“ARCHER!” I hear Reed yell from across the basement as soon as I begin to stumble out of my chamber. I then felt someone try and grab and try to stabilize me, only for her to scream and rip her hands away.

“Why are you covered in blood!” Taylor immediately starts to cast something, any blood flaking away from her hands. “And what in the thirteen hells happened to your costume?”

“I, um… Ow… I uh, got into a sword fight… and lost” I did my best to keep a big dopey smile, “Can someone call Faye in?”

Then in an instant, I was on my knees. Whatever remnants of the Not Me wreaking havoc on my connection to my mask. To worsen things the large scar on my side opens back up, making the blood loss I’ve already suffered from even worse.

There were a few yells that I couldn’t make out, and someone other than Taylor helped me to the couch. Which I have to say is a lot better than the hard mettle bench I was stuck on after I was arrested.

Once I was sat down Erik looked like he was about to cast something, but he very quickly pulled his hands back and looked away. Then with a heavy sigh he asks, “What did you do?”

“Um,” I say once my breathing is steady again, “The heist went wrong. I was asked to steal an artifact but… it was too much… Now Iron Magnum has it.”

“Dude! What the- ARGH!” I hear what sounds like a pack of frozen vegetables hit the floor as Reed angrily paces back and forth. “First he messes with the golem, and then he-”

“Reed!” Taylor snaps giving him a glare, “We’ve talked about this. How about we wait until we have the full story?”

“But…” Whatever Reed was going to say petered off as two of the ‘porters activated. Neither of them was Faye’s however.

Lucy was the first one into the lab, she was on her phone and she looked pissed. Once she looked up to see the four of us she shifted to a look of horror.

“What happened to you?” The other new arrival asked. It was Casper and he was taking my appearance about as well as everyone else.

I groan as I realize that I’m probably gonna have to tell this story to everyone at this point… and from the pain. I’m starting to regret leaving that stupid ship. At least there was a healer I could count on there to close the scar back up after it reopened.

“Alright, clear out.” This time it was the Doc, he had somehow made his way from somewhere in the lab to behind the couch. I then flinched as he set his hand on top of my head and cast an analysis spell. “Well… I never thought I would ever see this again.”

That set off a few more alarms.

“Erik, grab some silver powder from the stores. Oh, and the box of bane herbs. Archer, get your costume off of ya and make sure there are no artifacts anywhere near you. DON’T, transform to a new form. Everyone else, you’re not needed here.” The Doc commanded.

There were a few grumbles from Reed, but everyone else found some way to busy themselves. Casper dragged Reed deeper into the lab, whispering to the still-injured villain the entire way. Taylor insisted on at least grabbing my costume so she could clean and fix it, and that’s when I found out how annoying it is to remove the weird wraps around my horns. I really wish I knew why they were a thing.

Oh…

And Lucy just left.

It only took a minute for Erik to grab the ingredients, and as soon as the Doc had them in his hands he shooed the cyborg away as well.

“Okay,” The Doc laid the ingredients out on a steel table, “Now tell me who in the thirteen hells sent you after a weapon possessed by demonic miasma.”

“... I don’t know.”

“And why, do you not know?”

“I-” I was forced to clench my jaw as another wave of pain came and went, “Ow… I never got their name.”

“How did they contact you?”

“Um, I don’t know… there was just a document left on my phone.” I rubbed the back of my neck with my left hand, feeling a bit self-conscious about how little I was wearing. “It had some pretty personal information in it… along with a pretty big bribe. So I went for it.”

“Vi-ae-or-col” The Doc groaned as he whispered some kind of incantation, “I’ve always hated that spell, just too damn useful.”

“What?”

“A high-level communication incantation that forces fate to get a private message to someone. You have to be at least an arc-mage to be able to cast that kind of thing, on top of knowing the recipient very thoroughly.”

“What!”

“Liu made the mistake of showing me the message she got, so I’m-” The Doc paused to step out of the way of whatever fumes poofed out of what he was mixing. He then loaded it up into a syringe. “I’m not surprised this individual used the same method to contact you…”

“But how?”

“Indeed,” The Doc flicked the end of the needle, “If I were you I would stay as far away from whoever this is.”

I then had to shift a bit as the Doc took a seat to my right. Then, without a word, he set his hand on my thigh and gestured with the needle for me to look away. I did not object and did my best to not focus on the ‘pinch’ in my leg…

With what was in that syringe more like ‘burn’.

I did my best to level my breathing and a few seconds later the Doc spoke up again.

“Alright that’s done, now get some sleep and you’ll be fine by tomorrow. NO MAGIC.” The man leveled a look at me even as he struggled to get up off the couch, then he must have thought of something as he laughed an evil laugh. “Archer, think of things this way. This man, whoever he is, was able to contact and possibly blackmail the two most secretive members of the theater.”

My face paled as much as it could for a beastman.

“Now, I’ll let you ‘port home as soon as Taylor is done with your costume. I also need you to de-transform as soon as you can as well. No point in letting the medicine only treat the one body when it can go to your base being.”

The Doc left things there as he walked away, leaving me to thoughts I didn’t want to bother with. Then Casper appeared with a smile. He quickly handed me a stack of papers with the one on top only having the words ‘Chimera_BOX_Plan_2.4’ printed.

“We’re back at this one?” I say, trying to keep the pain out of my voice.

“The Doc got the rareium formula to work,” Casper said as he flopped onto the couch, “I think this is gonna be bigger than ever!”

I roll my eyes and casually flip through the document, skimming through formulas and measurements, nothing unusual for this kind of thing… then I get to the back.

It’s Casper’s plan for the big day.

“You want to what? And I need to- No, what?”

“Yeah…” Casper suddenly found something very interesting on the ‘porters, “The Doc said that we aren’t allowed to use the formula unless we can guarantee the creature won’t get killed… He says that if we go through with this we are actually making a real person in the end so… that’s the only way I can think of to pull that off without… yeah.”

With a grunt of effort, I get up off the couch and pace a bit, just to get moving. “There’s no way I can do something like that. I’ve never messed with aging equations before beyond a start-up… and you really want to give something like that away?”

“Yup,” The villain of rhythm said with a pop.

I sighed and shook my head, “It’s already crazy enough you want to steal the SKY SHAKER… I’ll look more into this stuff tomorrow, once I’m better.”

Apparently, I said just enough for Casper to leave happy, and as soon as I got a repaired costume back from Taylor I left as well… in an exhausted state of course.

A quick ‘port to just outside my sanctum door and I was soon laying on my ‘couch’, human once more. Stuck healing off a scar that looked almost as bad as the one from the bull.

The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

I don’t know what exactly happened, but this “Demonic Miasma” stuff left a mark on my normal body. To make things worse, the Doc’s medicine started to give me stomach cramps. Albeit I should be kinda happy that he did turn something that apparently attacks the soul into a really bad case of the flu.

I still hated it though.

Thankfully, spending a few hours just trolling about on my phone helped me forget about the bad parts of the day… Then I got a text.

Liu: - Archer, I failed.

- I got the story from Taylor about what happened to you.

- I’m guessing you didn’t fare much better.

- What do I do?

Archer: - crap

- I don’t know

- do you even know who is it

- it is*

Liu: - No I don’t unfortunately.

- All I got from the client was the signature “LW”, and the fact that they're probably Chinese.

- Fluent enough in the language at least.

Huh, at least I have an explanation as to why Lucy was so angry earlier and a little more information on the ‘benefactor’.

Then at that moment, my phone vibrates a lot harder than I was used to, a new message pops up… a voice memo…

Via Orical: - <]))---------------------

I dropped my phone in a panic, swiftly losing it in the blankets. It took me a few seconds before I managed to rip everything away and grab it again.

I hit play on the message as quickly as humanly possible.

“-ceived by Archer Lung-Bowen and Liu Chun…” The voice was from an older man, a heavy yet hard-to-place accent was layered over a confident tone. “It has come to my attention that both of you have attempted to fulfill my requests and that both of you have failed.

“I expected a lot more from the pair of you, and it does not paint a good picture for the rest of the riff-raff following the god of conflict…” there was a pause as if to take a breath that wasn’t there. “However, it has also been brought to my attention by my wife that there was a failure on my part as well. I was expecting you to have access to better resources. Do better next time.

“Miss Chun, the Magus Sanctus were already becoming aware of the situation with the pair of Demons, along with their plans. I suggest you abandon that line of thinking… As for you beastman,” I couldn’t help but swallow at the tone. “The League of Heroes getting ahold of the artifact is not a disappointing situation, and I know you have received ample punishment for your failure. Ample payment as well.

“I do hope that the next time I need to use your group you do better.”

Static suddenly ended the message, hurting my ears even as a human…

LUCY!

I hit the dial button right away, hopping to whatever she’d pick up, it took only one ring.

“Did you get the message too?” I blurted out.

It took a second, there was some sniffling in the background. When she finally spoke her voice was kind of hoarse. “I'm not listening to it.”

“What? Oh…” I had to snake myself just to reorientate my brain. “Well just so you know he’s an ass.”

I guess it was the tone of my voice, but that got a snort from the other villain.

“Yeah, he got my name wrong but was stupid formal when talking to you. And don’t get me started on his attitude. All ‘my failures are your fault, but I’m too powerful to care’ and ‘I was blatantly using you and I’m gonna do it again because I’m too lazy to get off of my butt’.” I did my best to use a posh accent akin to what the ‘benefactor’ sounds like. That got Lucy really laughing.

I let her go for a few moments, then curiosity got a hold of me.

“So… what did he have you do anyways?” Now it was suddenly silent on the other end. “He said something about a pair of Demons and the Magus Sanctus… Is that… Is that how he bribed you? Saying you could access the mirror?”

“He wanted evidence that they were making the last artifact in the trio.” Lucy quietly said, “They already have the mirror and the mask… all they need is the sword and they can launch their campaign…”

…

What.

“He said he could get me information on the mirror if I could get proof for him,” Lucy whispered, it was barely audible, “but… but I was interrupted…”

There was a lull as I thought about what I was gonna say next. Then I took a deep breath and forced myself to sound confident.

“Lucy, after we finish Casper’s plan on Sunday we’re getting a team together and stealing those artifacts.”

…

“Okay… Let’s do it.”

She ended the call, leaving me to flop back and test my pain levels. I think I’m fine for now. I can always sleep on the couch overnight. A scar like this one will take a while, and that’s still not addressing the rabbit or the bull. At least with the tiger all I’ll need to do is bandage my hand or spend maybe a few minutes on the healing pad, but there was a more pressing issue right now.

I eventually managed to track down where my pocket ended up and fish out the briefcase containing the mask. Then I headed downstairs.

The ‘chambers’ are a weird place. For some reason whoever built this place tapped into some natural caves underground, carving more of them out and reinforcing them. Fortunately for me, they serve the perfect purpose.

You see, my house is built on top of a ley line, and underground caves are basically a guaranteed way of tapping into them. Now, I don’t live on top of a convergence point. That would be the Doc’s place, having an impressive seventeen different lines meeting just below his basement. But all I need is the one for my purposes.

It had taken me a while to get it right but in one of the nicer corners I had carved a spell form into the floor and walls. Its goal being that of stabilization.

Above the form, two masks are floating in the air, the space around them unable to move. There’s the kudu mask that I had gotten from New York. That one was finally properly stabilized… and there’s the panda mask… my dad’s mask… the one I stole off of his dead body.

It’s doing just fine.

I set the briefcase down and opened it, slowly grabbing the… dog? mask out of it and slowly set it into the flow of the ley line, letting it drift into a spot next to the other masks. Hopefully, the line will give the pent-up mana a natural release and the artifact will stop manifesting.

I was mesmerized for a moment as the mask floated into its place, the subtle glow of the room’s spells was the only real light the place had. So the way the masks seemed to soak it all in and send it back to the world let me get lost in thought.

You know what? I’m feeling creative.

I made my way back upstairs and checked on my next project. It seemed like the resin had finally set… Now that I think about it I might as well start the sketches for the mask. There’s nothing better to do.

Just have to undo the barriers on the wood block… get the runes figured out… and-

My phone went off, breaking me from my thoughts. I grumbled to myself, pushing through a newly forming headache.

And of course, the battery is almost dead, again.

Oh, it’s Casper.

“Dude, where are you? We were supposed to get this finished off today.” He sounded a bit stressed… today?

“What do you… Oh… Oops.” I looked at the time. It was almost noon… I could swear that it was at least somewhere around seven or eight... I had gotten myself entranced again, didn’t I? “Dude I’m so sorry I lost track of time. I’m still out of it from yesterday. Didn’t really sleep. I’ll be over as soon as I can. Let me just… get myself together.”

From there I hung up and rushed to shower, get dressed, and eat.

Now for a mask.

Wait.

The rabbit and the bull are still out of commission. And I don’t want to figure out the tiger’s hand. Dammit, I really should have spent my time healing, not getting lost in my magic again.

Is the mask done?

I walked back into my workspace and took a real look at the new mask in the making. It was still rough and none of the final rune work is in place, only the beginnings of an animalistic face showing through. So it’s a no-go for now…that leaves one option and I don’t like it one bit. I even debate just telling Casper that I can’t put myself together…

I am still injured and running on no sleep... Surprisingly not tired though...

But I really don’t want to disappoint Casper and everyone else.

Dammit.

I sigh and set myself in the most open area of my sanctum as possible. I hold my hands out and collect a bit of magic in my hands. Eventually pure transformation magic forms in a nebulous yet colorful cloud in my palms.

“I wish for something completely untrue,

A new face for life, brand new,

A body to run, a mouth to sing,

Let new truth to this world I bring!”

With the last proclamation I take the cloud of magic and slam it into my body, letting the spell run its course… and it fails.

I’m not powerful enough to cast this kind of spell, or anywhere near practiced as I need to be. So it runs rampant.

This spell is meant to be the main pillar of my school of magic. I was supposed to have a member of my magical family teach me everything regarding it from the ground up. I never got that, so when I found out about it and attempted it for the first time…

Let’s just say that my little lie about bad transformation magic has some kind of truth to it.

It takes a minute, but I eventually get the rampant magic back under control. The wild magic was done running its course.

I stumbled over to a mirror to check the damage. My hair had curled a bit more and gained a blond ombre effect throughout, and my eyes had this weird thing where the irises were red and the sclera were gray. My teeth were left mostly normal, but vampire-like fangs poked out. Oh, and the bull’s horns and tail were present, along with the familiar claws and pads on my hands…

Something was missing, I was expecting more. My skin was left pretty normal, with no markings or growths at all. Shoot, something is internal, isn’t it?

I pulse my mana through my channels and blood… oh no…

My bones were weakened, specifically in my feet and lower legs. They were stronger in my head and neck for some reason but that didn’t matter. Now that I can feel it it's starting to hurt to stand.

I’m starting to think that my actions might have consequences.

With one more sigh, I make sure everything is in place then step outside.

I’m not gonna walk like this. The weakened legs and the scar are telling me to be lazy. I grab my phone and give the command. “Hey doc, go home.”

Now I’m in my chamber, the lights slowly dying off. I shout out as soon as the door is open. “I’m here!”

“Dude finally.” Casper peaks his head out from the corner to the right, then does a double take.

“Sorry.” I say reflexively, “Had a hard time putting myself together… And I forgot to sleep.”

Casper gives me a questioning look, then beacons me over to where the chimera we were working on is, “It’s okay, the Doc had decided to basically take over at this point anyways. Something about needing to keep a vital project in line… I just think he wants to see if this works for himself.”

The two of us chuckle a bit before joining the Doc, Reed, and Rose by the chimera’s tank. Why is the Doc looking at me like that?

“Wow, your eyes are so Cool! oof-” Rose got too close too quickly, and my hand reflexively ended up in her face. Casper found that very funny.

“So how is the chimera coming along anyways?” I say as I grab a rolling chair from nearby, rubbing my legs as soon as I sit down.

“Quite well,” The Doc grunts as he taps away at a keyboard. "I'm kind of surprised that this is working but it's obvious in hindsight. Wouldn't do this for just any creature, but for a trial run I'm happy."

There are a few more seconds of the Doc tapping away at the terminal on the tube. Then he abruptly straightens up and shows that he’s had enough and walks past me, grabbing the back of my chair and dragging me along. I let out a ‘whoa’ as he dragged me along, and once we were out of earshot he walked back around and looked me in the eyes, “Since when in the thirteen hells were you capable of meditation?”