay out of there, theres a big bastard of a beast walking about. I was lucky I just lost an arm.” I winced. That sucked.
The casual way he talked about his early experience almost shocked me. But, I’ve met people in prison who did the same. Speaking of the terrible things done to them casually. Some sort of coping mechanism. “Yeah, we’ve met. I came from the jungle.” I wanted to tell him my story, but there was something that I needed to clear the air about first. “So, what were you in for.”
Luke laughed, and smiled. A gold tooth gleamed in the light of the fire. “For acts of grand digital terrorism. You?”
“On the book? Rebellion and treason. In reality, nothing at all.” Terrorism? The way he seemed proud of it… I had a suspicion. If I was right, it would be the luckiest thing that has happened to me. I pinched my nose. There was a brief, meaningful pause, then Luke rubbed his chin. Relief flooded through me. I couldn’t help but laugh. Luke joined me. We were allies this whole time. The code was simple. A pinch of the nose. A scratch on the chin. A marker for like minded individuals. It wasn’t something we talked about inside or outside the system. We didn’t need to. Balor huffed at the action. “He’s cool, Balor. Don’t worry, hes an asshole but the skelky will come around.” Luke also seemed to relax.
“Yeah… I’m sure. So, why do you travel with a pair of monsters? You know what they are, right?”
“Saved King from one of your traps. Balor was more complicated. I’ll tell you the details, but first. What are they?”
“Weapons. Nexocite androids. I think.”
“I knew that. Nexocite weapons is their proper name, I think. They need a better one. I don’t really know what that means.”
“You knew they were nexocite weapons but you don’t know what that IS? How? The only reason I knew is because of my god-tier information network and near-magical hacking skills. The same mythical skills that got me sent to life in prison.” He looked genuinely curious and a bit jealous.
I told him my story. Starting from the beginning. My run ins with Balor, One Eye at the time, meeting and bonding to king. My battle with Balor and his bonding. Luke just listened.
“You can… bond them? USE them? How?” Luke seemed incredulous.
“I don’t know. Just like… touch their metal bits. I think that’s why we are here. So they can figure out how bonding a weapon really works. Or something.”
“That’s huge. HUGE. Nexocite is… how do I explain it. Magic, basically. Its like an organic cell. But it can adjust itself. It can take the form of an animal cell, plant, fungi. It can even take the role of spinal fluid and brain cells. Not by itself, though. It needs to be guided by some sort of meta-code. The documentation I read mentioned a soul, but I think its an acronym or something. Theres more. These cells, with the right code, can do things only theorized AND the impossible. Rewrite logic itself. Bend reality. Create energy from nothing, destroy things absolutely. Its the power of gods. TWO PLUS TWO CAN EQUAL FIVE.” Luke was getting excited. Almost too excited. “And I don’t think we made it.” This all went over my head. I opened my mouth to say something, but he kept going with a fervor. “It’s ALIEN, man. Do you think we could invent something like that?” He pointed a finger at Balor, who growled. “The fact that it… bonded to you is amazing. It can interact with the human mind. And clearly it can write in standard. Or maybe that’s just your brain compensating. Did you see any alien script or-” I couldn’t take it anymore.
“Woah. Slow down. You think there’s an alien god inside me?” Luke nodded, his hair following suit a second later. I pointed at his missing arm. “If that’s true. So do you.” I knew that prime earth seeded countless worlds with their arks long ago. Spreading animal and plant life. Often, they evolved or shifted into new breeds. I thought the people who seeded this planet sort of… sped things along. But, reality altering alien nano-machine cell things? That’s a bit out there.
“Well, that’s different. Its just a coating. Not actually integrated into my biological system.” I showed him my hand.
“My hand was torn to shreds. My tendons snapped. This stuff repaired all that. It’s the same material. I ate some of it, and it got into my bones. I felt it fix me, my entire body. You, one hundred percent, have nexocite in your system.” Luke was shaking in excitement. I could see his mind racing inside his head. This guy was clearly a nut, but he gave the aura of a genius. He spoke quietly and quickly.
“I took the deal so I could get a closer look at this stuff. I wanted to make sure the world was prepared for what was coming. I used every favor I had to get myself here, just IN CASE I was right. Even if by a small percentage. We NEED to bond me to one of these. Fast. If WE could use it, whoever is actually in charge clearly can’t pick and choose who can use it. You said we were here as an experiment in bonding. I don’t think that’s the case. I think we are here to train them. You mentioned stats? We must be here to be something they learn to fight. We are going to turn them into human killing machines just by being here. Then THEY will bond them, and take them off planet.” He kept talking faster and faster. I couldn’t help but to compare luke to a conspiracy nut. But, if that was true… I shuddered. I imagined a pack of Kings hunting down a refugee camp. Or a single Balor taught how to use an assault rifle. The damage would be galaxy wide.
“What’s your point?”
Luke took a deep breath. “You know what is at stake. I need to bond a weapon, if I can. You might be a freak, who knows. No offense. Then, we figure out exactly what they know. We need to out-monster them.”
“How the hell do you imagine we do that?”
Luke smiled, “We need to kill a certain monster. I need my arm back.”
I agreed to help him bond a monster. Luke knew where a nest of them were, which were, as he said, easy to deal with. But that was for the next day. After our tense conversation, we talked about about small things from our past. Our family, experiences in prison, favorite foods. Life in general. A small escape from our current hell. We were interrupted by a whine and a scramble of claws. Balor jumped to action as something scrambled into the cave. King had somehow jumped into the cave, probably with a power up. That was the longest we’ve been apart since I found him. He must have been lonely.
“Uh, dog. No, outside!” Luke cried.
“Ah, come on. Kings harmless.” King snarled at Luke. “Just… don’t pet him. Or get to close. Or rescue him from a trap. Oh, by the way, sorry for ruining your trap.” Luke gave up and accepted the wolf monster in his home.
“That… wasn’t mine.” He went quiet, his eyes widening. We exchanged a glance, a shared realization sinking in. We weren’t the only ones out here.
King had something in his jaws.
“What do you got there, buddy?” I tried to take it from him. He growled. Whatever it was was the size of my palm and was situated inside his mouth snuggly. “Drop it!” With a whine, he obeyed.
It was a gemstone. Purple in color with a symbol carved into it The symbol reminded me of a constellations of stars. The crystal was clear, but taking a closer look there were thousands, maybe millions, of tiny lines etched all throughout it. Inside it in a 3d space, on its surface, everywhere. Looking at it, I felt the familiar tug at the back of my head. I activated it.
SOUL OF THE MAGI
MAGI SOULS ARE PROGRAMED WITH THE CAPACITY FOR MAGIC SKILLS, LEAVING THEM NO ROOM FOR UTILITY, TACTICAL, OR BIOLOGICAL SKILLS. WEAPONS INFUSED WITH A SOUL OF THE MAGI DEVELOP +1 ENERGY AND DEVELOP A RESERVED PERSONALITY.
Luke swallowed. “What… is that?” I told him, then let him look at it. “Amazing. This is… incredibly dense. The information stored here must be astronomical.” I was suddenly reminded of something. I reached in my pack and retrieved my egg.
“Oh, I almost forgot. I got this thing. An egg.” I Took back the soul. The egg was unharmed. So much was going on, I wonder if it would have hatched in my pack if souls weren’t brought up.
“They hatch from eggs? Fascinating. Did it say when it will hatch?” I shook my head. What did the egg say? Please insert soul? There wasn’t a slot or anything. I held the soul near the egg. Luke gasped as the egg began to glow. “I think… I think I can put the soul in it. Should I?”
“Dude.” He looked at my in the eyes, fascinated. “Fucking do it.” I touched the soul to the egg, and it sucked inside it like a vacuum. The egg began to glow brighter. Both Balor and King watched with reverence. It grew warm in my hands. I could feel the weight of it shifting. Before, it felt solid. Now, it rocked and swayed. I was expecting a violent crack, like a bird egg. Instead, the shell simply dissolved away in a golden shower of light.
Around my mind, I felt a feeling of twine wrapping itself around my consciousness, then twirling together into a single strong strand that connected itself to the small creature now in my hand.
YOUR CONNECTION HAS LEVELED UP.
What was left in my hand was tiny. It had the head of a fox, with huge, unsettling eyes. They took up most of its head, and the iris seemed to spin into infinity. Small, gently spiraling motes of light. A night sky accented by a blue glow. Its body was like a fox or a cat, but it had straight, long hair that drooped down to cover its lower legs like a grass skirt. A tail, long and thin, teased from under the dress of fur. It ended in a glowing orb of light.
The creature was curled in my hand, like it was sleeping. It shifted, and gave out a tiny little yawn, stretching its tiny mouth wide. I suddenly knew that I would die to protect this innocence. Its mouth was filled with razor sharp teeth. Well, innocent for now, at least. Then, it looked at me with big, unblinking eyes. Balor put out a shaking finger, gently trying to touch it. The critter lifted an arm, and grabbed the finger curiously with tiny hands. Balor made a soft squeak. I looked at the faces of my companions. Suddenly, I had the feeling that I was now second on the protection priority list. They looked at it with awe and excitement. Luke and I were both speechless.
NEXOCITE WEAPON BORN. BOND SUCCESSFUL. WARNING: YOU HAVE REACHED YOUR LIMIT OF NEXOCITE BONDS.
Huh, only three? Well, beggars and choosers and all that. I brought up its stats.
BLINKET
DESIGNATION: N/A
HEALTH: STABLE
ENERGY: 7
STATUS: Bonded
BOND: 100%
SOUL: Magi
LEVEL: Hatchling 0%
SKILLS:
Blink: 5%
Light: 5%
Bite: 5%
ATTRIBUTES:
Strength: 1
Agility: 2
Density: 1
Energy: 3
Utility: 1
ATTRIBUTES, DERIVED:
Speed: 2
Intelligence: 4
Toughness: 2
Reaction: 3
SPECIAL TRAITS:
Soul Burner
WOULD YOU LIKE TO DESIGNATE WEAPON?
“Yes.” I had a name in mind already. A goddess of the stars and protector of lost children from my own mythology. “Stella.”