~~~Stanley~~~

Nate moved quick, almost faster than Stanley could track, and appeared in front of him. "What is it?"

Stanley grimaced at the reminder of their grade difference. But did it matter? He could still kick his ass and had done so not that long ago... or had he? Nate hadn't fought back... What if he was the stronger one?

Racial Evolution... 20%... 22%...

He wasn't stronger; Stanley had beaten worse, and besides, this was more important. "I killed something before I came back. I had its core..."

"June absorbed it," Nate said, then glanced around before adding in a whisper, "I killed her."

Racial Evolution Progress... 22%... 28%...

Zeke's eyes widened, and Stanley returned to his meditation instead of hurling Nate into another wall. For a moment there, he'd thought the idiot might have let her get away! June... how the fuck did she get her hands on the damn core!? Maybe he’d lost it in the explosion? Except the last time he'd seen her had been near the tower... had she come after him, or had the core flown that far?

That wasn't even the real problem because how had he not seen what an absolute monster she was if she would take that class!? She'd seen it with her own eyes! Or was she just an idiot? She probably didn't know the monster was still inside the core, and Stanley found himself mildly curious about what had happened when she absorbed it. Mildly.

"How did you kill her?" Stanley asked instead.

Nate shrugged. "I was already D-grade. She had some new skills and crazy good regeneration, but she still died."

"And you're sure she's dead!?"

"I got the core. I can't be more certain than that, can I?"

True... would it have her soul hiding inside now, or was it still the monster? Stanley couldn't imagine anyone's soul surviving contact with that... thing. Except his own, maybe, not that he wanted to test it. "Where's the core?"

"Safe," Nate said with a touch of suspicion in his soul.

Racial Evolution Progress... 21%... 24%...

"Where. Is. It?"

Racial Evolution Progress... 24%... 29%...

"It's secure, in a place where no one will find it until I figure out how to destroy it for good."

Racial Evolution Progress... 30%...

"Where..." Caffeine heaved himself up into a sitting position, and Stanley bailed back into his meditation. Sorry, Caff.

Also, fuck you, Nate! The asshole actually thought he would want to use the core!?

Stanley stopped thinking about it when his meditation wavered and instead watched Caffeine settle back down. He had more immediate concerns to worry about right now, anyway. Like why his evolution progress wasn't lower and why it kept going back up so fast.

He waited until he felt as calm as he was going to get before coming out again. "Fuck you, Nate!"

Racial Evolution Progress... 20%... 25%...

Caffeine opened his eyes, but Stanley was back inside his meditation before the pug could do more than that. Worth it, but what the hell!?

Stanley focused on thinking cheerful thoughts rather than angry ones, and the sight of Caffeine munching on the piece of chicken Zeke provided definitely helped. He would have been far more upset about how drained Caffeine felt if not for seeing him eat. Because everyone knew a hungry pug was a healthy pug.

Caffeine was okay, or he would be soon. Stanley could let a lot slide on that knowledge alone. All the dread from the last couple of days... the uncertainty... none of it mattered anymore. Nothing else mattered!

Well, some things still mattered. Anything that might be a threat to the recovering pug, for one. Also, why was he getting so much angrier than usual?

When he emerged again, Stanley went looking for answers while listening to the drone of a dozen conversations in the distance. He found at least one likely culprit in his new trait.

Traits Merged: [Wrath] + [Eye of the Storm] = [Wrathstorm Unleashed]

[Wrathstorm Unleashed]

Let the Storm Rage.

You have abandoned the Eye of the Storm. There is no longer any refuge from your Wrath. Not even for yourself.

Effects:

You are prone to wrath.

+5000% Effective Willpower

-50% Effective Physical Attributes

Fantastic. It had made him more powerful, if only slightly, but at a price. Prone to wrath... It looked like the trait had changed when he killed the cannibal, but he hadn't started turning into a rage monster until the skeleton...

The power was good, and he couldn't feel too bad about the cost when he could see Zeke alive beside him. The purifier wasn't okay, sure, but he was a far cry better from where he would have been. A little anger problem was a small price to pay for that. Not that Zeke was making much progress with beating the corruption.

Racial Evolution Progress... 21%... 25%...

Stanley was grateful Zeke was doing well but still angry he wasn't doing better. In fact, it was really easy to get mad about... lots of things. Nate, himself, and all the other weaklings. Hell, it was just plain easy to get mad about anything...

"Not that I don't appreciate you feeding Caffeine," Stanley said to the kid after another bout of meditation. "But shouldn't you be working on removing that crap?"

Zeke smiled wistfully. "I wish it was that simple, but... I can't just heal myself like I do everyone else." He watched Stanley a little too warily, as if waiting for an explosion. "I need to have faith."

"Well, that's some bullshit!" Stanley said, perfectly calm. He was calm, damn it! Zeke would get rid of the corruption... it was only a matter of time... but what the hell was he supposed to have faith in!?

"It's not that bad," Zeke lied. "I can definitely do it!"

Stanley didn't call him out but went back to meditating instead. The situation was bad enough without him turning into a rage monster...

He dragged Nate back over when he'd calmed down. "How many D-grade cores did you get from this place, and where's mine?"

"Yes," Nate said, with a similar wariness to Zeke. "I took your core last night, but we found three D-grades in the lair down here. I gave one to Zeke and one to Walter to give to you... Did he not tell you?"

Stanley remembered Walter calling after him... and changed the subject with a glance at Zeke. "You aren't D-grade. Weren't you close enough?"

"It wouldn't let me evolve... it said I needed to choose a side." Zeke visibly wilted. "I'm sorry I wasted the core..."

Olivia had been fiddling with Zeke's torn shirt, but she tucked it away and went to the boy alongside Serenity. They said something to him, but Stanley couldn't hear it from his meditation. Instead, he watched them through his domain and tried to decipher what they were saying from their mouth movements and the vibrations in the air. Surprisingly, he picked up some of it, or thought he did at least.

It was what he expected them to say. Encouraging platitudes. Stanley would have said the opposite—not that he blamed the kid. But he would have told him to get mad and fight... but then, that was pretty much all he wanted to do right now...

Nate didn't wander off again. Instead, people came to him when they wanted to talk.

Stanley waited until Zeke was feeling better before emerging from the darkness. "You said three cores?"

"We're currently deciding who should get it, if you want to weigh in. Personally, I'm leaning toward Adrian."

It was a solid choice, given he was the only other person who could heal corruption. Though given the current situation...

"I'm guessing he couldn't heal Zeke?" Stanley asked, his voice low, and Nate shook his head. "Wait, if you're giving it to Adrian, does that mean you're moving into the tower? I thought it was too crowded... or did that many people die last night?"

"No, it's going to be tight, but who cares? This isn't a damn vacation. We should have consolidated our forces a long time ago. They didn't even make it to us before the fight was over!" Nate shook his head bitterly. "Another one of my mistakes..."

"What exactly went wrong?" Stanley asked, not quite accusing the man, at least not completely, though he couldn't keep the edge from his voice. "You said it was bad if I didn't go last night."

"It was..." Nate trailed off, his soul a tangle of uncertainty and a stark contrast to his usual demeanor. "I think you needed to kill that... thing." He didn't need to clarify what thing he was talking about; the shiver in his soul was enough. "Did you know there were only two D-grade invaders last night?"

"I noticed," Stanley growled. "I'm guessing it's because they found a D-grade lair down here?"

Nate shook his head. "I don't think they found it. I think they built it."

"They... what?"

"The wizards can explain all the mumbo jumbo if you want, but the important bit is that we only got three cores from the lair because they had killed the rest. The bodies were still fresh when we got here..."

"So only two of them were at D-grade?" Stanley made the connection, not that it mattered. "Seemed like more than enough to me!" Except it shouldn't have been. If he'd been there...

"They weren't ready!" Nate said. "But they attacked because of... you."

Racial Evolution Progress... 31%... 39%...

Stanley glared at the man, not even caring about the stupid numbers ticking their stupid way higher! Not until Caffeine tried to sit up. Then he fell away into the dark. Fucking Nate! Fuck him and his... That wasn't helping either.

"They knew about the cannibal," Nate said, abandoning his conversation with a man in a dress the moment Stanley emerged again. "They never wanted you to find it and were certain that whichever of you won the fight would come and... devour Zeke."

"I wouldn't touch that fucking..."

Nate held up his hands defensively. "I knew you wouldn't! I told them to get fucked!"

"Fat lot of good that did!"

"Yeah," Nate sighed. "I thought our shield would work... It didn't."

"That's it!?" Stanley growled. "It didn't work!? You were supposed to be ready for anything! Did you lose because you stopped to chat with the monsters about how I was going to eat everyone!?"

"It was nothing like that!" Nate hissed. "I told you, I fucked up! I thought Zeke was safe... and he wasn't. It's my fault."

This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

Stanley was all too happy to let Nate take the blame. The man felt guilty enough... perhaps even too guilty. "What aren't you telling me?"

"I'm not..." He knew he was right when Nate's soul flinched. Nate knew it too. "No, you're right. I haven't told you everything, and I won't. Not yet. It's too late to do anything about it, and knowing will only make you angry."

Racial Evolution Progress... 32%... 37%...

"Guess what, Nate? I'm already angry!" Instead of throwing the man into a wall, Stanley stole some chicken from Zeke and started feeding the sleepy Caffeine a handful of bite-sized chunks. It made him feel better... but did nothing to lower the evolution progress. Talk about some bullshit.

"I know you can't..." Nate started saying something, and Stanley ignored him by going back into meditation. It was almost amusing to feel the man's annoyance... though it would have felt better without the relief that followed. Nate really didn't want him to know whatever he was hiding...

It was tempting to push for an answer... but did it really matter? Nate hadn't joined the undead; his soul showed that much, but he was feeling guilty... especially toward Zeke. Was it simply that he'd failed to protect the boy? Or was it something more? He seemed doubtful that Zeke could save himself... did he know something? Was it really hopeless?

Except his soul didn't feel that bleak.

Stanley mused on that and watched Nate's soul as he meditated but learned nothing more. People came and went, and Stanley gleaned what he could of their conversations from his domain. Mostly a lot of status reports. Including from the wizards talking about enchantments or some such.

He watched the others, too.

Zeke spent a lot of time with his eyes closed and his lips moving occasionally... like he was praying. The only question was who or what he was praying to. Stanley liked to call the thing that attacked Lee a god, but as powerful as it was, he doubted it was the kind of god Zeke imagined.

Of course, there might be actual gods now... gods who weren't silent. In fact, Stanley owed a favor to what he suspected to be one of those gods. He hadn't forgotten that voice. He didn't think he could forget it even if he wanted to, and he wanted to. But out of all his memories last night, the memory of that gnawing hole in reality remained crystal clear.

Despite the memory, Stanley couldn't find a single notification that mentioned anything related to it. He knew there had been at least a few, but now there was nothing... Very strange.

Gods or no gods, Zeke's efforts had an effect. Whether it was the prayer or something else, the corruption slowed its spread. Sometimes it even reversed... just not enough to make up for the growth. Still, it was something. Maybe he only needed practice?

Eve remained nearby, working on something, but outside of his domain. It felt like she was keeping her distance on purpose... not only from him, but from Zeke as well. She felt... guilty and still afraid of him. Less angry, though, or was that him projecting?

Olivia approached, and Stanley realized she'd been fixing Zeke's shirt after he ripped it off the boy... Oops. She and Serenity helped him get back into his armor after donning the repaired shirt.

James stayed in the distance, and Stanley was pretty sure he was helping people feed the D-grade queen. Meanwhile, Silas hovered. Not literally, but it felt like his gaze never stopped moving between Zeke and everything else. The guy was on edge. He should be. They'd all fucked up big...

No, it wasn't all on them. Stanley should have been there. He could have killed the cannibal another time...

Stanley emerged from his meditation when a moron of a wizard left Nate's side and attempted to touch him. He even caught the bastard before Nate could. "What the fuck do you want!?"

"I... y... w..."

"I think you're killing him," Nate said. "Please don't?"

Stanley dropped him and then went back to meditating while Zeke healed the idiot. How was the guy that squishy? He'd barely touched him... oh, right, the new trait. He was essentially going around in full rage mode, and he... liked it. Maybe a little too much?

Surprisingly, the guy didn't run away like he should have. Though at least he waited this time, instead of trying to touch him... "What?"

"Did you... um, did you remove the soul energy?" He pointed, and Stanley followed the gesture to where he'd collected his soul mark.

"I did."

"Please tell me you didn't destroy it!" the wizard exclaimed. "That was our only sample to track them with!"

"Can you? Track it, I mean?"

The man lost most of his zeal. "Well, no. Not yet. And we never will without a sample to test!"

The bastard got his hopes up for nothing.

"Can you follow it?" Nate asked, and Stanley switched his glower to him.

"You think I'd still be here if I could!?"

"So you do have it!?" the wizard blurted, then practically started rubbing his hands together in glee. "May we... borrow it?"

"No." Stanley looked inside himself at the scrap of soul he'd claimed from the undead. "I don't trust you."

The man puffed up in his dress, affronted. "We are not traitors, sir! We are trying our best to help end this war!"

"I definitely don't trust you not to lose it!" Stanley yelled back. "You only found it because my soul held onto it!"

"Of course!" the man exclaimed, his soul buzzing furiously. "Two souls! That explains the readings we were getting..."

"How did you even find it in the first place?" Stanley glared at him, but the man simply stared into space while his mind churned.

"Huh? Oh, Ms. Mitchell led us to it," he said, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

"Who the hell is that!?"

Nate laughed. "You might know her. She's got little robot spiders running around? A little brother that lights up the world?"

"Eve?" Stanley looked over at the woman and found her staring back with wide eyes. "Since when can you track souls? Can you follow the un... dead?" He trailed off when she shook her head, fear blooming in her soul.

"No! I... only yours! Only since I..."

Stanley turned away. "I don't care if you can track me, but..." He eyed the wizard instead. "You want a piece of soul?"

"Very much! Without the soul, there is no way to know if our spells are... Ah! What are you doing!?"

"Relax," Stanley said, his hand wrapped around the man's wrist as he forced a fresh handprint of his soul onto him. "I'm giving you what you wanted. There, can you feel that?"

"I can feel it... my god! What did you do to me!? Get it off! Oh, god! What is that!?"

Stanley watched him flail around for as long as he could stand to wait... so for all of a few seconds. Then he wrapped him into immobility. "I gave you a piece of my soul. So stop acting like a baby and come back when you figure out how to track me with it! Then I'll give you the undead..."

"That's your soul!?" the man wailed. "Get it off!"

Stanley meditated instead of hurting the man; he didn't want to kill him by accident... Besides, his soul wasn't that bad... and it wasn't actually hurting him. The guy was just being dramatic.

Nate calmed him down eventually, and he ran off to a group of his buddies, all of whom were far more eager than the man himself.

One side effect Stanley didn't bother to mention was that he could track the man now. He didn't think the guy was a traitor, but his eagerness to get a hold of the only remaining link Stanley had to the undead was... suspicious. What if it was the key to tracking them down, and he was here to destroy it? He might not even know he was a traitor if they could mind-control people...

This way, Stanley could monitor him, and he wasn't exactly worried about the undead tracking him in return. They probably already could. Hell, he wanted them to come after him. Everything would be so much easier if they came to him. Ideally right now. Though a fight now might push him into the evolution he didn't want to take... so maybe he didn't want them to come?

No, Stanley realized. They wouldn't come after him even if they knew where he was. If they'd seriously thought he would turn into a human-eating monster for a few scraps of power, then they probably couldn't imagine him wanting to turn down any advantage. Just another sign of how fucked up they were... and they were supposed to be the civilized ones!

The piece of his soul he'd attached to the man had another unintended effect. An annoying effect. It practically broadcasted the man's soul back to him. As if the man were standing beside... him...

"Zeke," Stanley said. "You're used to my soul, right?"

"I... guess?"

Stanley placed his hand on Zeke's chest, over the knot of corruption in his heart. "Tell me how this feels."

"That's..." Zeke gasped. "Oh!"

"Does it hurt?" Stanley asked. He didn't think it did, but still wanted to make sure. "Is it too much?"

"N-no," Zeke said, breathing heavily despite his words. "It's fine!"

Of course, then Eve stormed over, but she wasn't even angry... only scared. "What did you do!?"

"I branded his soul with my own," Stanley said. "Something I should have done before..." Eve didn't like that and opened her mouth, but Stanley flew away before she could say anything. He needed to check something. Specifically, he wanted to check the soul-blocking spell covering this place.

Sure enough, he could still feel Zeke even when outside the barrier. He couldn't see him with Soul Sight, which was weird, but he also couldn't miss where the boy was. He could even feel Zeke's mood. It was perfect... and something he should have thought of before last night. He could have put it on everyone—he would have known when they were attacked. Fuck me, I'm an idiot!

Racial Evolution Progress... 42%... 55%...

Stanley sat beside the hole and meditated. It was almost too much to push back this time, but Lee was there instantly, and more of those souls came with him through the link. With their help, it became trivial, and Stanley spent the free time trying to use his domain to pet Caffeine. He could have sworn it almost worked... though he wasn't sure if those moving hairs were from his efforts or the breeze.

Zeke was the most chill when Stanley flew back down. It also felt like he was getting used to the brand.

"Could you sense me up there?" Stanley asked, and Zeke nodded.

"Sort of? I knew you were in that general direction, but mostly I could feel your... emotions?"

"It goes both ways then," Stanley said. "I could feel the same from outside the barrier." He looked at Nate. "You do know there's a barrier around this place that blocks my soul sight, right? A lot like the one around your base last night..."

"I did not," Nate said, his gaze lingering on Eve for a moment. "I'll let the magic folks know."

"Can they track spells?" Stanley asked, once again kicking himself for not thinking of it before. "If they can track soul-blocking magic..."

"It is not so simple," a man in a gray dress interrupted, and he looked familiar.

"Theo?" Stanley said, then nodded. Yeah, that was it. He was the head gravity-magic honcho. "Can you do it or not?"

"Theodore Echeart, and as I was saying, tracking a spell will be difficult due to the..."

"I don't care if it's hard!" Stanley snapped, turning away to study the piece of his soul on Zeke's chest. "If it's possible, then make it happen!"

He knew his soul was more powerful than Zeke's, a given considering the skeleton had to cut out a chunk of its own soul to remove the brand. Could he leverage that power to help Zeke fight the corruption? It was a tempting idea... though he'd be flying blind while potentially messing with Zeke's soul... so maybe only as a last resort? If Zeke couldn't save himself... well, they wouldn't have much to lose at that point.

First, though, he pulled the brand back, mostly to make sure he could do so without... side effects.

It came away clean, and he saw nothing to say otherwise. Zeke even confirmed it was completely gone. So he put it back and turned to the others. "Who else wants to get their soul branded?"

Shockingly, no one volunteered.

"It will let me feel your soul at all times, and vice versa," Stanley added to sweeten the pot. Extra shockingly, his explanation garnered no...

"I'll take it," Eve said.

Everyone within earshot turned to stare at her, Zeke included, and she glared right back. "I said I'll fucking take it! So are you gonna stand there all day or do it already!?"

Stanley shrugged and drifted closer. It was nice to see some fire back in her gaze. Better than the morose guilt and fear she'd been stewing in. He stopped when her breastplate peeled open.

"It doesn't have to be on your chest." The metal shouldn't get in the way either, since souls weren't skin deep, and he wasn't really putting it on her flesh. The physical touch only helped him focus...

Eve turned away, her anger quickly giving way to fear despite the bravado of her earlier statements. "Put it on my back."

That would work.

Stanley touched her back and hesitated when she flinched in something close to terror. "Are you sure about this?"

She drew in a shuddering breath, but her voice didn't crack. "Two brands are better than one, right?"

He thought about it. It wasn't impossible that something might still interfere with his mark. It definitely couldn't hurt to have an extra. "Yes. It's better."

She tensed under his hand and whispered, her voice close to breaking. "This means you’ll come if Zeke’s in trouble, right?"

"I'm sorry, Eve. I should have been there," Stanley said to the desperate girl. He spoke softly, recognizing the reality. Eve was still a scared child, crying out in the dark, and he wasn't sure if he was much better. She had been fighting so hard to protect her brother... and she was losing. "I won’t let them touch him again."

Eve straightened, her resolve firm. "Do it."

Stanley did it, and Eve held her breath... only to let it out with a sigh of relief. Had she really been that scared?

"What!?" she demanded with a glare over her shoulder, then she blushed and looked away. "I... thought it would be worse, alright!?"

Stanley smiled. Eve had spent a lot of time with him, so he expected her to be the most used to his soul, though she might change her mind when the feeling never went away...

She spun back a heartbeat later, eyes wide when she saw the people gathering behind him. "W-what are you guys doing?"

"You said two was better," James said, smiling beside the rest of the team. "So six can't hurt, right?"

Nate joined them in a surprising show of solidarity, "Make it seven." He must have felt Stanley’s skepticism because he added, "I fucked up, alright? But I'm still in this."

Stanley shrugged and branded all of his friends. It wasn’t that difficult now that he knew the trick, and each of the brands earned a sniff and tail wag from Caffeine, which was fun.

Silas spoke up first once it was over, rolling his shoulders and pacing in a slow circle. "Man, it feels like you're lurking behind me."

"So, like usual?" Serenity said, grinning.

"You can take it off, right?" Olivia asked. "I might have a hot date coming up soon, and no offense, but having you ride shotgun like this might be distracting."

"You should have said something!" Stanley exclaimed sincerely enough that he actually fooled her for a second. The dirty look he received was totally worth it.

"Who's the guy?" Serenity asked, and Stanley took that as his cue to keep meditating. His evolution progress kept climbing, and it didn't seem to matter if he was having a good time or not... he didn't even feel angry. At least, not unless he thought about it... Was it the trait? Whatever it was, it was getting annoying...

Unfortunately, soul-branding a wizard, followed by all his friends, had the opposite effect he expected. Instead of keeping them away, his actions drew more attention. A few of the wizards even formed a damn line in front of him while he meditated!