Sam stepped outside, the sun illuminating his face. The door creaked as April closed it behind her, ending up next to Sam on the porch. A car screeched from beyond the trees where the road was located, and a furrow appeared on Sam’s brow. “Did you call a driver?” he asked April as the car approached his home, the sounds its engine made growing louder with every passing second.
“No,” April said. She pointed at the yellow car shaped like a semi-circle parked not too far away. “That’s my car.”
“Someone’s coming,” Sam said. Even though the car wasn’t in sight, through his psychic vision, Sam knew the driver was intending on stopping at his home. It was faint, but he detected a second person’s presence as well. “I think there’s two of them.”
“Did you unlock your Sahasrara?” April asked. “I don’t mean to criticize or pry, but wouldn’t it have made more sense for you to work on unlocking your Manipura?”
“Why would it make more sense to do that?” Sam asked. As far as he knew, the Manipura was the solar plexus chakra, but if he were to follow Ellie’s training guide, the next logical step—if Birdbrained hadn’t awakened his crown chakra—would’ve been to unlock his sacral chakra.
“Well,” April said and tilted her head. “Isn’t that what most awakened do? Unlocking the Manipura allows one to channel their intent out of their bodies and onto an object. It’s pretty standard for a fighter to have unlocked it. How will you fight monsters otherwise?”
Sam fell silent as he listened to the car approach his home. His fighting style did seem a bit … odd. With his root chakra, he could manipulate his body to mimic vibrations he had felt before, and if someone made contact with him, they’d experience the vibrations as well. If he wanted to make his enemies nauseous, he had to make himself nauseous first. However, with his crown chakra unlocked, he could interact with people without actually touching them through the use of his psychic vision and the accompanying strands of lightning.
“Well, I’m sure you know what you’re doing,” April said before shrugging. “Things must be different when you have an S-ranked talent. It’s easier to unlock and make progress in your chakras, right?”
Sam wasn’t quite sure about that. Although it was true his talent unlocked and mastered chakras for him, without meeting specific requirements, he couldn’t make the tiniest bit of progress unlocking his chakras on his own. He wasn’t sure if he’d ever find any other crystals capable of transforming into higher-dimensional beings like Raindu and Birdbrained. One was an over-three-hundred-years-old woman’s famed weapon, and the other was a massive chunk of selenite—the material of the GMC Sam had learned after the theft—manipulated in a long-forgotten way to control a whole species; if he wanted to unlock the rest of his chakras, he’d need other crystals on the same level as those two.
April stared at Sam in silence. After a bit, she scratched her head. “If you aren’t good at unlocking chakras, well, don’t be too discouraged,” she said. “After all, your talent was artificial, and you have the graylings working for you, right? They can keep you safe; you don’t have to do any hunting on your own.”
“That’s a good point,” Sam said and blinked. He hadn’t thought about before, but if he sent the graylings out to hunt monsters for him, he could get whatever he needed from the comfort of his home. Before he could think more about the topic, a black car came into view. It sped down the driveway, and with a loud screech, it came to a sudden halt an inch away from April’s yellow car.
The front door of the car opened, and a familiar face stepped out: the driver who had earned his spot through nepotism. “Yo!” he said, waving at Sam before walking to the back door of the car. “I have a delivery for you.”
The driver opened the backseat, and Wendy stepped out. With the textbook-sized parcel in her hand, she slapped the driver’s forehead. “Don’t announce my presence like I’m some kind of object,” the blonde-haired woman said. Her black and red eyes landed on Sam as she extended the parcel towards him. “Here. I promised I’d get you this.”
“Oh,” Sam said and stepped forward to take the package from Wendy. “Thanks.”
“Open it,” Wendy said, crossing her arms over her chest.
By reading her vibe, Sam had a feeling Wendy was hiding a tiny glob of giddiness, and he got a bad feeling. Anything that’d make the half-reptilian happy was something he wouldn’t enjoy. “Right now?” Sam asked and gestured towards April by tilting his head in her direction. “I’m kind of busy.”
“I don’t mind,” April said and took a step to the side, distancing herself from Sam lest Wendy get the wrong idea about her relationship with Sam. She was simply his personal nurse, and her goal was to mooch off of him, not get in the way of his personal life—that’d make it hard to be a subtle leech if she did.
Sam held back his sigh. His plan to use April as an excuse to avoid opening this clearly ominous parcel failed. He tore off the box’s wrapping paper, and with a held breath, Sam took the lid off the box, revealing a pair of red and white oven mitts. “A housewarming gift?” he asked, looking up at Wendy.
“Have you forgotten already?” Wendy asked.
Sam frowned and looked down at the oven mitts. They were … moving? No, there were orange ants weaved into the mitts, and the struggling of the ants made the surface of the gloves look as if they were squirming. A memory flashed in his mind, one of Wendy listing ways he could improve his mastery of his chakras: chanting and sticking one’s hand into gloves made of fire ants. “I, uh, don’t need this,” Sam said, putting a fake smile on his face, “but I do appreciate it.”
“You appreciate it, huh?” Wendy asked, the corners of her lips turning upwards. Her resting scowl turned into a normal person’s resting face. “You should put them on; show me how much you really like them.”
“Damn,” the driver said from off to the side. “What’d you do to piss her off?”
“Keep it up, and I’ll make you wear the gloves next,” Wendy said, her eyes shifting to look at the driver.
Sam looked down at the gloves. If he used Toughen before putting them on his hands, then it probably wouldn’t hurt a bit.
“The pain is part of the process,” Wendy said. “It’s not wearing the fire ants that improves the mastery of your chakras, it’s the fire ants’ toxins coursing through your flesh.”
Sam frowned. If the regular method of meditating with crystals didn’t work to unlock his chakras, he doubted the irregular method would work either. However, wasn’t it worth a shot? If it did work, then he’d be a fool for refusing to use the gloves. Also, the time he spent in Et Serpentium toughened him up. He was familiar with pain and nausea and disoriented senses; harming himself to hurt his enemy was his main form of attacking after all. He picked up one of the gloves, causing April’s eyes to widen. The green-haired woman backed away from Sam, distancing herself from the wriggling gloves. Sam slid the glove on and winced as sharp stabs of pain pricked his hand all over. Then, he gritted his teeth as his nerves caught fire as if he had grabbed a burning coal.
Sam kept his gloved hand pointed away from his body as he placed the box down and maneuvered his free hand into the remaining glove. It was painful, but Sam took in a deep breath and focused on calming his mind by breathing in a steady pattern: breathe in for three seconds, hold his breath for three seconds, exhale for three seconds, and remain calm for three seconds before repeating the cycle. While he concentrated, he observed the pain in his hands as if he were a bystander within his own body, doing nothing as the burning sensation traveled up his arms and into his chest.
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Sam’s heart pounded much harder than usual, the pumping sounds reverberating through his ears as his body swayed back and forth with micromovements in time to the beating of his heart. Heat flooded his sternum, radiating out to the rest of his body. Then, a chilling pulsation rushed up from his Muladhara, colliding with the burning vibrations caused by the fire ants’ toxins.
“Wow, you’re crazy,” the driver said to Sam before turning towards Wendy. “Are those real fire ants?”
“Yes,” Wendy said, staring at Sam with an expressionless face. “I didn’t think he’d actually put them on.”
“You just wanted to see him squirm for a bit, huh?” the driver asked. “Her Majesty was right to warn me about you.”
“Aren’t fire-ant gloves supposed to be extremely painful?” April asked. Since Sam was standing in front of the stairs, she was trapped on the porch. Well, she wasn’t trapped, but she wanted to give Sam a wide berth to avoid obtaining any accidental stings.
“In the past, they used to be used as a rite of passage,” Wendy said. “When kids wanted to become adults, they put the gloves on, danced with them for several hours, and kept a straight face the whole time. So, although wearing the gloves is painful, the pain isn’t anything special since the mind can conquer it.”
“Really?” the driver asked. “How does that work? Something about their venom increases testosterone production?”
“No,” Wendy said. “It’s painful, and if everyone suffered the same painful experience, they’d have something to bond over. Also, on the battlefield, wouldn’t you trust someone who could wear fire-ant gloves without flinching over the guy who cried because of a papercut?”
“Hey!” the driver said. “It was a deep cut, okay? The paper I handle is abnormally rough.”
Wendy turned to look at April as if to say, “See? Point proven.”
The green-haired woman turned her head away. Wendy was like the queen’s right-hand woman, and the driver was related to Her Majesty. If she offended either one of them…, well, would it matter now that she was Sam’s personal nurse? Speaking of being his personal nurse, was he really okay? She could see the ants wriggling and squirming, and she had no doubts about them biting or stinging—or whatever it was that ants did to inflict pain on their victims—Sam’s flesh over and over. Did it not hurt? Out of curiosity, April approached Sam’s side and held one finger out.
The driver slapped Wendy’s arm and pointed at the green-haired nurse, causing Wendy to kick at the unscrupulous man’s shins. It wasn’t like she was blind; she could see April’s actions clear as a bottle of water—part of the porch’s railing was obscuring her view. The nurse took in a deep breath and poked one of the squirming ants. There was no pain since she retracted her finger before it had time to attack her. She hesitated before poking the ant again. This time the ant’s mandibles pinched her—which wasn’t so bad—before stinging her repeatedly with the pointy spike on its butt—which made her feel like she used the tip of her finger to extinguish a candle. April jerked her finger back and blew on it before looking at Sam’s face.
Sam’s eyes were closed, focusing on his breath and the chilling pulsation washing through his body, counteracting the burning sensation. However, the ants stung repeatedly, their neurotoxins setting Sam’s nerves aflame every time they were absorbed by his Muladhara. The process repeated, the burning ebbing and flowing in Sam’s body. Eventually, Sam’s face relaxed, and he exhaled as he lowered his arms. His hands hurt; they felt like they were on fire, but oddly enough, that didn’t bother him anymore.
Sam allowed the gloves to slide off his hands, letting them fall into the box. He closed it and looked at Wendy. “Do you want it back?” he asked, offering the box to her with his welted-from-ant-stings hand. He really wasn’t sure how he was supposed to keep the ants alive, and although they were just ants, he didn’t want their deaths to be on his hands. It wasn’t fair for Wendy to gift him a whole bunch of living creatures.
“You don’t need them anymore?” Wendy asked and took the box from Sam.
Sam shook his head. It didn’t feel like the burning caused by the ants’ neurotoxins could unlock his chakras, but he did gain a new way to attack his enemies by mimicking the vibrations his body emitted whilst his nerves were aflame; however, it’d only affect people’s hands. “Actually, can Monarch obtain a whole fire-ant suit?”
Wendy stared at Sam for a bit before nodding. “Yes,” she said. “I think that can be arranged. I’ll let you know when it’s ready.”
April raised an eyebrow at Sam. She pointed at his hands, spotted red with rashes and bumps. “Doesn’t that bother you?” she asked. Her talent might’ve helped Sam’s body regenerate, but it didn’t stop him from feeling pain. In fact, his hands should’ve been itching even more than usual thanks to the accelerated regeneration.
“Only if I think about it,” Sam said to April. “The pain’s not so bad since you’re around.” He raised an eyebrow. “You are in a good mood, right?”
“Yes,” April said and flashed Sam a smile. Even though she was stung by a fire ant, that was of her own volition to satisfy her curiosity, so why would a sting or two sour her mood?
“Well, I won’t keep you two from your date any longer,” Wendy said as she opened the car door and stepped inside, placing the box of fire ants on the passenger seat up front.
“Wait,” the driver said, following Wendy to the car. “Weren’t you and Sam supposed to be a thing?”
“Never,” Wendy said. “Keep your delusions inside your head.” The door shut as Wendy closed it from the inside. The driver grinned at Sam and waved before taking a seat and closing the door. Then, the black car sped away, leaving as quickly as it came.
“Did they really just come here to deliver a pair of fire-ant gloves to you?” April asked, raising an eyebrow at Sam.
“Looks like it,” Sam said, following the car with his eyes until it disappeared behind the trees. “Weird, huh?”
“Yeah,” April said. “It was really strange Wendy personally showed up. Deliveries can be taken care of by anyone.”
“She probably wanted to see me suffer,” Sam said, looking down at his hands. Although he did believe his suffering was a major part of why Wendy came over, he was sure she was here to monitor his thoughts. The queen probably wanted to know what he was thinking the day after making deals with all the companies. Of course, Sam was going to keep Wendy’s mind-reading abilities a secret because he had a feeling the blonde woman would harm him if he didn’t.
“I can see her doing that,” April said, nodding her head after thinking about Sam’s words.
“So,” Sam said, changing the subject, “where are we going?”
“It’s a surprise,” April said and narrowed her eyes at Sam while smiling, “but I think you’ll like it.”
“I don’t like surprises,” Sam said. The last time someone from Monarch surprised him, he was sold off to an unknown reptilian.
“Fine,” April said as she walked down the porch steps to her car. “We’re going to a weapon shop.”
Sam raised an eyebrow. He didn’t really use weapons; mainly because Ellie hadn’t trained him to wield them.
“Not just any weapon shop,” April said as she opened the door. She looked at Sam and patted the passenger seat of her car. “What are you waiting for? Come in.”
Sam took a seat beside April and buckled himself in. “What makes this weapon shop special?”
April grinned. “It’s a crystal-weapon shop,” she said. “Your talent is converting crystals and such into animals, right? Maybe you’ll be able to trigger it again in the store.”
The car reversed out of the driveway, and Sam furrowed his brow.
“What’s wrong?” April asked.
“Nothing,” Sam said. “It’s just strange to ride in a car.” Compared to Ellie’s driving of the levistone, a vehicle without belts or walls or any sense of security really, April’s driving made him feel like he wasn’t moving at all.
“You’ll have to tell me more about Et Serpentium,” April said with her eyes focused on the road, much to Sam’s relief. “Is it true reptilians eat people? How did you not get eaten?”
“Yes, it’s true,” Sam said. “But I haven’t witnessed it for myself. The reptilians seem to be separated into different factions: some of them eat humans, some of them treat us as pets.”
“Huh,” April said. “That’s surprisingly human-like.”
Sam shrugged and turned to look out the car window. “Or, maybe, humans are reptilian-like,” he said. “Reptilians were around before humans, and if their version of history is correct, humans have always been influenced by reptilians even before the cataclysm. Apparently, they disguised themselves as humans and occupied influential positions to guide our species in the direction they wanted.”
“Oh?” April asked. “And what direction was that?”
“I’m not sure,” Sam said. “I only read the description of the documentary, but I didn’t actually watch it.”
“That’s a surprise, coming from you,” April said, shooting Sam a glance. “You didn’t even read your contract with Monarch.”
Sam scratched his head. Normally, he wouldn’t read, but sometimes, taking a dookie took a while, and he needed something to pass the time. Of course, he wouldn’t say that out loud. “I skimmed the contract because it didn’t matter what was in the contents,” Sam said. “I read just fine.”