CHAPTER 1: A REALLY BAD DAY
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Today was supposed to be a good day thought Kallias. Just another basic training excursion into the fringes of the monster-infested wastelands, it was supposed to be easy, not like this. Kallias suddenly felt a short drop downwards followed with a spike of pain in the remnants of his right eye socket.
Damn wasp couldn't it take it a bit easier flying, or better yet let me go. I'm clearly near the max weight it can carry thought Kallias.
Currently, Kallias was being carried back to what he could only assume was the wasps nest. The way it was doing it was horrifying to him, it's claw had skewered through the bottom of his jaw and was coming out of the now empty right eye socket carrying him using his skull as a handhold.
He'd been in full panic mode for a good hour into the flight before he started to calm down and think rationally. He was still alive, that was a good thing. That also meant another thing, he had finally awakened his power. Normally this would be a cause of great celebration but today it only brought him dread. It seemed like he had awakened a non-regenerative semi-immortality power, a great power for a civi, but for a fighter or especially a person in his situation it was hell on earth. He'd never be able to heal, nor die short of special means, what those means were he'd have to get it tested. Luckily his version of immortality sealed up the injured areas of his body, thus no bleeding out, which was a nice boon. It still left an empty hole though he thought as he looked through the hole where his liver once was. You win some you lose some.
But enough of those thoughts, now he needed to survive. To survive he needed to move which was currently impossible thanks the to sting of this bloody wasp. Mother fucker. At least he still had his combat knife holstered on his belt. Once he could move again it would work wonders killing this wasp.
A breeze of frigid air blew past his body. Holy shit it's cold Kallias cursed, it was below freezing and he was without a jacket. It had been ripped apart by the wasp's attack, looking at the white snow below him made the cold so much worse. If he didn't have a wasp claw through his mouth right now his teeth would be chattering up a storm. Fuck fuck fuck fuck! he thought as the pain coursed through his body again. After the pain had stopped he had a flickering thought Hmmmmm, I don't usually swear but it does help the pain. Maybe I should talk to Teach about it when I get back if I ever do...
His thoughts that were quickly turning dark stopped short with the appearance of an approaching cliffside that was dotted with many meter and half wide holes. As he got even closer he could hear a faint buzzing separate from the one above his head, confirming to him that this was his destination. With the increase of the buzzing, he again tried franticly to break free of his paralysis, he could wiggle his fingers slightly, it was wearing off, but not fast enough.
The wasp flew directly for one of the holes in the cliff, once it got to its target hole it dragged Kallias inside causing a muffled screech of pain to exit his mangled mouth. His heartbeat immediately shot up in fear of what the wasp would do after his yelp, but to his surprise, it did nothing and continued bringing him into the dark nest.
Eventually, the wasp brought him to a large hollowed-out cavern that was filled with rotting corpses of every kind, from bears to the occasional human. As he was brought in the smell hit him like a brick wall and bile rose from his stomach only to get swallowed down. With a casual swing, the wasp threw him onto the largest pile, at the same time ripping its claw from his head. This time he didn't scream but his remaining eye watered up. As he lay there in agony he couldn't help but think what an awful day.
Time moved on, how much time Kallias didn't know, in this dimly lit cave there was no way to tell, the only indication he had was his growing hunger and gradual loss of his paralysis. Surprisingly he didn't feel sleepy, though it was doubtful that it was his power keeping him awake, it was more likely the terror he felt that was robbing him of sleep.
Suddenly he heard a loud squelching sound to his right, he froze. After a short while, the squelching continued and he slowly turned his still semi-paralysed head to the right to get a look with his good eye. What he saw disturbed him greatly, the outline of a wasp ripping the rotting flesh from a giant spider not more than 10 meters away from where he lay. It was not the sight that disturbed him it was the fact that he didn't even notice the wasps presence until it began eating. They were so silent when not using their wings he thought with fear. The wasp could have walked up to him and taken a bite without him even noticing, the thought terrified him. He could only stay as still as possible and take shallow breaths hoping the wasp wouldn't notice him if it did his near paralysed state would mean certain death in a fight against the wasp.
Squelch, crunch, slurp. The sounds of the wasp eating pushed Kallias even further to the edge of panic. After what seemed like an eternity the wasp finished and for a brief moment looked at Kallias and then exited the cavern. Kallias counted to 100 in his head before releasing a shuddering breath. Calming down he stretched a bit, to the best of his current abilities, which wasn't much but they had increased, the sting was wearing off. He decided to turn his head and body so that he could watch out for any more wasps entering.
A while after the previous incident Kallias was flexing his limbs, they were still stiff but he could use them with not too much effort, he could probably walk now if he tried. Just as he was about to get up he spotted a shadowy figure at the entrance. That was close he thought. Slowly he reached down to his knife gently un-holstering it with his left hand. If it came down to a fight he would go down swinging. Besides he knew their weakness now, being carried by one for several hours had given him plenty of time to look for weaknesses.
It started crawling in his direction, in a few moments, it was above Kallias. Desperately holding his breath Kallias hoped the wasp would move on. But that hope faltered when the wasp stood directly on his stomach causing a short exhale of air to exit his body. Kallias watched as the wasps Antena twitched, at that moment he made his decision. He lept up under the body of the wasp towering over him, knife in hand with as much force as he could muster, he stabbed the knife in the gap of the carapace on its neck. Yellow blood started pouring out straight away. Even with the surprise attack, the wasp reacted swiftly, its abdomen along with its stinger swung towards Kallias's groin. He franticly dodged the attack, coming within centimetres of getting hit. Retaliating he hacked at its thin neck again, managing to decapitate it with his effort. Despite its head being cut off, he wasn't safe yet, the headless abdomen kept swinging wildly at his direction. He kicked at the abdomen trying to change it's direction almost getting his foot stabbed through in the process. after half a minute of kicking the abdomen away, it finally ceased moving.
With immediate danger out of the way, for now, Kallias collapsed onto his back panting heavily. His muscles burned as if lava had been poured down them, no doubt caused by the leftover venom in his system. With a few more minutes of panting, he got up to inspect his kill. The wasp was truly monstrous, it's stinger was the length of his forearm and it was only a tiny fraction of the size of the wasp.
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Staggering over to its head he felt a deep unexplainable urge to extract the eye out of its skull. Kallias instinctually knew the best way to do it and before long he held the eye in his hand. It was a dull red coloured compound eye at twice the size of a human eye, it looked beautiful, like a jewel. Kallias's new instincts instructed him to put it up to the gaping hole that once was his eye socket, gently he inserted it. Abruptly his face started squirming around the eye, pulling it in place, shocked he let go of the eye. But instead of it falling out it was held firmly in place, strangely he felt no pain during the whole affair.
A few moments later it was like someone had turned on the lights and Kallias saw a whole new world in bright whitish-violets, the world was like a mosaic pieced together with thousands of tiles. Kallias looked around the room in a daze, the act was completely natural like he'd been born with the eye instead of his normal right eye. Snapping out of his daze he was shocked with what he had just done what the hell have I done, I've turned myself into a monster he thought. But weirdly he felt no revulsion to what he'd done, he felt quite exhilarated and his instincts craved more "upgrades".
Actually he thought to himself It makes sense that my power wasn't just semi-immortality, I always had markers that I would awaken a healing, plant bending or animal type power, semi-immortality doesn't fit the bill. But what is this power? I've never even heard of it before, chimaera powers, bio-integration maybe, I don't know. I better ask the teachers once I get back. With his new power, he felt like he had better odds for his escape back to civilisation.
Shelving his thoughts he gathered up his knife wiping the yellow blood off on his pants. He took a stock check of everything he had on him, 1 combat knife, a small pack of matches, a packet of cough drops and a small plastic bag. He'd put most of his supplies in his backpack and that had been ripped away from him. Mercifully he still had his combat knife along with his matches, they would be invaluable in this weather. Flexing his still burning limbs he planned to get out of this feeding pit as soon as possible. He walked to the entrance and quietly checked for any incoming wasps, with the coast clear he crept into the tunnels.
Using all of the limited amount of stealth training he had, he walked as silently as possible down the way he thought he had come from. It helped now that he could see much better, the walls glowed with the white-ish light. It was probably some form of UV bioluminescence he mused. Now that he was over the initial shock of getting a new weird eye he found that he quite enjoyed the view, you could say it let him view the world in a whole new light. Stifling the beginnings of a chuckle he berated himself you idiot now's not the time, now's the time to focus. You can make stupid jokes once you get out of this hell alive.
Rounding a corner he saw another large cavern but this time it was much larger and filled with a more traditional paper wasp nest. Looking closer he concluded he had certainly gone in the wrong direction, in the papery substance that made up the cells huge larvae were wriggling around inside. oh boy! he thought this is not the place I want to ever be.
In the middle of his thoughts, he noticed movement at the edge of his new senses from further down the tunnel and darted into the nursery. Hiding at the side of the entrance with his knife ready he waited for the wasp to either pass or attack him. After a few intense minutes of waiting, he started to count to 100 once he was finished he stuck his head around the corner. That turned out to be a terrible decision as he saw no more than 2 meters away from him the face of a wasp.
Jolting back inside the nursery Kallias saw the wasp leap into action after him. As it rounded the corner he swung at its neck, its reaction was much quicker than he expected. Its razor-sharp mandibles snapped onto Kallias's right arm and dragged him down towards its abdomen where its stinger was out and already jabbing towards his torso. Changing the direction of his swing he hit the extended stinger with the knife wishing that he could deflect the attack. To his surprise the knife cut part of the way through the stinger cracking the length of it, rendering it unusable.
As payback, the wasp violently swung him by his arm causing a guttural roar of pain to exit his mouth. As he was getting flung around like a rag doll the wasp jabbed at him with its front claw. In a panic, he used his foot to try to block the incoming attack getting rewarded for his efforts with a claw penetrating through his left foot. Realising that he was in a dire situation he put his everything into his next attack jabbing the knife right through its exposed neck, twisting the knife for extra effect. This prompted the wasp to drop its grip on his right arm leading to him falling on his back, in the process winding him.
The wasp likely sensing its approaching doom lost its mind started buzzing its wings and flying around the cavern hitting the walls repeatedly until it stopped moving and fell to the ground. Lying on the ground in exhaustion Kallias contemplated how close he had been to dying, if anything had gone differently he felt like he would have been a goner. He mentally made a note to never again slack off during the combat classes once he got back.
After the pain started to subside he sat up to get a better look at his right arm. It did not look good, it was dislocated at several places including the shoulder. But that was the least of his worries, bones stuck out at several places and his bicep looked like bloody ribbons after the wasp had grabbed him there. The fading of the pain was marked by his body sealing up the areas around his injury's, at this point, it was clear he would never be able to fix his arm. Weighing up his options he wiped his knife off on his pants and clenched his jaw as he brought the knife up to his shoulder and awkwardly cut off his arm. Thankfully the action was relatively painless, less than when it got destroyed. This was probably his ability helping him again as it already considered his arm a dead part.
With his arm now lopped off he wanted to test if it could be reattached with his ability, pressing it against his stump he felt no movement from his ability, while he had wished for a different outcome his instincts told him that once a part was dead or separated he would never be able to attach it again. Dragging himself to his feet he noticed that his left foot was considered dead to his body now as well. He couldn't see the damage with his shoe still covering it but the amount of blood that caked the shoe was evidence enough. Deciding not to replace it he stumbled towards the corpse of the wasp. The act of walking with his dead foot felt like what he imagined walking with a peg leg would be like.
Once he got to the wasp's body he looked at the front limbs, they looked like a combination of a normal wasps limb and a scorpions front pincers. They had two thin but razor-sharp claws that came together to a sharp curvy sword-like point, this was what went through his foot. The limb itself had the same joint structure as a normal human arm except with an additional section in between the shoulder and its version of the Humerus. It was about 1 and half times bigger than the normal human arm size, not ideal but it would have to do. Kallias let his instincts guide him as he extracted the wasps front right limb.
As it was attached, his stump and the wasp's limb merged into one with some of the carapace moving to cover the stump. When the merge was completed he felt as if he had been born with the arm instead of his old one. The extra joint proved to be no problem and he could use the arm exactly how he wanted to. Its extra length was also no issue as his body automatically knew how to move with the increase in limb size. Testing out the new arm Kallias brought the two blade-like pincers to a close and stabbed them towards the plated abdomen of the wasp's corpse. To his shock, the pincers pierced straight through the abdomen with little effort. Holy shit! he thought giddily this arm is so strong. With this new arm his odds of surviving just ticked slightly upwards.
Gathering his belongings and making sure his knife was holstered in place he hobbled towards the entrance of the nursery. Taking a deep breath he prepared himself to at long last get out of this place.