Cecilia woke up feeling her nose itch. For the first time since arriving in this world, she could sense fish swimming in the ocean. At least she assumed they were fish. She shuddered as she remembered what kinds of life could evolve in alien worlds.
Though some shapes were so advantageous that evolution created them regardless.
Trees, for example. Even back on Earth, science couldn't determine what was a tree. It was one of the "I know it when I see it" things.
Woody trees and palm trees belonged to completely different clades. It was rather easy to understand that having their leaves way above the ground gave these plants a major competitive advantage. So you had trees in most worlds and most branches of plant evolution.
Then the crabs. Dozens upon dozens of species evolved into a crab-like shape independently. The defense granted by a hard carapace and a crab-like shape was undeniable. Fish. What shape was better to move in water other than the fish? Even on Earth, you had cetaceans and bony fish and other creatures from radically different evolutionary branches shaped like fishes. Hells, a fish's shape was so good the sharks managed to keep themselves from getting extinct for millions of years.
Finally, the humanoid. Everywhere in the multiverse, most sentient creatures evolved into a bipedal four-limbed shape with the upper limbs ending in hands. Or things mostly resembling hands capable of fine manipulation and the ability to speak. Panspermia alone couldn't explain why humanoids evolved everywhere sentient life appeared, even in dimensionally-locked worlds that sprung on their own. Some sentient creatures (like centaurs and merfolk, for example) that didn't conform to the general humanoid shape existed but they still had at least some humanoid traits.
So, Cecilia hoped the creatures she sensed with her recently-developed electrolocation (it was not the first time her Atavism did it) were fish. And not flesh-eating boring worms with mouths full of teeth. Fish.
It meant she was in the water for quite a while now. As her mind cleared, she checked her severed leg. It hadn't grown at all. Good. Not that long. Bad, she was still missing a limb. She was still hungry, anyway. Should she hunt a fish and eat it raw?
That's how people got alien brain parasites. No. She needed to go back to the island, see if the Dragon had fucked off, and get some people food. She heard a buzzing in her ear, and a glowing window hallucination appeared in her optic nerve.
> > Cecilia will start to grow wings. She'll gain sudden inspiration into evolution magic allowing her to manipulate her Atavism as she wants.
What the...
"Ugh!" She grunted and gasped, releasing the carbon dioxide she was accumulating in her lungs as her shoulder blades started to hurt. Bone pain was an order of magnitude worse than flesh pain. Her shoulder blades grew wider as new muscles wrapped themselves around her sides and over her shoulders, crawling over her ribs (underneath the skin, too). The muscles anchored themselves to her sternum. Her shoulders broadened to make room under her arms for the new bundles of muscles.
But that was just a minor inconvenience. When the new limbs exploded out of her shoulder blades, she screamed in the water. The pain was so intense she lost consciousness.
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The Dragon rested in a heap on a patch of land that was once a tiny forest. The island biomes made no sense. Its wings were ruined and broken. Three of his legs were also broken and the other was bruised. Only the armored plates and the flexibility of his neck prevented it from breaking and ending its life. What was that wind? Coupled with the sonic attack, it was devastating. Its ears rang with tinnitus. The Dragon was unable to hear anything, even the tempestuous weather of the planet. It couldn't even cast a healing spell, so dizzy it was.
Sensing around, it found itself to be laying in a puddle of its own blood. Only a Dragon's legendary regeneration kept it from dying from blood loss. It felt vulnerable but it also knew the island to be deserted. Without much choice, the Dragon laid down and rested. Then a global message stirred it awake.
> > Cecilia will start to grow wings. She'll gain sudden inspiration into evolution magic allowing her to manipulate her Atavism as she wants.
What the? That was a female name. Was the beast-woman still alive? That might be trouble. The Dragon glanced around right when a nearby lightning bolt lit up the surroundings and found a bloodstained pond next to a patch of plains. Stretching its neck, it drank some water.
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"Fuck, my legs!" Seth whined.
He had, at the last moment, crawled inside his dimensional storage item. While he couldn't enter the dimensional space, it was still a box big enough to fit him inside. At least his head and torso as it was only one meter deep. The Dragon crashed on top of it, confirming the dimensional clay's resilience and crippling the scientist.
"HELP! SOMEBODY HELP!" He shouted to no avail. Then he got a message very similar to the one that tracked his age and miles traveled.
> > Cecilia will start to grow wings. She'll gain sudden inspiration into evolution magic allowing her to manipulate her Atavism as she wants.
That gave the scientist pause. Seth inferred several things from the message. Cecilia was alive. And she was getting a better grasp on her innate abilities. But it also meant someone else had an agenda involving her. That was problematic if this agenda conflicted with his...
Another window interrupted his train of thought.
> > The Mirror now displays the world's current Stability rating.
The Mirror was related to the Judges. Could this be an announcement of their rulings? What was going on? Seth wriggled out of his shirt and tore it into ribbons using his teeth and hands. Then he shimmied down to attempt to tie tourniquets around his legs, to keep himself from bleeding to death. The windows kept coming.
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
> > This is a public message from the Judges. We all love Cecilia.
Right on the nose. Either the Judges were actually sending these messages or someone else was about to get a one-way ticket to hell. Meaning, this place. Seth's money was on the former. Conflicting agenda, it was.
> > The sister's name is Vanessa. She is vengeance.
What? What sister? Whose sister? If the Judges were all simping for Cecilia, then... Seth dreaded as he connected the dots. Cecilia was his greatest success but she wasn't the only test subject he...
Fuck.
If the Judges could bring him back to life a century after his execution by the FBI, then... They wouldn't... No, they would. This... was a setup. This penitentiary world wasn't meant for Cecilia. In fact, Seth was sure she could be whisked away to heaven on a whim by the Judges. The only reason they would resurrect one of the failed experiments was if...
They were after him. Now, when he was so close to finally completing his magnum opus. When he was poised to transcend the boundaries of mortality. This also meant the Judges were afraid of him. Of what he could become.
> > Cecilia will receive a secret mental letter from the judges.
That settled the matter. Between Seth and his golden goal, laid the multiverse's strongest entities. And he had no idea if he would even survive the night.
Instead of despairing, the crippled scientist started to cackle inside his ceramic box.
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Cecilia woke up and touched her back. She found two leathery bony appendages growing from her back. No feathers, at least not yet. Also, the fish (and definitely not flesh-eating boring water worms) hadn't bothered her.
> > Cecilia will receive a secret mental letter from the judges.
Whoever or whatever was sending these messages wasn't done yet, she assumed. What the heck? Why her?
Words whispered in her ear, "We are happy to watch your every movement!"
She shivered and screamed, releasing the gas she was gathering in her lungs. Bloody dammit.
Cecilia was creeped out beyond belief. She had... stalkers? What was this, a reality TV show? Was her life, her intimacy, her thoughts exposed to a bunch of strangers? She stared at the Fourth Wall though she didn't know it. Not only the Fourth Wall was inscrutable as always, but the muddy water also blocked all light.
Instinctively, she covered her chest. Cecilia was feeling very self-conscious and shivered. She decided it was time to get out of the water, get dressed in a dozen layers of clothing, and try to hide from these voyeurs from elsewhere. She didn't even want to think about how many wardrobe failures her clothing suffered during the fight. Eww. Just eww.
Releasing some bubbles, she swam after them, pushing the water with her webbed foot and both hands.
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"Hello? Is anybody out there? It's dark in here!" Joseph whimpered as he floated in the void. He didn't hear the echoes of his voice. There was none to be heard.
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Hugging Mirror tightly, the Defendant (the latest one) surfed over the waves as she screamed and tasted the muddy metallic salty water. She had no idea what was going on, only that she...
She actually had no memory before finding herself in that strange room full of strange people, and then falling into this... nightmare. The Defendant stared at Mirror, finding that, despite all the water washing over the reflective surface, the upper-right corner was foggy and had some symbols. Written on it.
"44.998%" It would read if she could read.
But not only she couldn't, her tiny hands barely kept her grip on Mirror. As a gigantic wave formed behind her, two metallic tendrils grew out of Mirror's frame and wrapped themselves around her waist.
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The Mirror broke one rule to enforce another. Seldom did the Judges send children to the prison world and ensuring that the inmates reached the first island took greater priority than not revealing it was sentient. Mirror didn't care how young the girl was. Its job was only to observe and fulfill the Judges' rulings.
Another tsunami rose behind them. Mirror was an expert at using the waves to ferry inmates to the island by now. With the very young girl secured to its frame, it bent and grew a fin underneath itself, to better catch the waves. Up they went, surfing the flaming tsunami hundreds of feet high.
The island's shield sprung up as expected, and the roiling water washed over it. This time, Mirror didn't let itself fall down. The girl might not survive the fall. It floated and waited for the flames to die down, then the shield vanished. It slowly descended, looking for a spot on the island that wasn't entirely turned to ashes, wrecked by the inmates fighting each other, or burning with Dragonfire.
Stupid Dragonfire. Not only it could burn ANYTHING given enough time, but it also clung to stuff and refused to vanish so long it had something to burn.
The mirror found a grass patch with a small body of water on the other side of the water. It lowered the girl on the grass.
"Humph!" Something snorted.
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Horse was tired of the crazy people that came to his island to bother his peaceful life. His [Danger Sense] flared again as he looked up. The damned silver object was back, and it brought even more people.
They weren't satisfied with wrecking his old home and ruining the western side of the island. No, they had to come to his backup watering hole. The silver object then deposited a human foal on his grass.
"Humph!" Horse snorted.
Human foals were so stupid. First, they were sessile for almost a year after birth. Second, they needed to suckle on a lactating female. Third, they fouled everything near them. Their droppings were horrendously smelly and noxious.
He protested with a loud whine. The silver object paid it no mind and floated away, leaving the human foal behind.
Despite his expectations, the human foal stood up on wobbly legs. It stared at him as another lightning bolt flashed in the night sky.
"Horsie!" It shouted with a very sharp voice. Then it toddled toward him.
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Cecilia only hadn't drowned because she could breathe in either air or water. But swimming back to the island was tough. She was at least a couple miles away from it. Her only luck was that the ocean currents all went that way, and they were as fast and violent as the weather.
Every time a lightning bolt struck the ocean, it illuminated the world above but now the coursing electricity also allowed her to sense everything under the ocean with her electrolocation. She noticed some ridiculously large creatures deep below the ocean as well as some rocks floating in the depths. The muddy water was denser than normal water, which helped a lot with her buoyancy. She wouldn't be able to float back just by letting her lungs fill with compressed carbon dioxide otherwise.
The Sun (not Earth's Sol) started to rise in the east. It was a long night but she had a few that were almost as bad. No, she wasn't in the business of ranking her misery. She would die of old age before she was finished if she did.
Another System message played.
> > Planetary stability grows by 0.005 for every 1000 miles inmates have moved, and lowers by 0.001 for every monster killed by the inmates.
Freaking great. Did she need to worry about the world coming apart? She stared at the sky. Yeah. It was coming apart.
A tsunami formed. Cecilia thought of riding it again but she lacked the mirror or the canoe. By herself, the gigantic wave would push her underwater or trample her over, then go on its merry way. Unless...
She used [Phantom Claw] but didn't summon the paws of great cats. Instead, she tried to summon the hind "claws" of dolphins or whales. These were fused hind limbs, right? It didn't work. The obviously combat power refused to play along with her sophistry. Worth a shot, she shrugged.
The tsunami arrived. Cecilia filled her lungs and held her breath. She bobbed up with the wave but not even an Olympic swimmer could swim up fast enough to crest it. She was shoved along for quite a distance before the wave moved past her and then she dropped a hundred feet. Cecilia spun and prepared to dive. The churning water meant she only dislodged a shoulder upon re-entry. The aftershocks of the tsunami passed over her.
With a scream, she pulled her shoulder back in place, noticing how harder it was with all the muscles to support her wings. Wings that were rather useless right now. The feathers would take a few days to grow long enough to even attempt flight. All the appendage she was "gifted" did was increase her drag and make swimming harder.
She had to resort to drinking the muddy water. Cecilia could already feel her kidneys mutating to deal with the increased salt content. But now, she needed to eat something. It was time to hunt one of these fish.
She dove and swam slowly to not alert the nearest school of fish. In these murky waters, she fully expected the fish to be blind and have some sort of special sense. She drifted slowly and at the last moment pushed with all her might. The lack of a leg and the wing drag gave the fish time to escape. Her [Phantom Claw] only nicked the tail fin. Hissing in frustration and hunger, she tried again and again, until she finally found a school of fish that swam toward her.
They actually swam in every direction to flee the threat but she didn't care. Especially when some cosmic voyeur was watching her. Drat! She had almost forgotten. Cecilia made a rude gesture, then vented her anger on the school of fish. She caught a handful and swam up while she ate them raw like a savage.
She hoped the spectacle was appreciated.
She swam for two full days before seeing the island. And a rampaging Dragon.