[ Anavrit POV ]

As I am leaving the office I turn my disguise module to the unremarkable setting. I immediately feel my watcher signaller stop twitching on my neckless. I feel a bit relieved, I did not like the feel of everyone watching me.

A little distance away from the M.E.G. building I saw a small sandwich shop. I stopped there to grab my lunch. I ordered two lesser salamander egg sandwiches. I was not disappointed, in the sandwich were fried lesser salamander eggs which had a natural spicy taste, with some spinach, tomatoes, onions and some herb slime paste. The last ingredient surprised me a bit as they are usually more pricey but I have to say, its slightly tangy and sweet taste complimented the spicy eggs and cool vegetables well.

After eating I left the shop and started going into random alleys. When I found a dark place where no one was looking at me. I sit down, take out a black leather jacket, glossy yet ethereal looking shirt, a pair of magenta jeans and black spots shoes from my backpack and change into them. I take out a pocket mirror to look at myself. I make my disguise module make my face more angular, my hair neon pink, my eyes sharp and iris purple.

Used another module to make my height taller by a couple of inches by moving my mass, this made me look skinnier. After gaining a couple of inches of height the clothes fit me better. This made me look like a completely new person.

After setting up my new look I took out medallion out of my pack. It looked like a pale purple rose on a ribbon made of almost transparent silk. This was one half of my other masterpiece the ‘ Phantom Rose ‘. I wore the medallion and took out it’s module.

The module looked like a snow globe, but instead of snow, it was fairy fires that were raining from the sky. In the middle was a rose bush on which there were several roses which seemed to flicker from reality as if they were not real but an illusion or the trick of the eye. Around the bush, ghostly figures were dancing, singing and flickering from existence.

As I put the module into the flower, the flower looks more vibrant, more unreal. The silk ribbons start to fray and look more like the roots of a plant. I feel an icy sensation as the frayed ribbons dive into my chest. Attaching themselves to the outer parts of my very soul. The flower starts to flicker faster and faster, then it vanishes in a shower of flickering sparks.

Slowly my hair starts to slightly float and shine in a dim ethereal glow. My eyes take on a ghastly aura. I see the flickering sparks coalesce into a neon purple humanoid form 8 inches tall. The figure seems to stretch but I still do not know how that helps an aetheric construct who does not have muscles or fleshy joints.

“ Awh! Had a great nap. But you should just keep me around you know. Just sleeping isn’t much fun and there is nothing to do in there.” I hear a squeaky yet masculine voice in my ear. I sigh. “ You know why I can’t keep you around. You try to trick people, steal and some other mischief. And not to say I used this form for many crimes, so many people are after this form aka Ghost Rose or as you named us Phantom Rose. I still can’t believe that after gaining full consciousness and sensibility, you chose the name Phantom.” I say the last part in slight frustration.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

Phantom then starts to laugh and says, “ Hey!! It isn’t my fault that my creator (as in you) made me from a ghost rose that had absorbed some soul bits from a chunni 17-year-old kid and a trickster thief. And then fuse into that a fairy fyre plant and some concept and illusion of Fae. And you still say those things yet I have a girlfriend, not you.” He then starts to laugh a bit harder, “An aetheric construct that later gained soul and consciousness got a girlfriend before his all-mighty creator. Ha ha ha !!”

I rub my temple with my finger as he laughs on. “ Now please shut up and turn invisible or something. I have to get the cores. Though you could just keep laughing around then I guess the undead heart might rot and you wouldn’t get a proper body. What do I know, you do you, I guess.” Saying I put my backpack on the floor.

Phantom immediately stops laughing and bursts into sparks, which go into my floating hair. “ Hey! Don’t laze around two legger. Chop! Chop! Hurry!” I hear a squeaky voice in my head. I start chuckling as I pick my backpack up again and start running at the walls of the nearest building.

As I get right in front of the wall I put my foot right on it. I then start running up the side of the building. I telepathically say to Phantom through our link, “ These shoes were a great suggestion of yours.”

“ Of the fricking course they were, they were my suggestions after all. The wall grip and super jump make it very easy to traverse the rooftop of buildings.” He says in a smug tone. We chat a little as we go towards our parcel-picking spot aka his girlfriend's flower shop.

As we near it, we stop our conversation and go into the flower shop. We see that the shop is getting manned by a young woman. She has long velvety deep green hair and a well-proportioned body. She was wearing a long yellow sundress with blue floral patterns on it. She looks at me and beams a bright smile. Her pink eyes sparkling slightly. As I near her she asks in a cheery voice, “ Hello, Rose. Nice to see you! So, where is Phanny ?”

“ Yes, Nice to see you too Jenny. He is in my hair. Though at least this time you greeted me rather than straight up asking for him.” I answer with a sigh. I see her blushing a bit from that reminder. But when Phantom gets out of my hair and takes on a humanoid form and charges her face she starts to giggle a little.

“So where are the packages? Then I might be able to give him a body and anchor so that I don’t have to third wheel anymore.” Jenny immediately takes us to the backroom where I see a wooden mannequin lying on the floor and two boxes and a bag sitting beside it.

I look into the bag and see a seed one-third the size of my fist, pulsating a glow. Labelled ‘ Verdant spriggan seed ‘.

Next to it in a box is a dark purple slightly beating intact heart. Labelled the ‘ Lesser chimeric ghoul heart ‘ beneath it written, “ Soul-Free”.

Besides those two in a larger box were two fleshy-looking orbs which seem to be writhing. Labelled “ The Biomechanical nanite forge” and “ the biomechanical nanite core.”

I look at them with a pleased expression and give Jenny a thumbs up.