《Meeting myself》 Volume One - Prologue: The ugliest tramp stamp in history Prologue - The ugliest tramp stamp in history I¡¯ve always hated flying. First, you have to get up crazily early to fight traffic and drive to the airport, ensuring that you arrive at least an hour early. Then, to make matters worse, when I was 17 I nearly tore my jaw off, doing something so incredibly stupid I want to kill myself just thinking about it, car surfing. I ended up with 20 screws and 5 plates jammed in there, somehow holding everything together. Every time I go through a security checkpoint the damned sensors go off, if I¡¯m lucky they just do a pat search and wave the metal detector wand. But, it seems like about 30% of the time, I wind up in the back room getting molested; or at least that¡¯s how I¡¯ve always thought about it. Thankfully, I was lucky this time. No need to seek out additional consoling after we landed. I¡¯d arrived my usual hour early, passing through airport security without setting off too many alarms. Boarding the plane, I sat down in my aisle seat quickly falling asleep. I¡¯d been anticipating a nice nap for the nearly 9 hours it¡¯d take to fly to London. I¡¯d need my energy for moving into my new dorm room. Unexpectedly, I was jolted awake as the plane literally shook. I looked up hurriedly, to see what I assumed to be a behemoth slowly sidling towards me. It was a disgusting blob. It looked similar to a slime found outside the starting areas in many video games. Upon closer examination, it was not a slime, though I wish it had been. The only thing that I could distinguish as human was the blue jeans, with what looked like a tramp stamp just barely visible above the thong panties. It was a morbidly obese woman, about 5¡¯4¡± and probably 400 pounds. I could have sworn she had succeeded in Dudley Dursley¡¯s old threat. You know, the one to become wider then he was tall? Dread filled me as she side-stepped towards me (she was so fat she couldn¡¯t walk in-between the aisles). All the blood drained from my face, as my neighbor across the aisle looked at me with sympathy. With an ashen face, I glanced at the empty seat next to me, standing up to let the woman into her seat. I attempted to settle in, trying to convince myself that this would be a great story to tell at some future party. Six hours later, I actually felt somewhat grateful to the fat woman next to me. Sure, I was uncomfortable as hell. I had to find multiple excuses to get out of my seat, and walk around the cabin. But, perhaps out of sympathy, the beauty across the aisle had spent most of the last 6 hours talking to me. While I¡¯d had a few romantic liaisons throughout high-school, I knew what my league was, and she was WAY out of it. The only distinction to my appearance was my height and bulk; at 6¡¯3¡± and nearly 220 pounds of mostly muscle I cut quite the imposing figure. But, my face was just average before I destroyed my jaw, and now it¡¯s slightly crooked though it''s hard to notice it. However, the girl across the aisle was so beautiful that my heart raced just looking at her. If I didn¡¯t know better, I¡¯d have thought I was in a Hollywood set. Looking at the young Joan of Arc, or Helena of Troy. Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original. I was so absorbed just being near her that I didn¡¯t even notice the plane shaking at first. Her surprised expression as we suddenly dropped 1,000 feet in an instant just captured my heart¡­ At least, until the woman next to me was thrown into my face. She was so wide that she couldn¡¯t buckle her seatbelt. She¡¯d just been riding without one, and as the plane ran through severe turbulence she was lifted from her seat landing on me; beginning to smother me. Unable to move her girth while the plane slowly broke apart around us, I was smothered to death. The last thing I ever saw as my soul left my body was the obese woman¡¯s tramp stamp. A distorted playboy bunny with stretch marks running through it and pimples where the eyes should be. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- An indeterminate amount of time later, I slowly regained consciousness with a loud ringing noise in my ears. As the ringing cleared, all I could hear was raucous laughter that sounded eerily familiar; as if I was hearing a recording of my own laughter. As I slowly regained control of my body, I opened my eyes to see¡­ me. Except, he was somehow¡­ better¡­ He looked stronger, more handsome, and perhaps another inch taller; but it was definitely me. As I stared at this weird apparition, he fell to the floor clutching his stomach. As he rolled around laughing hysterically, I could hear saying, ¡°(laugh).... Smo (laugh)... thered (laughs) by a fat lady (laughs) ¡­.¡± As I listened to him laughing, I thought back to my most recent memories, and couldn''t help but see the humor in it. I soon joined him, falling to the floor rolling around. Laughing like a maniac, until I was so exhausted I lost consciousness again. Volume One - Chapter One: Meeting Myself... Volume One Chapter One Meeting myself¡­ Author''s Note/Warning (This chapter has a VERY small amount of genderbender in it. You¡¯ll probably be ok with it even if you normally HATE gender benders but I figured I should warn you. Also, this chapter deals with some mature topics, (sex/drugs) not explicitly but I figured I¡¯d also warn you for that. Enjoy:) When I finally regained consciousness, I groggily wiped my eyes and looked around. In front of me was¡­ me. Now that the shock had passed, I freaked out. I started pinching myself, trying to wake up, no luck. As I stared at myself, I began to wonder what the hell could have happened to me. Thinking for a while I began to wonder, what could possibly explain this more heroic looking version of myself? He¡¯s taller, better looking, better everything than the real me. Ahh! Finally I understood. It¡¯s a trick mirror, I¡¯m at Disneyland! Right, nothing¡¯s wrong, nothing¡¯s weird now let¡¯s get out of here! Finally calming down I start looking for a way to get out here. Only¡­ I can''t see anything. Other than the mysterious me, everything is pitch black. It was as if I was stuck in a sensory deprivation tank. Thinking back to my greatest wishes, I grinned. I couldn¡¯t believe how lucky I was, this was the character creation screen to a VRMMO! Those weren¡¯t supposed to come out for another 20 years or something. Am I lucky, or what? I yelled out, ¡°Computer; log me out!¡± Of course, nothing happened. Now, I¡¯m freaking out again. My delusions are falling apart, and all I can do is think about the horrible image of a distorted playboy bunny with stretch marks and pimples for eyes... Then, as if he knew I was out of ideas, the mysterious me spoke. ¡°Welcome home Dave.¡± WTF!!!! Ok, now I¡¯m seriously freaked. I thought I was just hallucinating or something. Maybe I took some bad acid. Now that I remember it, Bill brought some shrooms to my get away bash and we got all messed up. That¡¯s it, this is a fucked up trip. Mom, Dad, I¡¯m never doing drugs again as long as I come down from this. I promise please get me out!!!! ¡°You¡¯re not on shrooms Dave¡± ¡­I didn¡¯t say that outloud so¡­ yep definitely tripping need to just calm down think happy thoughts¡­ ¡°You¡¯re right, you do need to calm down this will be much less painful if you just relax¡± There it is again! I didn¡¯t say anything damn it. If I¡¯ve learned anything from pop culture it¡¯s never, ever do what the weird hallucination of yourself tells you to do. For all I know I could be in the Matrix. No, this is a CIA or NSA plot. They¡¯re going to brainwash me and turn me into a super assassin. Actually¡­ that sounds kind of fun, definitely better than a boring life at college¡­ No back on track don¡¯t fall for it!!! ¡°Sigh¡­ Guess we¡¯ll just have to do this the hard way ok guy¡¯s shock treatment time.¡± I really didn¡¯t want to know what shock treatment meant. For the first time, I actually spoke aloud, pleading. ¡°Please, just let me go, let me wake up. I¡¯m in my bed having a shitty dream because I hate flying in planes, please go away nightmare!!!¡± As my pleas fell on deaf ears, the mysteriously heroic version of me waved his hand and suddenly hundreds of¡­ me¡¯s appeared out of thin air. There was skinny me, baby me, fat me, cyborg me, elf me, alien me, even, O god please don¡¯t let this be so, FEMALE ME!!!! So many¡­ me¡¯s. All of them were grinning at me and chatting amongst themselves. ¡°This has got to be one of the best reactions we¡¯ve gotten yet, what do you think skinny.¡± ¡°Well, Fatty, I think Heroic did a horrible job breaking it to him. He hasn¡¯t even told him what the hell is going on yet.¡± At that point the Nerdy version of me, with cokebottle glasses and a horrible case of acne, coughed and said, ¡°According to my calculations, this has been the fifth most interesting introduction of ourselves. The 4th most being, when skinny met fatty first and started laughing and pointing so hard that fatty smothered him. Hmm that seems reminiscent of how we just died... *Cough* The 3rd most interesting being, when I got revenge on jock by instantly using a taser to tase him, then paralyzing him for our next life cycle. The 2nd most was when baby showed up, and heroic had to restrain fatty from eating him.¡± At which point fatty, started to blush embarrassedly. He approached Baby, trying to apologize, but the female me picked up baby and shouted, ¡°Go away! You scare him you big tub of lard! I can¡¯t believe you are a part of us, go die already! You weigh so damned much, I can¡¯t believe you haven¡¯t had a heart attack yet¡± Coughing, nerdy continued on while looking at female nervously, ¡°The most interesting introduction goes to female.¡± After glancing over at female, he whispered sagely, ¡°As all of you know, in all of our hundreds of lives we have only been a female once. As soon as female saw heroic she just couldn¡¯t help herself, and jumped him¡­. AHHH!!¡± Nerdy screamed as female kicked him in the balls, starting to tap dancing on him while blushing scarlet red, muttering ¡°You will pay!!!¡± Clown started laughing and said, ¡°Hey, technically it was just masturbation, as you did it with yourself.¡± Of course, this didn¡¯t work out too well for him as female started chasing him around. With his big, floppy clown shoes, he couldn¡¯t out run her. Soon, she was tap dancing on him while glaring at everyone, daring them to say anything. While all of this was happening, I sat there in a daze unable to believe what was happening. Worried that I had gone into a vegetative state, the doctor me began checking my vital signs. While mad scientist me began chatting with heroic. ¡°Vell, ve can adjust much easier if you allow me to administer the serum¡± Everyone, even female who was still busy dancing on clown, turned and yelled simultaneously, ¡°NOOO!!!!¡± Heroic said, ¡°The last time we let you test out one of your serums, we were born in a vegetative state. The time before that we, got early onset alzheimer''s at the age of 8¡­ and don¡¯t forget about that time where we had a tail.¡± Someone in the back muttered, ¡°Hey, I liked that tail.¡± Finally, somewhat recovering from my comatose state, I looked around in shock and yelled out, ¡°Ok, what the hell is going on here?!?!?¡± Heroic answered, ¡°We are you and you are us. Every time we are reborn a new version of us is born, and becomes the main consciousness that body dies. Each of us here are a version of us that has existed in the past. With caveman over there being the first.¡± He pointed over to a small corner, where a weird looking version of me sat. He looked maybe 4 feet tall, and had hairy feet with scraggly, long hair. He was chatting amiably with what looked like a slob version of me, with cheese puffs in his hand. Crumbs and bright orange stains all over his clothes and face. Fatty suddenly yelled, ¡°HEY!!! Those are my cheese puffs! What do you think you''re doing slob!!¡± A little freaked out, I thought caveman me looked more like a hobbit than a caveman. Looking around every single version of me was well¡­ eccentric. Not only that, but it was as if all of the attributes were enhanced to the extreme somehow. Fatty was so obese, he made the bunny tattoo lady look skinny. Skinny looked like a freakin skeleton. Then, I noticed out of the corner of my eye there was an actual skeleton among us; along with a wraith and a zombie. They were sitting around ignoring everyone else while looking creepy. Unable to hold my down my curiosity I pointed to the undead group, and said, ¡°Please tell me they are just messing with my¡­ our head.¡± This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version. Heroic answered ¡°Well¡­ our attributes are based not only off of what we became in our life but the main aspects of our personalities. For instance, Fatty was a glutton in real life but wasn¡¯t really that fat. He¡¯d have died long before reaching his current girth of nearly 2,000 lbs. It is just emphasized in this place. However, think about it. We¡¯ve lived nearly 600 lives at this point and existed for many millennia between incarnations. Very few souls manage to go through as many lives as we have without either ascending to immortality or going insane and initiating a total personality wipe. Imagine it, spending thousands of years with 600 versions of yourself, but having your own individual consciousness¡­ All of us tend to emphasize what makes us different from the others.¡± After thinking for a while, I nodded. It made sense, I was already feeling the need to differentiate myself from these¡­ people? Unconsciously, my body started to change with the most visible difference being my lower jaw turned into steel. Suddenly I looked like a certain Bond villain... Nerdy then shouted out in glee, ¡°You owe me sucka¡¯s!!!¡± What looked like some form of money was being passed to him and a few others. Apparently, they¡¯d been betting on what my defining characteristics would end up being. Heroic then smiled and said, ¡°The final order of business before you become an official member of our soul, is picking the destination of our next reincarnation.¡± Suddenly the entire group of widely disparate beings turned, staring at me intensely. ¡°Umm¡­ what do you mean?¡± I asked. Heroic explained, ¡°After many discussions, failures, tribulations, and well ¡­¡± he looked embarrassed. Pausing for a moment before continuing on, whispering, ¡°wars between us¡­*cough* Well, it was decided that the newest member would be allowed to pick what kind of life he, or she, wanted to live in the next incarnation. We don¡¯t have much power over it, except picking the types of worlds that we will be reborn on, as well as our race. Though we have decided as a group to limit your choices to humanoid races, as being a beast or demon just is not fun. The only other requirement, is that it has to be an interesting life. We personalities have not been existing for thousands of years to waste our lives being a housewife, or janitor.¡± At this, every member of the group nodded vigorously. ¡°Also, depending on your choice it may take hundreds, or thousands of years to be reborn. It may also only take a few minutes, however that has never happened before. The choice is yours.¡± Dumbstruck, I stood there looking at the anticipatory gazes of my fellow personalities. Suddenly, nerdy yelled out, ¡°Somewhere with technology!¡± Female yelled, ¡°Let¡¯s be female again, it¡¯s been so long since we carried a child!¡± Suddenly, the entire group of nearly 600 personalities were yelling out suggestions. In the back the caveman was jumping up and down in excitement, while the wraith moaned, ¡°Leettss bbeee aaa neeccrrooomaannncceerr agaaiin.¡± Finally, Heroic had had enough, flying into the air like superman he shouted, ¡°SHUT UP!!!!¡± Everyone quieted down quickly surprising me, after all this was a rowdy individualistic lot. Why would they listen to the superhero like personality? Heck, I saw at least two shady people in the back that looked like super villains!! They¡¯d certainly make noise just to be contrary. With the quiet, I thought for a bit before asking, ¡°So you''re saying we cannot change our affinities to certain types of magic; or enhance our traits at all based on my choices?¡± Heroic looked at me for a moment and then explained, ¡°There is no such thing as genius. Genius is an invention of mortal minds that do not understand the very concept of souls. The fact is, that every soul must work hard, and suffer through many lifetimes in order to gain affinities, skills, and attributes. Sometimes, with luck, you can be born into a race that is exceptionally skilled with certain attributes or types of magic. Even then there is no guarantee that you will actually have any success. Beings known as genius¡¯ are, almost without exception, the incarnation of powerful souls that have existed for millennia. The more personalities, lives, and experiences that a soul has experienced. The more powerful it becomes, and therefore the more likely its incarnations are to succeed. Also, hard work plays a major factor into it. Even if you have lived for thousands of lifetimes if you waste your time lazing about, you will be unable to succeed at anything meaningful in your lifetime. However, you should understand that we are considered to be a fairly powerful soul, at least in the upper tier.¡± ¡°Earlier, you said that it is possible to become immortal; aren¡¯t we already technically immortal? We have lived for hundreds of lifetimes.¡± Heroic finally answered a few minutes later, ¡°Well¡­ when we have become powerful enough to become an immortal soul, our attributes will fuse together perfectly, never again to be split apart. We will become whole. It is our greatest wish, for while we enjoy being ourselves, in the end we are all the same person. It would be the same as being alive forever, never to be reborn, which is why it¡¯s called immortality. After thinking for a while I nodded and said, ¡°I want a world where we can train to become immortal like in the Xianxia novels I used to read. Also, since this may be our last lifetime, I¡¯d like to be born into a world with a VRMMO since it¡¯s been my dream to play one for years. Hopefully, one that is dedicated to training us to become immortal.¡± Heroic then turned and looked at the assembled personalities and said, ¡°I believe that this meets our requirements; while I believe that it may take a long time for us to be reborn, it will certainly be an interesting life any dissenters?¡± There were none, and so the first official meeting of personalities that I had ever been a part of was finalized. Our choices made. Heroic, and many others came up to Dave, welcoming him into the group. Telling him that since he was now officially a member of their community they needed to come up with a descriptive name for him. Finally, they settled on calling him Jaws, after the old bond villain. Soon thereafter the somber atmosphere was gone, and it turned into a full blown party. Evidently, in this soul space you only had to imagine something you want in order for it to appear. So while we partied every personality had its beverage, food, or drug of choice. It quickly turned into what from the outside must have seemed like the weirdest frat party ever. Man, what a sausage fest. Volume One - Chapter Two: Fighting Boredom Author''s Note Hey guy''s and gals. I had a lot of fun writing the last two chapters so I really hope you enjoyed these. I wanted to thank everyone who has commented and reviewed it. To anyone who hasn''t, please comment/review/rate. Also, to tivanenk thanks for the review and noticing my severe lack of comma''s. I went back and re-read it and my god was it bad. I tried to do a much better job this time, but please let me know how I did. I''m doing this for fun, but also because I want to become a better writer. Enjoy!!! Chit out. Fighting Boredom As time slowly passed, I began to realize just how long these personalities had existed. It¡¯d been nearly 100 years since I had been smothered, without even the hint of being reborn. At first, everybody had been lively and energetic. But, at some point, our more reclusive personalities had withdrawn into themselves. Myself, and another personality I liked to call ¡°bookworm¡±, (He¡¯d decided to literally transform his body into a worm with multiple eyes so he could read more than one book at a time), were in a corner reading in the library he¡¯d materialized out of thin air. It was fascinating, apparently every book that we¡¯d ever read or written, in any of our lifetimes, was saved here. There were fictions, plays, movie scripts, textbooks, and even the diaries of our past lives. Currently, I was reading the diary of one of our supervillain personalities. In his case it was less a diary then a record of each of his escapades. He¡¯d just managed to break out of a ¡°breakout proof¡± jail (as if such a thing exists). Using a shoelace, gum, and some kind of high-tech laser that hadn¡¯t been invented yet in my dimension. Apparently, this guy was the Mcgyver of his time. *Boom* Crashing noises, loud shouting, and screaming could be heard through the windows. Intrigued, I looked to the other side of this space that we were in. Apparently, a war from the middle ages was happening just outside the library. Thousands of... people had come out of no where. Fighting in platemail armor with swords and axes, some of the apparitions were standing to one side, wearing flowing robes with long staves in their hands. As they chanted some kind of spell energy coalesced into a huge meteor that slammed down into one army. Some of the personalities were on each side. They appeared to be pretending to be generals. Standing in command tents ordering the apparitions around. Suddenly, a humongous blue dragon flew down from the sky, blowing fire and killing most of the soldiers. The lucky survivors began running in terror, while the personalities looked pissed off. They then started chanting spells and suddenly an arcane fight the likes of which had never been seen was taking place right in front of me. I couldn''t believe my eyes, just a year ago there hadn''t even been grass on the ground. Heck, when I came here, there¡¯d only been a vast darkness covering the area. Over time, each personality had ¡°willed¡± into being a home; while some created parks, and another, who¡¯d been a gladiator, had created a humongous Greek Coliseum. Perhaps, I had allowed myself to get too absorbed into the library. I had no idea how they were doing this. Finding a personality that looked like Indiana Jones. He was watching the hectic battle with a smile on his face. ¡°What the hell is going on?¡± I asked. He looked at me, then pointed to a man wearing a lab coat walking out of what looked like a laboratory; talking to the mad scientist personality I¡¯d seen on my first day. ¡°Go talk to the psychiatrist. He¡¯s in charge of integrating new personalities, and teaching them what this is all about.¡± He waved his hand towards the gigantic dragon as it ate female alive. I stood there in horror until I saw her revive on the side, looking pissed and yelling, ¡°FATTY I WILL GET YOU FOR THIS!!!¡± Chuckling, I jogged over to the psychiatrist. He saw me and smiled saying, ¡°I was wondering when you were going to come find me.¡± ¡°What the hell is going on? There¡¯s people fighting dragons over there.¡± I pointed at fatty who had just been hit by a gigantic spear of ice that female had thrown at him. ¡°and I can see what looks like a reenactment of The Fellowship of the Rings over there.¡± I pointed to an area that looked like a cave where a group of personalities ran from a goblin army. I could recognize nerdy with his horrible acne from here. He stopped on a bridge and yelled ¡°You Shall Not Pass!¡± so loudly that everyone turned to take a look. The psychiatrist laughed, and said, ¡° I didn¡¯t think we¡¯d already gotten so bored that we are reenacting movies. Usually this takes another hundred years or so.¡± As I looked at him as if he were even crazier than the mad scientist he laughed again, and said, ¡°Perhaps, I should have come to find you earlier, instead of waiting for you to find me. Come, join me for a cup of tea, I¡¯ll explain everything.¡± As I followed the man, I realized that his appearance was changing in front of me. Originally, he¡¯d been a normal looking version of me wearing a lab coat. Now, the labcoat had disappeared completely. He was wearing a suit, while his hair had turned white and he¡¯d grown a full beard. Looking at him, I couldn''t help but be stunned as he started lighting a cigar. With a wave of his hands a sofa appeared and he invited me to sit on it. With another wave, a coffee table with tea, biscuits, and honey appeared. A third wave, and a comfortable looking office chair appeared on the other side of the coffee table. Suddenly, we were an isolated area of calm in the middle of a madhouse. To my left was the arcane battle, with the dragon. To the right, I saw the Nerdy plunging to his doom while fighting the Bahlrog. I just couldn¡¯t believe he wanted me to sit here and enjoy some tea while all of this was going on!! If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. ¡°Hmm, yes, quite distracting¡± he said. With a final wave of his hand, a building had appeared around us, with windows allowing us to see what was going on. Pouring a cup of tea for me he said, ¡°As you¡¯ve no doubt been told; I¡¯m in charge of explaining what this ¡°world¡± is. Perhaps you¡¯ve heard people call it our subconscious?¡± Not waiting for an answer he continued on, ¡°You see, this (he waved as our surroundings) is a survival mechanism. Every soul has to come up with some kind of way to survive the boredom. We spend hundreds, sometimes thousands, of years between lives, unable to perceive anything outside of ourselves. In order to fight the inevitable insanity, we began reliving past lives. When this got too boring, we decided to create this space. This, is our subconsciousness. Every distinct personality that we¡¯ve ever had, every life that we¡¯ve ever lived. We¡¯re all thrown into contact with each other. The heroic and villainous aspects fight, the aspects having to do with medicine and science experiment and study. Those of us skilled in arcane magic practice, while those of us skilled at sports learn how to fight in the coliseum. Our jobs are to interact with each other, learn new things, and generally keep ourselves entertained. This is basically a dream that won¡¯t end until we are reborn.¡± I thought for a while on what he had said, but I found it hard to believe this was a dream. I felt so¡­ alive in here. Suddenly, he continued on. ¡°I can see that you are having trouble believing this, think back to your previous life. Remember how you¡¯d have very little control over the contents of your dreams? Well, that¡¯s because we live in the subconscious part of our soul. In-between lives we keep the rest of our soul from going crazy by keeping it entertained. During life, we subtly guide our journey. Pointing us towards an interesting direction, while helping it learn magic, swordsmanship, walking, anything that we have knowledge of. We will exist in this place for eternity, or until a soul becomes so powerful that it completely integrates; combining the consciousness and subconsciousness. When this happens all of the knowledge, powers, and experiences of our lives will become available to us. We will be melded into a single being once again, a being of great power. An immortal.¡± ¡°So, that is why everyone is so intent on becoming an immortal. We are trapped in this place until we finally achieve this goal. What should I do until then?¡± The psychiatrist answered, ¡°Whatever you want to do, play games, learn to fight, learn magic, read, sleep, do whatever it is that will make you happy. By doing this you are making everyone here happy. Our job is to have fun.¡± While being locked in here does kind of suck, this isn¡¯t a bad gig. I get to do whatever I want for the rest of eternity, or until we finally manage to become immortal. ¡°Alright, one final question. How do I materialize things?¡± He couldn¡¯t help himself, laughing in my face. ¡°I thought that you were a fairly smart version of us. Think, we are in a dream space and you have control over it. How did you change your appearance, change your clothes?¡± ¡°O, Duh!¡± I facepalmed while feeling embarrassed. It was so obvious. If this is like a dream space then, all I needed to do was imagine it and impose my will. ¡°It will take a bit of practice to get used to it, but it becomes as simple as walking or breathing eventually. Now, get out of here. I need to continue my studies, I¡¯ve been preparing a remarkable thesis on the mad scientist. Such a genius mind, but so crooked... It is quite fascinating.¡± Standing up, with a final wave of his hand, everything he¡¯d conjured disappeared. He began walking towards the mad scientist¡¯s lab, while his appearance returned to the normal version of me with a white lab coat on. I sat on the ground dumbfounded for quite a while. Thinking about the things that had been revealed to me. Finally, a goofy grin appeared on my face as I saw the dragon finally get defeated, turning back into fatty. Laughing, I imagined myself as a huge black and blue dragon breathing ice down on the masses. Suddenly, I transformed and joined the madness. Enjoying every second of it. Volume One - Chapter Three: Birth A/N: After this chapter, it''ll start getting more serious, but I won''t completely lose the funny anecdotes and slice of life stuff. Just, more of a balance. Please comment/review/follow if you like the story... or even if you don''t. So, enjoy!! Chit Volume One - Chapter 3: Birth Nearly fifty years had passed since I¡¯d had that conversation with the psychiatrist. For the first few years, I lost myself in the constant, low-grade war occurring throughout the consciousness. However, I grew bored after a while. It was much like being a little kid, pretending to fight. There were no health bars, damage counters, balancing, anything. It was pure role-playing, since we couldn¡¯t actually hurt each other. No matter how hard Female tried to castrate Fatty, he¡¯d just reform his body. Within a minute or two he¡¯d be back to his usual jolly fat man routine. When I finally gave up the roleplaying, I wandered around searching for what to do next. As I walked down the wide street that had appeared out of no where, I laughed as I watched Superhero chase Supervillain #1, who I¡¯ve taken to calling Adam, around town while Supervillain #2 (Javier) snuck into the bank and ran out with everything from the safe deposit boxes. As Javier ran past, carrying all the loot, he saw me grinning. Stopping, he took a book out of the loot, and said, ¡°You should read this, then destroy it before Nerdy finds out about it. You¡¯ll like it.¡± I just chuckled, grabbing the book, and walking towards Bookworm¡¯s library at the end of the street. As if he knew what was going on the entire time, Heroic appeared out of thin air. Carrying Adam by the scruff of his neck, he knocked out Javier in a single blow and threw them in ¡°Jail¡±. Just like the rest of the roleplayers, they wouldn¡¯t use their powers to break out, instead relying on Javier¡¯s Mcgyver like skills. The entire 150 years I spent in the subconscious before rebirth, I must have seen them break out of jail at least a thousand times. My best guess is that they did it at least once a day, that entire time. But, I was usually too busy to join in. Though, for a few day¡¯s I did follow them around as an ¡°apprentice¡± supervillain. Man, was it fun... Until, Superhero showed up out of nowhere and started beating the crap out of me. He¡¯d usually just instantly knock out the two supervillains. But, apparently he didn¡¯t want a third one running around; so he decided to make it clear to me. Running with Adam and Javier was a BAD idea. After that, I went back to pretending to be a dragon with Fatty. Back from memory lane, I finally cracked open the book while leaning back in the recliner I¡¯d conjured up. Bookworm was glaring at me, upset that I¡¯d introduced a foreign element into his library. But, he couldn¡¯t be distracted from his books for long enough to actually deign to yell at me. So, I just relaxed, summoning up a screwdriver, and reading Nerdy¡¯s book. The first few pages were a recounting of the various time¡¯s he¡¯d managed to get Fatty into trouble. While somewhat funny, it wasn¡¯t enough for Javier to tell me I¡¯d like it. Though, there was that one time when Nerdy managed to frame Fatty for kidnapping and eating Baby. Man, I feel bad for that guy sometimes; it¡¯s like everyone is egging Female on purposely. Not that I was any better, watching Female tap-dancing on Fatty was quite enjoyable. Still, not enough for Javier to steal it from the bank, or for Nerdy to need to lock it up. Flipping past more stories, I finally hit the jackpot. Apparently, when he was alive Nerdy had been a game designer, and he had attempted to build his own VRMMO in this world for a long time. Unfortunately, anyone could break the balance just by imagining themselves to be stronger, so he was never able to create an MMO. However, he did come up with some interesting ways of creating a solo RPG, or shooter. Since it was solo, if you cheated then you were just ruining your own gaming experience, not everyone elses. So, for the next 10, well lets be honest, 20 years I spent almost all of my time playing various games from my past. As well as the ones Nerdy had created. At this point, I¡¯d already been here for 125 years, and I had yet to learn magic. This was one of my greatest dreams in my past life, and I¡¯d allowed myself to get side tracked for over a Hundred freaking years. Hell, I was only 19 when I died. Feeling like a colossal idiot, I made it over to the Magician¡¯s tower that was next to the coliseum. Unfortunately, no one was willing to teach me. The guy sitting in the lobby told me, ¡°You can¡¯t die, and you can fix whatever damage you do to your body with a single thought. So, why bother entering a long, boring, and stupid apprenticeship. Just take a basic magic book and mess around with it. It¡¯ll only take a few ¡°deaths¡± for you to get it.¡± So, just like that, I managed to spend the next 25 years killing myself trying to learn magic. For the first five years, I couldn¡¯t do a damned thing. After getting seriously pissed off, I went back to the Magician''s¡¯ tower and found the same guy sitting in the lobby reading a book. Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere. ¡°So, you just didn¡¯t want competition right? This is freaking impossible, I¡¯ve been trying for the last five years and I can¡¯t even make a tiny little flame.¡± Looking up from his book he said, ¡°Of course you haven¡¯t been able to do a damned thing. There was no magic in your world. So you have to create your own affinities to the elements through hard work. Give it another five years and you should be fine.¡± ¡°Five fucking years!?!? When was the last time you ever heard of someone taking TEN YEARS to learn basic magic?.¡± To which he responded, ¡°Why do you care? You will be living in here for at least another thousand years, what¡¯s five years of increasing your affinities to a you?¡± Storming out of there, I resolved to do it in less than a year¡­ of course it didn¡¯t work out like that. It took the requisite five years, and even then all I could do was the most basic of magic. Basically, I could create a flame slightly hotter than room temperature. At this point though, I wasn¡¯t giving up until I could roast that smug fucker alive. So, here we are, 150 years after death, and I finally was able to use advanced magic. I knew that the fucker in the Magician¡¯s tower had to be insanely strong. So I planned to sneak up on him, using the skills I¡¯d learned from the Super Villains, and blowing his ass up before he had the chance to notice me. I¡¯d just managed to sneak through a window on the second floor, when fate decided to destroy all my plans. Everything just disappeared with a poof. It was exactly as it had been when I first arrived, with every single personality standing in a small area being sucked into a hole in the floor I¡¯d never seen before. I¡¯d always hated dark spaces, especially when what seemed to be a black hole was sucking us all to our dooms I was panicking, and about to start screaming like a little girl. Looking around, I saw that no one else was panicking. Instead, they were all insanely happy. Female was doing a jig, the supervillains were actually chatting happily with Heroic¡­ Never thought I¡¯d see that¡­ Bookworm had turned back into a normal looking version of me, while Nerdy had actually put away his laptop (he hadn¡¯t done that in nearly 50 years). I heard Fatty chatting happily behind me, ¡°To think, it only took 150 years to be reborn. Man, that was a quick one, one of the fastest.¡± And then, we were all gone, sucked into the giant chasm that¡¯d appeared under our feet suddenly. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- *WAAAAAA* ¡°He¡¯s gorgeous master.¡± ¡°Yes, he certainly is, now go rest Liz, it¡¯s been nearly 20 hours.¡± As she bowed and left the room, the middle-aged man with glowing, golden eyes stared at his new son currently sleeping in his wife¡¯s arms. He couldn¡¯t help but be ecstatic, they¡¯d been trying to have a child for nearly 15 years. Nothing would work, modern fertility treatments wouldn¡¯t work; despite the doctor¡¯s assurances that both of them were perfectly healthy, fertile individuals. In fact, they had been amazed at the fitness levels of both himself and his wife. They even went to his crazy Grandmother, who was a self proclaimed ¡°seer¡±, nearly 10 years ago. She had burned some herbs, chanted in some old language long forgotten, and rolled her eye¡¯s into her head. Stupid woman was going senile, and enjoyed being theatrical far too much. She woke up a few hours later, and said in a dry, creaky voice that sounded like it hadn¡¯t been used in a decade or two, ¡°You will have children, do not fret. It is just not time yet. For the soul of your first child is incredibly powerful, a prodigy, an existence able to choose when and where it is born. When the time comes, you will have a son.¡± Then she passed out again, and nearly died. Crazy old coot was just being theatrical and nearly killed herself. Of course, he didn¡¯t believe a damned thing she said, this is the age of technology. He left feeling like an idiot, hoping she didn¡¯t really die. He muttered, "She may be crazy, annoying, and a total bitch when she stopped by for Thanksgiving. She¡¯s still my Grandmother". Shouldn¡¯t have allowed his wife to convince him to do this. She, on the other hand, was beaming. Totally convinced that she would give him a son they just had to work hard. Afterwards began the longest, most exhausting, and enjoyable ten years of his life. He couldn¡¯t go for more than 6 hours without his wife visiting me¡­ But, here we are, finally, and it¡¯s a son. "Great, Grandma¡¯s gonna be so smug next time I see her." Volume One - Chapter Four: Great-Granny Kingsly A/N - Well, I didn''t really plan on writing this today. But, I was at dinner planning on doing a read & feed like I normally do when I eat alone, (was gonna check out Blackthorne) , and I couldn''t concentrate on reading. Not Scott''s fault, my mind just wouldn''t stop coming up with stuff it wanted to write down. Instead of my nice, relaxing dinner while drinking way too many soda''s, I found myself eating insanely quickly and then rushing home to write this. So, It''d damned well better be good. (I think it is). Anyway, here it is. 2nd Chapter today, and quite a long one too. Enjoy ;) Chit Volume One - Chapter Four: Great-Granny Kingsly ¡°I¡¯d like to be able to look back, and say I was a genius child. Well behaved, and wonderful. I wasn¡¯t. If anything, I was a little hellion.¡± - David Kingsly Right after being born, a new body does not immediately develop a consciousness. Also, as the brain grows and matures, the body isn¡¯t protected against possession. This, was the great window of opportunity that we had. For the next several months, until our new body had matured enough, we were able to possess ourself. Complicated, right? So, instead of being a blank spot in our history, I can actually give a fairly good account of the early months. I don¡¯t really remember being born, since we had yet to possess our body. (God, that¡¯s even more complicated than I thought) It wasn¡¯t until the next day, when we woke up, that the plan took effect. In the beginning, what we needed was information. According to Heroic, if we could use these few months to discover the state of the world, whether or not magic existed, how powerful our family was, etc... Then, we could begin to influence ourself, building good habits from a young age. Usually, we never really bothered with doing that. Too much work. But, this time, because I had chosen to attempt to reach immortality during this lifetime, we had to start early. The earlier the better. So, the psychiatrist was in charge of the body at first. He was tasked with analyzing our new parents. We needed to know if they were likely to harm, or hinder our future progress. If that was the case, then some actions were supposed to be taken. I never learned what the other personalities were planning, and frankly, I didn¡¯t want to know. Over the past 150 years, I¡¯d learned just how brutal the other me¡¯s could be. I wasn¡¯t quite there, yet. Thankfully, those measures weren¡¯t needed. I¡¯m fairly sure they wouldn¡¯t have worked anyway. My new parents were not normal. In this first day of listening, we were blown away to discover that they were speaking a variant of the English that I¡¯d used in my previous lifetime. Usually, we had to learn a completely new language every time we were born. Another reason why the personalities usually didn¡¯t bother to possess themself as babies¡­ learning a new language is a total pain in the ass. That day, my dad walked into the room where our crib was, picking us up. He was a gigantic, scary man, or at least it seemed like it at the time. The scariest thing was his bright, golden eyes that seemed to grow brighter as they gazed at us, growing in intensity. We tried to hold it in, but despite all of the thousands of years of experience, we were still in a one day old infant¡¯s body. We started bawling, so loud that Mom ran in and swatted him on the head. ¡°You¡¯re scaring him! You need to learn how to control your eyes, or I¡¯ll ban you from this room!¡± Looking chagrined and saddened at the same time, he slumped his shoulders and left the room. Now, we felt really bad. He didn¡¯t deserve that, damned one day old body! ¡°Its ok baby, Mommy is here for you. I know that big oaf (she glared at dad¡¯s back) is scary. It¡¯s just because we¡¯ve been waiting for you for so long.¡± Feeling tired, and hungry, we started crying again. She chuckled, feeding us. She then put us back in the crib, singing a lullaby. She was an amazing singer. Our day¡¯s continued like this for quite some time. Other than Lizzy, the maid in charge of our care while Mom and Dad were gone, we didn¡¯t meet anyone else. Our new name appeared to be David, David Kingsly. Our family was very old, dating back thousands of years. But, that was about all that we were able to learn in those early days. Unfortunately, we found it increasingly annoying that no one ever said Mom or Dad¡¯s name. It seemed that they had pet names for each other (too embarrassing to write down). Lizzy just called them Master, or Mistress. I think my parents weren¡¯t really comfortable with the titles, but they put up with it. There seemed to be some kind of backstory there but, once again, who tells a baby complicated stuff like that? Finally, after about a month, we got to see magic!!! Of course, it was Mom. She created a small fireball, using it to light the fireplace. Lizzy¡¯s face was just priceless, I don¡¯t think she¡¯d ever seen magic before that moment. Smiling, Mom looked exhausted. Even that tiny amount of magic wore her out. ¡°That¡¯s about the most I can do, and no one else in my clan can even do that anymore. It appears that mana has truly left this world.¡± She looked really sad, as if an era of great wonder had ended. Picking us up, she smiled, ¡°At least, you won¡¯t have to waste your time learning how to use magic.¡± She read us a fairytale about some prince or princess, we didn¡¯t really pay attention. Every other time we¡¯d attempted to reach immortality, we¡¯d been reborn on a world with an excess of mana. Now, here we were, in a world that was losing its magic, but had advanced technology. I could see devices that worked like cell phones, a window that would turn opaque and start playing TV or movies, an amazing refrigerator that put the food in stasis, instead of cooling it. So, because of my dream to play a VRMMO, I¡¯d ruined our chances at becoming immortal in this lifetime. During the next few months, I didn¡¯t pay much attention. I was depressed, thinking I¡¯d ruined my only chance at picking a good future life. Apparently, now that they knew there was no magic in this world, the other personalities decided to let baby take over the body. I didn¡¯t know why at the time, figuring that they had given up on immortality, just like I had. Instead, they¡¯d begun a rigorous training regimen¡­ for a baby. Since he had the most experience in a baby''s body, he¡¯d literally been one for thousands of years now, he was the best personality for the job. So, he crawled around a lot, generally creating havoc everywhere. Our new parent¡¯s quickly realized that there was no such thing as child proof doors, stairs, ladders, anything. Baby turned that entire house into his toy. One time, he managed to somehow get us into the highest cupboard in the kitchen, above the refrigerator like stasis device. Don¡¯t ask me how, it was about 12 feet off the ground and there were no obvious ways to climb up. Of course, this wiped us out, so we fell asleep. We woke up to the agonized wailing of our mother and father. Lizzy was prostrating herself, saying that she had no idea what happened. The worst part was, about half of our personalities didn¡¯t even feel bad for making them worry. Instead, they giggled hysterically, like it was a great joke. That was when I finally realized just how messed up we were. Not in a horrible way. None of our personalities were psychotics that actually enjoyed killing, thank god. Yet, there seemed to be one personality trait that was universally apart of us. We loved practical jokes. Stolen novel; please report. Finally, we felt hungry and sorry enough to start crying. Instantly, Mom and Dad looked at the cupboard, as if even the tiniest sound was enough for them to locate us. It was quite scary, we knew that magic had basically left this world, but they were so fast that we heard a sonic boom as they flew across the house to us. Apparently, there are other ways than magic to gain supernatural power. This was new to us, which was damned exciting. Finally, I broke free of my melancholy. Maybe, just maybe, we could train to become an Immortal in this world after all. Unfortunately, we couldn¡¯t stay shocked for long. The sonic boom from their movement blew out all the windows and destroyed our little eardrums. The pain was intense. We were lucky that our parent¡¯s instantly realized what they¡¯d done, healing us on the spot. Otherwise, we¡¯d have spent the rest of this life deaf. That was a close call. After that, our parents realized that something was going on with us. They changed things. Some people that worked for my Dad came to the house that day, and they put cameras EVERYWHERE. The only places safe from observation were the two upstairs bathrooms and bedrooms that our parents and Lizzy slept in. Of course, they also installed motion sensors in front of all the exits to our bedroom. Unless Lizzy, or my parents, turned them off they¡¯d instantly send message alerts to everyone, while also turning on a blaring alarm. Of course, this wasn¡¯t going to hold us back. So what if the alarm went off? That just made it more fun trying to find a good hiding spot before Lizzy, or our parents got there to find us. Eventually, this turned into a daily ritual. We¡¯d either get up early, or wait until after they¡¯d fed us and put us down for our daily nap. Then, we¡¯d stealthily sneak out of the crib and right in front of the sensors. When the time came, we¡¯d race (crawl) as fast as we could to the hiding spot that we¡¯d scoped out the day before. Of course, our parents weren¡¯t idiots. They came up with a plan to keep an eye on us, even while playing a game with us. They put a sensor on the top of our crib that only went off when we climbed over the crib. This sensor didn¡¯t trip the alarms, but did send them a message and alert them that our next game of hide and seek was commencing shortly. They were so good at acting, that we didn¡¯t even realize what was going on until they told us years later¡­ Totally embarrassing. Time passed quickly like this, and the time limit of our possession was quickly approaching. We were all a little sad, this had been incredibly fun. Using our wits to battle with someone other than ourself doesn¡¯t happen often for us. At the same time, we knew it had to happen, our body was maturing and much longer in control of it would damage our new personality. So, after deciding that this would be the final day, we set out to make today the greatest hide and seek game so far. We planned on escaping the house! Of course, things didn¡¯t work out the way we wanted them too. That day, Great-Grandma Kingsly came to visit. We had heard our Dad calling her, ¡°That old hag¡±, a few times. But, our Mom always seemed respectful of her, saying, ¡°She¡¯s lived for over 300 years as far as I can tell. I can¡¯t even feel an aura off of her. She could probably kill you in an instant. So shut up, and be nice.¡± 300 years is a pretty long lifespan for a normal human. As far as we were able to tell, there were only normal humans on this planet. So, instead of being sad, we decided that it was a good thing we¡¯d get to meet her at least once before we gave the body to our new self. Of course, this meeting turned out to be both a blessing and a curse. As soon as she saw us, she knew. I couldn¡¯t tell you how, except to say that woman¡¯s soul is just scary. She might have been an actual immortal, without telling anyone. She took one look at us, then told our parents she needed a few moments alone with us. With such a serious face that they couldn¡¯t even say anything. As much as my Dad might think of her as, ¡°That old hag¡±, he still understood just how powerful this lady was. Once our parent¡¯s left, she relaxed her illusion spell, allowing us to see her true form. A beautiful young woman, with an aura of power so strong it nearly knocked us out. I¡¯m pretty sure she was suppressing it even then. She looked incredibly pissed as she hissed, ¡°How long are you going to keep this up? Much longer and you¡¯ll permanently damage that body. And don¡¯t even think about lying, I¡¯ll know.¡± We couldn¡¯t do anything but tell her the truth, we didn¡¯t know how powerful she was, but she was definitely more powerful than us. ¡°Today¡¯s the last day, we don¡¯t normally do this, but, we had a goal for this life so we needed information.¡± ¡°Oh? What great goal would a soul like you, that¡¯s existed for nearly as long as I, have?¡± ¡°We¡¯re tired of this cycle of endless birth, death, and birth again. We decided to wait for a life that would offer us two things. The opportunity to play a VRMMO, while simultaneously training to become truly immortal.¡± ¡°Hehehehe¡± She cackled for a while. ¡°If you agree to be a true, loyal member of the goldeneye clan than I will help you in this goal. You would be a great ally for the future battles sure to occur.¡± ¡°Done.¡± ¡°Good, enjoy your last day possessing that body, because if I ever find you in that body again, before you become truly immortal, I will erase you from existence.¡± ¡°Yes, Ma¡¯am¡± we said meekly. ¡°Good, I knew I picked well when I guided your soul to my Grandson.¡± She smiled, then instantly transformed back into ¡°The Old Hag¡± Thus, ended our first meeting with the true matriarch of our clan. We didn¡¯t realize until later just how scary that woman actually is. But, that¡¯s a story for another day. Volume One - Chapter Five: Trouble A/N: Firstly, I will probably never again write three chapters in one day. I just couldn''t get this out of my head and I hate the idea saving it till tomorrow so... here it is. More importantly, I consider this chapter to be a transition chapter. So far, the main character has been ¡°Jaws¡±, the unfortunate victim of a playboy bunny tramp-stamp. From now on, the MC will be David Kingsly. The personalities will still be a part of the story, but much less of one. Think of them as Guardian Angels¡­ The kind that accidentally destroy the world (not a spoiler¡­ or maybe it is huhuhu). Anyway, the overall tone of the story will start to get more serious, but I¡¯ll still put in some lighthearted moments. Keep tuned!!!! (and rate/comment/review/follow or I¡¯ll sic Great-Granny Kingsly on you!) Volume One - Chapter Five: Trouble After Great-Granny Kingsly put the fear of death into us we spent the rest of the visit acting like a normal(ish) 7 month old. Apparently, she was much more animated around us than she usually is. After she left, my Dad just stood there watching her leave. ¡°I didn¡¯t think she could talk that much without having a stroke or heart attack.¡± Oh, if only you knew dad. If only you knew. Well, it was time for bed now, and after feeding one last time we removed our magic. From now on, we¡¯re back-seat drivers. Good luck David Kingsley. Try not to go insane!!! (I know I nearly did a few times) The next few years passed mundanely, without any really exciting events. While baby David still snuck out and went into hiding, he wasn¡¯t nearly as smart, or experienced, as Baby. He mostly reused the places we had already hidden in. For a while, our parents thought something might be wrong with us. But, Great-Granny Kingsly started visiting more often, which distracted them from their worries. (Also scared the shit out of us. She made it clear that we were still in her doghouse for risking her great-grandson like that). Thankfully, there was absolutely no damage, and the habits we¡¯d instilled in him made him extremely strong for a baby. He started walking not long after we left his body, which excited our parents to no end. Because of all the cameras hidden around the house they got every glorious moment of our first steps. Of course, they proceeded to embarrass us for the rest of time. Showing it to anyone, and everyone who would give them the time of day. By the time we were five, David had started truly following in our footsteps. He set Lizzy¡¯s hair on fire on four separate occasions, before he finally got caught in the act. That was one hell of a spanking, he was sore for days. We were so proud of him. Such a prank would normally only succeed once before getting caught, but he got it to work four different times!!! Of course, his pranks didn¡¯t end there. The neighbor had one of those stupid little yappy dogs. Our mother was complaining about it the night before, keeping her up all night. A good mama¡¯s boy has to get revenge for that! That day, he convinced Lizzy to take him outside for a while to play hide and seek. We¡¯d been playing that with her since we were a month old, she didn¡¯t think there was anything weird about the request¡­ At least until the next day when the neighbor showed up carrying her little dog. It¡¯d been shaved completely, no hair left anywhere. Thankfully, by that time little David had already learned about avoiding security cameras, and had avoided all forms of surveillance. So, he got away with that one. Though, our mother did give him a big hug as soon as the neighbor left. Also, the next day there was a big chocolate cake that appeared out of nowhere. Dad winked at us while serving a big slice. All of us were so proud! We knew that things couldn¡¯t continue on like this, David¡¯s pranks were getting more and more excessive as time went on. He¡¯d completely stopped pranking Lizzy or his parents. Which was good, he¡¯d realized that you don¡¯t mess with family, you mess with enemies! There was one older kid who played in the park down the street all the time. This one time, he kicked David in the back while Lizzy was looking the other way. We were so pissed, we almost attempted to possess him and kill that little fucker. (Maybe we¡¯re a little possessive of our newborn personality. Being in this situation is like being a parent, but even closer. He is a part of us.) But, Great-Granny Kingsly¡¯s warning was still clear in our minds. We had no doubt at all that she could completely destroy our soul, and we liked living, thank you very much. Of course, this didn¡¯t prevent us from¡­ guiding David into a particularly malicious, and stupid, revenge plot. We followed that fucker for a couple days whenever we got the chance. We realized that he loved to ride his bike down this really steep hill, going as fast as he could. He nearly crashed and got yelled at by drivers, neighbors, and his parents every day. So, we took over his dreams that night. Dreamt of him ¡°borrowing¡± one of the kitchen knives from his parent¡¯s kitchen, and using it to cut the brakes the next day. Then, he got rid of the knife by dropping it in the neighbor¡¯s recycling bin. Tomorrow was trash day, and by now he was extremely skilled at mischief. We trusted that he could do this without getting caught. The next day, David woke up with such an evil grin on his face that we couldn¡¯t help but laugh. Yup, he¡¯s one of us, muhahahaha!!!! Unfortunately, while he was incredibly gifted with mischief, he had yet to learn the need to be careful around our parents. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- David¡¯s POV I woke up that morning more excited then I¡¯d been since¡­ well ever. I had never gone so far with a prank, but this time, I just knew I had to get back at that guy. Ever since I stopped pranking my family, they began turning a semi-blind eye to my shenanigans. I loved that word, Lizzy had just taught it to me. Anyway, I figured that this was just another case that my parents would ignore. It¡¯s not like he¡¯d get seriously injured, right? So, I went to breakfast that morning incredibly cheerful. My family immediately knew, something was going down today. Dad and Mom exchanged wry smiles; they¡¯d known since I was a month old that I was an irascible helion. If I wasn¡¯t getting into trouble, they¡¯d start worrying about my health. I played the perfect little child, asking if Lizzy would take me to the park today. Dad couldn¡¯t help himself, he was laughing in his cereal, while Mom managed to turn her giggle into a cough. Finally, Mom said, ¡°Just be careful. No pranks you hear!¡± At that, Dad nearly fell on the floor. What was so damned funny? Wasn¡¯t I pulling off the perfect little child routine? So, they left for work or whatever, leaving me with my best friend, and accomplice, Lizzy. She went upstairs to get dressed. I took the opportunity to sneak a sharp, but small, knife from the kitchen. Palming it up my sleeve. We left for the park not long afterwards; as soon as we got there I started running around like normal, doing my best to imitate a normal child playing tag with his friends. I failed miserably, my whole family had too much experience to fall for any of my tricks. That ass showed up about 20 minutes later, I waited another 15 minutes before saying I needed a break, so they wouldn¡¯t put together my stopping with his arrival. The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there. Jogging over to get some water, I could just hear some evil laughter, barely audible over the water fountain. Followed by a girl yelling, ¡°KEEP QUIET IDIOT!!!¡± I nearly jumped, but couldn¡¯t see anyone so I figured I was just imagining it. Thinking about what I was about to do, I started laughing evilly myself for a few moments, before suddenly forcing my face straight. Lizzy had just looked at me, not good. She suspected something. O well, I¡¯ve been caught before, and this was a totally just cause. Slowly sitting down, watching my friends play tag. I managed to break line of sight with Lizzy by using a small hill. I started to crawl slowly around the hill. Then, I stood up and dashed over to that dick¡¯s bike. It was just sitting there, no one nearby, and no one was looking. It only took a moment for me to cut his brake lines. Before anyone noticed anything I ran back to my friends and joined back in playing tag. Another 20 minutes later, I was walking back home with Lizzy, when I heard a screeching sound down the road. Turning, I saw a car swerve, barely missing the bully. His terrorized scream as he hit a curb, flying over his handlebars, was music to my ears. Smiling slightly, I didn¡¯t notice Lizzy¡¯s angry face. I rarely saw this face, but when I did, it was bad news. She grabbed my arm, the arm that I¡¯d hid the knife in. Pulling me back home while calling my parents. Crap, I¡¯m in trouble. I was immediately locked in my room, and the motion sensors were turned back on. I was skilled at breaking and entering but, I hadn¡¯t learned how to defeat a motion sensor, yet. I wouldn¡¯t have tried to run away, anyway. I knew when to cut my losses, and this was one of those cases. When my parents asked, I was going to tell them the complete truth. Unfortunately, Great-Granny Kingsly showed up in my room before my parents did. She just appeared out of nowhere, as if she¡¯d teleported in, without even tripping the sensors. I nearly jumped out of my skin. She pointed her finger at me, and I was suddenly asleep. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Jaw¡¯s POV O Shit, we are soooooooooooo screwed. She looks PISSED! As she points her hand at us, we feel a shift and suddenly we¡¯re possessing the body again. We could feel David, asleep in our subconscious. She spoke one word in a short, clipped voice. ¡°Explain¡± So, we explained everything. As she listened her face lightened slightly, then she started laughing. ¡°So, you¡¯re saying this kid is a little piece of shit, picking on kids half his age, and size. He just picked on the wrong kid?¡± ¡°We are who we are. We don¡¯t take shit like that laying down. That kid is lucky you have our promise not to possess David, otherwise he¡¯d have spent the next 4 years in the hospital. If he was lucky enough to survive.¡± Great-Granny Kingsly couldn¡¯t stop laughing, suddenly the door crashed up, Mom and Dad were staring at her in stupefaction. ¡°How¡­ How did you get in Grandma?¡± At this point she waved her hand again, putting David back in control. Apparently, she didn¡¯t want her grandson knowing just who his son is. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- David¡¯s POV Suddenly, I was awake, and was somehow still standing. I had no clue what just happened. All I know is my parents are staring at Great-Granny Kingsly, as if she were the one that cut the brakes. I knew a good time to keep silent when I saw one, so I kept my mouth shut. Granny Kingsly couldn¡¯t stop laughing for some time. Finally, she sighed and said, ¡°Perhaps, it has been too long since I last showed my powers. This stays between us, clan business!¡± She canceled her illusion. Mom and Dad just stared at the beautiful woman who appeared out of nowhere. I couldn¡¯t keep my jaw from dropping, this woman was even better looking than Mom. I didn¡¯t think that was possible. In a recognizable voice, Granny Kingsly said, ¡°I know I look great, but put your tongue away if you don¡¯t want me to wash it out for you again!¡± Turning red, Dad slowly closed his mouth with a click. Finally, he said, ¡°How long where you going to keep fooling us like this? I¡¯ve known you for nearly a hundred years, and you¡¯ve let me think of you as some crazy old hag this whole time?!?¡± ¡°It was fun, when you¡¯ve lived as long as I have you learn find joy anywhere you can get it. Anyway, here¡¯s the deal. Your son needs to be punished, I advise you to leave his punishment up to me. Listen to his story first though.¡± Their gazes all shifted to me, and my dad¡¯s in particular was furious. I think Lizzy must have told her some of it on the phone. So, I told my story, only embellishing slightly. Saying that the bully was bullying more people than he actually was. Though, I stopped after I noticed how Great-Granny¡¯s eyes were narrowing every time I embellished even slightly. That woman is scary! Finally done with the whole tale, my parents couldn¡¯t believe their ears. ¡°I knew he was a rascal, but I never thought he had it in him to nearly kill somebody.¡± My mom was nearly in tears. Finally, I felt a bit of remorse for what I¡¯d done. Dad just looked at me speculatively, ¡°Why didn¡¯t you just fight him when he kicked you earlier?¡± ¡°What? You think I¡¯m an idiot? He¡¯s twice my size and age he would¡¯ve just beat the crap out of me.¡± ¡°Ok, Grandma, what¡¯s your advice?¡± my dad asked. ¡°It¡¯s simple, he is nearly six already. He is now at the proper age to receive training. Frankly, I like his devious, and ruthless nature. Plus, he¡¯s far too smart for his age. He¡¯ll be an excellent student. He is a member of our clan, Grandson. You cannot protect him from this. Also, I will train him personally. After I¡¯m done with him no bully will ever dare to kick him again. He¡¯ll also learn some more discretion.¡± My dad, who had been furious just a few moments ago, looked frightened. He looked at me with eyes full of pity and sadness. He had gone through the same training, with the same master many, many years ago. He¡¯d hoped to protect his son from such a horrible fate. Yet, he did need discipline. ¡°How long?¡± was all he asked. Turning back into the ugly, wrinkled, ancient granny, she said, ¡°Give me 3 years. We can¡¯t have him uneducated. He¡¯ll have all the basics drilled into him by then. And, (her eyes softened slightly) I don¡¯t want to take your son away from you for too long.¡± With that, my fate was decided. I had no idea what the next three years would be like. But, given the look of horror on my dad¡¯s face, and my mom¡¯s incessant weeping, I knew it wouldn¡¯t be fun. Suddenly, Great-Granny Kingsley¡¯s voice was projected into his soul¡¯s subconscious. Of course, David couldn¡¯t hear it but all the personalities certainly could. ¡°I told you I would help you complete your goal. Well, this training won¡¯t just be for David. Becoming Immortal requires two things, a vessel strong enough to hold your power, and a soul of astonishing strength. You wimps are barely passable at this point. Ready yourselves.¡± Her voice slowly faded from their mind as they heard her endless cackling. ¡°Kekekekekeke¡± Volume One - Chapter Six: My first day in Hell Volume One - Chapter Six: My First Day in Hell ¡°Son, be careful.¡± My dad glanced at the witch, then said quietly, ¡°try not to die.¡± Whaaaatt? My parents are letting me go with this old hag, and they think it¡¯s likely that I¡¯ll die? Screw this. I started running at that point¡­ it didn¡¯t work out well for me. Dad drug me back saying, ¡°Say goodbye to your Mother, and don¡¯t be a brat to Grandma. She has her ways of ensuring you never do something that stupid again. It¡¯s much better to just never learn about them.¡± He glanced at the witch and shivered, as if remembering something horrible from his past. Of course, that just scared me even further. I think dad is just as scared of her as I am! My mother couldn¡¯t stop crying, which of course made me start crying. Damnit, I¡¯m supposed to be a big boy. What¡¯s up with these stupid tear ducts. After a sloppy, tearful hug and kiss goodbye, Great-Granny Kingsly said, ¡°Time to go boy.¡± Before I could even pack anything she whisked me away. I don¡¯t know how, but one moment we were standing in my bedroom. The next, we were in front of a private jet with two humongous golden eyes, slitted like a cat¡¯s pupils, painted on it¡¯s tail. ¡°Never seen that before, boy? That¡¯s the family emblem. Come now, were going to your training grounds.¡± So, we boarded the plane together. She actually fed me, just that once. It was a wonderful dinner of steak and potatoes. Tasted better than anything I¡¯d ever had before, it felt like the meat had a special kind of energy in it, filling me up. I wished I could eat food like that every day¡­ If only I¡¯d known then. Be careful what you wish for kids! After dinner, I mysteriously fell asleep again. I think there¡¯s something wrong with me, why do I keep falling asleep for no reason? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Jaw¡¯s POV That meat was amazing! Everyone was stunned, we could somewhat recognize what it was. It was similar to magical beast meat except¡­ there wasn¡¯t any mana in it. There was something else, an energy that seemed more concentrated than mana. When we were put back in control of David¡¯s body by Granny-Kingsly, we couldn¡¯t shut up about it. ¡°What was that?!? That was even better than magical beast meat!!! I thought mana had left this world¡­¡± this continued on until she slapped us. Ouch, no need for physical abuse you old hag! ¡°Just shut up and listen. I¡¯m giving you an assignment, you have six months to complete this assignment. If you fail... there will be consequences!¡± That shut us up real fast. In all our lives, we had never met someone like this. Someone who could so easily look down on us. As if, we were but a little kid in her eyes¡­ Now we know how everyone else feels when we look down on them. She went on, ¡°What you¡¯ve done to your soul is actually ingenious. It requires an incredibly powerful soul, with great control over itself. The problem being, you are starting to turn schizophrenic. Each of your personalities has been independent for too long, the bonds holding you together, the bonds that make you who and what you are, are breaking. If this continues, your soul will fall apart. You will all disappear, as if you had never existed.¡± Wow, she really knew how to get our attention fast¡­ How¡¯s that quote go? ¡°When a man knows he¡¯s going to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.¡± (Samuel Johnson) Hopefully, we have more than a fortnight, but still... ¡°So, here¡¯s the deal. I¡¯m about to drop David off on a certain mountain I own. Your assignment has two parts. Keep the kid alive, and integrate your personalities. You already know how to, right?¡± Of course we did, if we didn¡¯t know then we¡¯d have never been able to split ourselves off in the first place. We just didn¡¯t reintegrate because we like being independent. ¡°I can see it on your face, you¡¯re hesitating. You have six months! If you haven¡¯t completed the integration by then...I¡¯ll force you to do it myself.¡± She smiled at us evilly. We had the feeling that, if she forced us to do it, we would not like it. Not one bit. ¡°Good, you understand.¡± She waved her hand, putting David back in control. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- David¡¯s POV Yup, something is seriously wrong with me. I¡¯m standing up, but I was just asleep, so why am I still standing up? I wanted to ask Great-Granny Kingsly about it but, she just smiled at me. Never before had someone¡¯s smile made my skin crawl. I learned that day, just how scary the witch in our family is. All she said was, ¡°Good luck.¡± Then she opened up the door to the aircraft and threw me out the door. While cackling, ¡°Kekekekekeke¡± ¡°WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA¡± I screamed. I cried. I cursed. My life was ending already. My birthday is tomorrow, I was really looking forward to that. I know Lizzy got me something special, but she wouldn¡¯t tell me what no matter how much I badgered her. Thoughts of regret flashed through my mind as I fell, and fell, and fell. I couldn¡¯t take it any longer, closing my eyes and just wishing to get it over with already. Wait, shouldn¡¯t I have hit already? I opened my eyes again, only to see the canopy of a humongous forest approaching swiftly. As I fell, I looked in all directions, but couldn¡¯t see any signs of civilization. It seemed as though I was slowing down. Somehow, I knew how to maneuver my body while falling. So, I turned around, putting my feet towards the ground. Just in time too, I crashed through the trees and into the ground. As soon as my feet hit the ground I fell on my ass. Breathing raggedly, my heart felt like it was trying to claw its way outside. My entire body was shaking, and I couldn¡¯t stop it. As the fact that I was actually alive sunk in, I lost all the tension remaining in my body. Instantly passing out¡­ for real this time. The author''s content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. I don¡¯t know how long I stayed that way, but I woke up because the ground was vibrating under me. I heard something walking nearby, ¡°Clunk, Clunk, Clunk¡±. At first, I wanted to run, to hide, to find a good place to curl up and sleep. But, something wouldn¡¯t let me. It was as if my subconscious was screaming at me to move, so I did. I went to check out the sound because I just knew I had to for some reason. I cautiously moved through the brush, making very little noise. I even tested the air, making sure to be downwind from whatever it was. As I approached, I saw a bear. But, I thought bears were only supposed to be 8 feet tall, at most 10 feet. This guy was nearly 15 feet tall. ¡°Ok¡±, I thought, ¡°I think it¡¯s time to leave.¡± While I was falling down, I saw a mountain to the north. I figured the mountain couldn¡¯t be any worse than this hellhole. So, I started slowly sneaking my way north. The gigantic bear had me freaked, and as I sneaked past I saw snakes, wolves, foxes, etc¡­ They all had one thing in common, they were too big. Thank god for all those years hiding from my parents and Lizzy. The further I went, the more I realized that my family is abnormal. Lizzy would have found me long ago, don¡¯t even mention Mom or Dad. Hiding from them is nearly impossible. But, I was able to sneak past all these wild animals with little effort. I¡¯d first realized that something was weird about my family after the fourth time I broke a bone. Usually, I broke them at home and they¡¯d be healed within a few minutes. But, that time, I broke it at preschool and they called an ambulance. My parents didn¡¯t get to the hospital until after the cast had already been set around my left arm. I begged them for nearly a month to heal my arm, but they refused. That was when I finally realized that normal people couldn¡¯t break a bone one day then be using it perfectly fine the next. Now, as I snuck through a forest filled with oversized predators, none of them even noticed me. This is just ridiculous. I was thrown out of a moving plane from who knows how high up. Yet, here I am, perfectly fine. As I was gloating over my own, and my family¡¯s abilities, I got distracted and hit a root with my foot. *Thunk* This was a stupid mistake I¡¯d usually never make, but I did. Instantly, a wolf turned towards me. I stood there, frozen in terror. The wolf was twice my size, and it even cheated, calling for backup. Howling, the entire 8 wolf pack came charging at me so fast I knew I couldn¡¯t run. Instead, I climbed. Huge mistake, I got away from the wolves only to find myself staring at a snakes head. This snake was nearly 200 feet long, it was hanging its body across 15 different trees. Apparently its natural habitat is in the trees, it just grew a bit too much¡­ Well, between gigantic snake, and a pack of wolves, I¡¯ll pick wolves every time. So, I got my ass back down that tree. So fast, I could have sworn the friction caused the bark to catch on fire. Soon as I hit the ground, I was sprinting, heading generally northwards. While a horde of predator¡¯s chased after me. Why? That was all that I could think. I was running faster than I¡¯ve ever run before, faster than I thought it was possible to run. Why, o why, did my Mom and Dad abandon me? At first, it was just the wolves and snake chasing after me. But, how could a giant snake see 8 wolves and not take the time to eat them? So, now it was just a giant snake. Of course, as I was running, I ran into couple of the gigantic 15 foot tall bears and their cubs. Hell, the cubs were nearly 8 feet tall. To my nearly 4 foot self, I felt like I was marooned on an island of giants! I altered my path slightly, flying by the bears while the snake pursued. Of course, the snake ate the bears too. At least it was still only the snake chasing me¡­ That didn¡¯t last for long though, I finally got to a clearing in the woods. As I was running across it, a bird that was 3 stories tall and had a wingspan of nearly 100 feet swooped down. It grabbed the giant snake with its talons, flying off to enjoy it¡¯s feast. At this point, the entire damned forest knew about the tiny human intruding on it. It was like they were playing with me, herding me around from one group of predators to another. Must¡­ Keep¡­ Going¡­ I¡¯d been sprinting at full speed for nearly 4 hours at this point, I was beyond exhausted. I should have been down for the count hours ago. But, every time a beast got too close to me I¡¯d stumble in just the right way for it to miss me, or something would attract another predator¡¯s attention keeping them. Somehow, I just knew that as long as I kept going north, I¡¯d be ok. Another hour passed. At some point, the woods started thinning. There were only 12 wolves left chasing me, but they didn¡¯t plan on stopping anytime soon. Finally, I ran out into the open, no more trees in front of me. I just kept running, turning to take a quick look behind me, they were all still there. Damn, I think I¡¯m going to die. I resolved there and then, if I died, then Great-Granny Kingsly was going to be haunted for the rest of time!!!! As I was running, I saw a fairly large river going over a cliff. I had no energy left at this point, I could barely lift my legs. Looking back, I decided I had no choices left. I jumped. Volume One - Chapter Seven: Awakening A/N - Hey everyone! So, I had a crazy busy weekend so sorry I didn''t write anything yesterday. I''ll try to make it up by writing a second one tonight but we''ll see how it goes! Anyways, some exciting news... with this chapter I''ve now written just under 16000 words for this project (15397) which I find crazy seeing as how I started it a week ago. So, please enjoy and rate/review/follow/comment if you like the story! (or even if you dont!) Volume One - Chapter Seven: Awakening Everyone was cheering as David jumped off the cliff. If this went well, then we¡¯d be safe for a while. Of course, in order to keep him from dying we had to possess him again. We hope that evil witch will understand. David passed out the instant he hit the water, maybe he was too exhausted or just plain stupider than we thought. He jumped headfirst off a nearly 80 foot high cliff¡­ DUMBASS! Thankfully, no lasting damage was done, but if we weren¡¯t there to save him he¡¯d have died. After some quick thinking, that dick from the magician¡¯s tower was put in control. While mana was leaving the world, he could still use some basic spells since he was insanely talented at it. After using some water magic to move us to the shore, we noticed that the wolves had followed us over the cliff. Yippee, MEAT!!!! He used a little more magic to start a fire, and to drag the wolves over to it after they drowned. At that point, we couldn¡¯t keep possessing David any longer without hurting him permanently. He¡¯d be alright as long as nothing serious happened. We had our own shit to deal with, reintegrating all of our personalities was not going to be easy. Remember back to when I first died and joined my fellow personalities? Back then, everyone could read each other''s thoughts. Apparently, we were still integrated at that point. We were just eccentric, not schizophrenic. Unfortunately, at some point over the next 150 years we had gone a little too far, breaking our connections to each other. Now, it was too late. Since we didn¡¯t deal with it at the time those connections could never be fixed. The only way to keep ourselves from falling apart is to rebuild the connections from scratch. The bad news is that required a type of telepathy¡­ and none of us had ever bothered to learn how to do that. What was the point really? We could already read each other¡¯s minds, and by the time we couldn¡¯t, it was kinda nice having a brain to yourself again. Did I ever mention that we are a bit shortsighted? Anyway, for the next six months it was intensive training time. At least we were all motivated, we really didn¡¯t want to learn how that scary woman would forcefully reintegrate us. Hell, many of us were looking forward to this. It¡¯d been far too long since some of us felt the need to become stronger. The good news was both Bookworm, and the dick from the magician¡¯s tower, had books detailing how telepathy works. So, we all dug in, hoping we could figure this shit out before the deadline was up. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- David¡¯s POV My head hurts, and I¡¯m not talking a headache. No I¡¯m talking full blown concussion combined with something that I could only describe as ¡°expansion¡±. It literally feels like my brain is too big for my head. No, that¡¯s not right, it¡¯s as if something too big to fit in my brain made use of it. I¡¯m just confusing myself at this point, which makes it hurt even worse. Groaning, I started trying to figure out where I was. The last thing I can remember is jumping off a cliff head first. No wonder my head hurts so damned much. Why is it so dark out? It was around 4 or 5 PM when I jumped over the cliff. Then, I realized that a fire was dying down nearby, and next to it were twelve wolves. I tried to rush over to them, afraid they¡¯d wake up and eat me. But, even just sitting up made me dizzy. By the time I got to my second step I¡¯d fallen over, puking. This isn¡¯t good. I can¡¯t move, and I still don¡¯t know if I¡¯m really safe. Wait, where did this fire come from? Hell, how did I even manage to get out of the river? That isn¡¯t a slow current, and I¡¯m not even 200 feet from where I must have hit the water. Maybe Granny-Kingsly was keeping an eye on me. Maybe she isn¡¯t as evil as I thought? That would make sense, how else would I have made it away from that damned horde of monsters. Shuddering, I remembered the many near misses. I should¡¯ve been dead a hundred times over, before I even jumped off the damned cliff. I think I¡¯m going to have nightmares for years because of this, no wonder Dad looked so frightened when the witch said she¡¯d train me personally. Having learnt my lesson for the day, don¡¯t move quickly when I have a concussion, I slowly crawled to the wolves. Thankfully, they were all dead, and the shore of the river had no lack of sharp stones. It took an agonizingly long amount of time, but I finally managed to remove the majority of the skin from one of them. My stomach was rumbling so much that I nearly ate it raw, but something held me back. It felt like something in my brain was forcing my hand away from my mouth. Sighing, I gave up. Thankfully, my dizziness left and I was able to walk back to the fire¡­ Shit, the fire died while I was trying to eat it raw. I started crying, I¡¯m hungry, tired, and my head felt like someone had set off a crate of dynamite in it just to see what would happen. Whatever force was holding me back disappeared in the face of my extreme emotions. Like a ravenous wolf, I devoured the meat in my hand raw. As I ate, my head stopped throbbing terribly. All my joints made popping sounds, my overtaxed muscles started to relax, I even felt my bones lengthening. The feeling of awakening is completely unbelievable to anyone who hasn¡¯t gone through it. The overwhelming sense of energy coursing through your veins, you feel like a God. It is the most wonderful feeling in the world, if you know how to control it. Of course, I had no clue what was going on at the time. One moment, I felt better than I¡¯d ever felt in my life. The next, my body started to tear itself apart. I began screaming in total agony, clawing at my chest as if trying to rip out my own heart. Find this and other great novels on the author''s preferred platform. Support original creators! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Great-Granny Kingsly¡¯s POV (2 hours ago) I had just settled into my mansion at the top of the mountain when the first report from my spies arrived. Of course, I didn¡¯t just leave my most important great-grandson alone to die in that hell hole! I know just how dangerous that place is! Despite his powerful soul, David isn¡¯t even six years old yet. How could I have expected him to survive long in that place alone? Reading the first report, I was surprised. He shouldn¡¯t have been able to run that fast, that long. At least, not until he awakened. ¡°Must have been the dragon meat.¡± I muttered while rereading the report. The faerie-beast meat I¡¯d fed him on the plane was of the highest quality. A little over five years ago, I personally went to the beast world to find some quality meat. It was just after I¡¯d met David, or at least his soul, for the first time. I¡¯d known for over 10 years that my grandson¡¯s son would be powerful, but I had no idea how powerful. He stunned me, and it had been nearly a hundred thousand years since I was last truly stunned. The way his soul had responded to spending thousands of years alone between lives was just ingenious. Not only that, but the soul was actually healthy! It must be understood that most powerful souls had just existed for too long. They had too many horrible memories to process, finding themselves drowning in a permanent nightmare. Yet, this soul was happy, bright, laughing, totally enjoying every moment. Hell, I wasn¡¯t like that before I reached immortality, and I¡¯d gotten lucky. I was born on this planet nearly 200,000 years ago, right after it had come into existence. At that time, it had been overflowing with both mana and faerie energy. It allowed me to reach immortality after having lived a measly hundred lives. Yet, I was already showing the signs of having existed for too long. This soul is just incredible! I decided right there and then to do all I could to help him reach immortality. Of course, I wasn¡¯t going to compliment him, and I sure as hell wasn¡¯t going to say I actually admired him. So, I overreacted a bit¡­ Well, it was kind of fun to watch all those personalities of his pee their pants whenever they see me. Anyway, I killed that dragon for him to eat. If eaten at the proper time, it will help me awaken to faerie energy. Seeing as how faerie energy is unique to this universe, I doubt they¡¯ve dealt with it before. So, when the time to train David came I fed him some dragon steak and gave his soul a mission. Then, I threw him out the door of the airplane. I didn¡¯t have too, but just imagining the look on his face, ¡°Kekekekekeke¡±. That¡¯ll keep me entertained for months! Well, it looks like that dragon was stronger than I thought. Honestly, I¡¯d been a bit underwhelmed when I killed it, the last time I went dragon hunting it¡¯d been a challenge and the meat that time didn¡¯t have this good of an effect. Sigh¡­ I¡¯m too strong for my own good. I just got another message from one my spies. Opening it, I stared at it with bug-eyes. I couldn¡¯t believe it, even with the dragon meat I¡¯d expected him to need at least six months to awaken! Shit! I haven¡¯t taught him what to do yet! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- David¡¯s POV It hurts! I¡¯ve been screaming in agony for almost 15 minutes now, I wish I had some type of weapon so I could just kill myself already. Not that it¡¯d help, by this point I can¡¯t even move my body at all. Suddenly, someone touched my back causing me to scream even louder. The slightest touch was excruciating. I caught a glimpse of Great-Granny Kingsly out of the corner of my eyes, apparently she was back in her beautiful young woman mode. The look on her face frightened me, I¡¯d never seen her serious before. ¡°AHHH!!¡± Something changed, it still hurts but it¡¯s as if the pain is moving. Originally the pain was everywhere, but now it was gathering. It started in the toes and fingers, I could feel it slowly moving through my extremities. The lower-half eventually running through my balls. ¡°AHHH!!!!¡± (That hurt) before coming to a rest just under my navel. In the upper-half of my body I felt the energy gathering around my chest, before finally ascending coming to a stop near my brainstem. While my body no longer hurt, my head was starting to hurt. The energy that had stopped near my brainstem was¡­ doing something. Something uncomfortable. Behind me, I heard Great-Granny Kingsly say softly, ¡°It¡¯s ok love. It¡¯s done know, I¡¯d have taught you how to deal with this, but it shouldn¡¯t have happened for at least six more months.¡± O, so she know¡¯s what this is? I slowly managed to croak, ¡°Wha¡­ What was that?¡± ¡°That, was an awakening. Now be quiet I need to concentrate¡± ¡°What the fuck is an awakening?!?¡± ¡°Be quiet!¡± A few minutes passed, and I finally regained the ability to move my body below my neck. I went to stand up, but I couldn¡¯t. Great-Granny Kingsly hugged me from behind. I think¡­ I think she¡¯s crying! No, that¡¯s impossible that old hag would never cry over me! I pulled away from her, turning and yelling, ¡°WHY DID YOU PUSH ME OUT OF THAT PLANE!¡± as furiously as I could. Her eyes looked a little red, but that doesn¡¯t mean she was crying, right? I almost felt sorry for yelling at her while she was like that. That is until I heard it¡­ the sound I¡¯d begun to associate with impending doom. ¡°Kekekekekeke, I did it because it was fun to watch your cute face screaming in terror¡± Ok, that¡¯s it I was definitely wrong. She would NEVER cry over me. I think I¡¯m going to start crying every time I see her from now on, though. ¡°Well, since you¡¯ve already awakened I guess I¡¯ll take you to the mansion. You really need a bath.¡± The two of them disappeared, reappearing in the mansion on top of the mountain. Volume One - Chapter Eight: Faeries A/N - So, it took me forever to write this chapter. I already had the idea of how to build the world written down, but I had to finalize it as well as plan out the next few chapters. Huge pain in the ass! but also kind of fun. Anyway, hope you guys enjoy this chapter. It explains how power''s work on this planet, as well as giving you a general idea of what the main plot is going to be (other than eventual immortality). Chit Volume One - Chapter Eight: Faerie¡¯s I looked around with wide eyes, body rigid, and jaw slack. The room we had reappeared in was gigantic; big enough to fit three of my parent''s house in with extra space left over. It was ornately decorated, with gold and silver lining the red oak walls. An enormous chandelier hung from the ceiling, made entirely precious gems. But, what made me stare slack jawed wasn''t the ornaments, or even the size of the room. Rather, it was the inhabitants. An overwhelming number of, let''s call them people for now, where crammed into the space. Even this enormous room seemed cramped with all these... people here. They were of many sizes, from less than an inch tall to over 10 feet. All of them had wings, although the larger ones seemed to be unable to fly. The wings were one of eight distinct colors (green, blue, yellow, purple, red, black, clear, and pink). The amazing kaleidoscope of colors, and the buzzing of wings as the smaller ones flew combined to create an atmosphere similar to a dubstep concert. A small person, maybe 2 inches tall, flew up to Great-Granny Kingsly and asked in a high-pitched voice, "Any orders mistress?" She was wearing a business suit and tiny glasses, while carrying an equally tiny notebook in one arm. It was the cutest thing I''d ever seen. "Just ready a room and some clothes for David. Also, throw him in the bath and don''t let him out for at least an hour, his stench is horrendous" "Yes, mistress." She replied. Then she waved over a giant guy with green wings; he looked like he wanted to use me to pick his teeth. "Take him to the VIP baths." He just nodded, and before I even knew what was happening I was already out the door and up four flights of stairs. Finally recovering from my shock, I had no clue what was going on. I had so many questions to ask, but before I had the chance I''d already been rushed into the bathroom. Sighing, I stripped and jumped in the shower figuring that I¡¯d get my answers quicker if I just cleaned up. In all the excitement, I¡¯d forgotten just how dirty I was. There was a trail of mud leading to the shower, I was covered from head to toe in the stuff. Guess that¡¯s what I get for diving into a river and then rolling around on the ground. After I got out of the extremely refreshing shower, I saw that my clothes had disappeared, replaced by a training GI. Shrugging, I started to put it on then realized, there isn¡¯t any underwear. The idea of free-balling it in front of Great-Granny Kingsly didn¡¯t sound fun. So, I asked the guide who was still standing at the door. He looked at me quizzically before asking, ¡°What is underwear?¡± I guess these people only wore robes¡­ great. Since I was as clean as I was going to get at that point, I told him I was done. He led me to a bedroom and told me that this was my room. He also said that Great-Granny Kingsly ordered me to get a good night''s sleep, because I¡¯ll need it. I could just hear her cackling as she said it, that woman has permanently scarred me. The room was fairly spacious, with a bed that was way too big for six-year old me. At least it was nice and bouncy, perfect to play around on. Since I was actually fairly tired, being unconscious after hitting your head does not count as sleep, I only jumped around for a few minutes before falling asleep. The next day, I was thrown from my bed at the break of dawn. I was completely naked since the GI was uncomfortable to lay down in, and I didn¡¯t have any underwear. Great-Granny Kingsly was standing over me with a look of disdain, ¡°Can¡¯t even bother to wear some knickers when you sleep? Get yourself dressed then follow me.¡± She threw the same GI I¡¯d worn last night in my face then started walking away. I hurriedly got dressed and followed, afraid to think of what would happen if I got lost. Great-Granny Kingsly doesn¡¯t have much in the way of patience. I¡¯d been following her for what seemed like hours, but in reality was just 10 minutes or so, when we finally arrived at our destination. She pushed the door open to reveal an amazing view, the mansion we were in was at the top of the mountain overlooking the vast forest I¡¯d been thrown into yesterday. We were standing on an amazing deck, about 50 feet off the ground that allowed for the most beautiful view I¡¯d ever seen. ¡°Welcome to my home, boy.¡± I turned to look at Great-Granny Kingsly, and was amazed to see her with a peaceful smile as she looked out over the forest. ¡°I own everything in sight. Took a while to convince the former owners to vacate the premises, but I never liked them anyway.¡± The smile had turned from peaceful to full on evil, there¡¯s the Great-Granny Kingsly that I know and fear. ¡°Sit, boy. We have much to discuss.¡± She pointed to a pair of comfortable looking deck chairs. ¡°I know you must have a lot of questions, just keep your mouth shut until I¡¯m done unless you want me to throw you back down there.¡± She pointed to the forest again, and I instantly restrained all the questions I was about to ask. ¡°Hmm, where to start, hmm. O yes, the original plan was to leave you down there until you awoke. I figured it¡¯d take at least six months and by then I¡¯d have been ready to train you properly. But, then you went and awoke after less than a day you rascal!¡± This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. At that point I just couldn¡¯t help it, I asked, ¡°What did I do? I awoke?¡± ¡°I told you to keep your mouth shut! As for awakening, it means that your body has absorbed enough energy for you to contract a faerie. It transforms your body and brain. By sending the energy you¡¯ve gathered into your brain-stem you increase your mental acuity, unlock your affinities, and gain the ability to make a contract with a faerie if you are strong enough. The energy you have left over after that transforms your body, increasing muscle density, bone density, and it strengthens your internal organs. It also forms a reservoir where you can store energy just below your navel.¡± ¡°Usually, people in our clan come here when they turn sixteen, and stay down there until they awaken. But, I didn¡¯t want to spend all this time training you without seeing any real results. So, I fed you some dragon meat to overload your system with faerie energy then threw you down there to get some exercise. Worked even better than I thought it would! I¡¯m a genius, aren¡¯t I?¡± At that point, she looked at me expectantly. It took me a few seconds to catch on, but eventually I got it, ¡°Of course you are Great-Granny Kingsly!¡± ¡°Kekekekeke. Smart, talented, and a brown-noser. You¡¯ll go far kiddo. Kekekekeke.¡± I wanted to ask what a ¡°brown-noser¡± is, but didn¡¯t want her to yell at me again, so I kept my mouth shut. She continued on, ¡°Where was I... O yes, so you awoke last night. Normally, when someone awakens they have been training their entire lives for the moment, and know what to do. But, I didn¡¯t expect you to awaken so fast, so I didn¡¯t get the chance to teach you. Which is why you nearly died last night, good thing my spies told me about it quickly enough. Kekekeke.¡± ¡°Anyway, now that you have awakened, you need to know a few things. In this world, there are two types of energy, Mana and Faerie. Mana is simply elemental energy. It is created by the world, and consumed by every living creature on it. What people mean when they say that mana is leaving this world isn¡¯t that mana has disappeared. Just, that the number of living things on this world has nearly reached its equilibrium. So, there aren¡¯t excess amounts of it just waiting to be manipulated anymore. This has many consequences, the most obvious being that people who specialize in the manipulation of mana, what most people call mages, can¡¯t use mana anymore. Because of this, technology has become important on this world. When most people read the old books explaining how mana was used, they either think its total nonsense, or a fictional, fantasy story.¡± ¡°While the world itself creates mana, faerie energy is created by all living things. Basically, it is a purified version of mana. We refine it automatically in our bodies, by taking a small amount mana and breaking it down into the elements it is comprised of; fire, water, earth, air, light, dark, electric, and psionic. The reason it¡¯s called faerie energy is because by using this energy, we can enter into a contract with a faerie. It requires you to be strong enough, the stronger the faerie, the stronger you have to be. Also, you can only contract one faerie per element. Most people focus on only one element, because unless you have an attunement to an element it takes an extremely long time to refine any energy. The more attuned you are to an element the better, and with an intermediate attunement you can start to refine that element. Most are born with at least one intermediate level attunement, however the most important thing for you to know is that it is possible to increase your attunement through hard work. Because you are so young, you will find it comparatively easy to attune to the elements. My hope is for you to reach at least an intermediate attunement to all eight elements by the time you are sixteen.¡± ¡°This is extremely important, because the faeries are dying off. They are beings made purely of a single element, which means they require either an extremely mana-rich environment to live in, or a contractor strong enough to support them. Faerie¡¯s are incredibly powerful, and give their contractors access to their incredible powers, as well as extending their lifetimes by hundreds of years. For millennia, humans and faeries have existed in a symbiotic relationship. Unfortunately, there are no more mana-rich environments for the faeries to live in. Also, with the disappearance of magic users, the number of people strong enough to form contracts with faeries has dwindled.¡± ¡°Those of us who know of the faerie¡¯s plight have spent the last several centuries protecting as many as we can. Creating artificially mana-rich environments like this mountain. Unfortunately, they are beginning to fail. In another century, faeries will be all but extinct unless we can figure out a way to help them. Which is why I forced your awakening so young, you have the potential to be incredibly strong if you work hard enough. For the next three years, you will spend all day increasing your physical strength and stamina. At night, instead of sleeping, you will enter into a special kind of meditative state that allows you to slowly increase your attunement to all of the elements at once. It is your duty as a member of my clan to contract with as many spirits as possible!¡± Volume One - Chapter Nine: Training A/N - So, I was looking at what I have planned out, and I really want to get to the third volume... or even just halfway through the 2nd volume. So... I kept writing tonight (did over 8k words tonight) Expect another chapter in a few hours after I proofread it a couple of times. Anyway, enjoy! Volume One - Chapter Nine: Training Nearly six months has passed since Great-Granny Kingsly started to train me. It¡¯s even worse than I¡¯d imagined¡­ I get up at the break of dawn every day, then immediately have a breakfast comprised of dragon steak, dragon sausage, dragon breast, dragon¡­ As soon as I finish breakfast that giant guy with green wings drags me into the training hall. His name is Gunther, and he¡¯s a sadist. At least, he certainly enjoys hurting me! Over the months, I was able to figure out that he is an earth element faerie, one who specializes in unarmed combat of any and all types. For the next 5 to 6 hours, or however long it takes for me to exhaust the energy reserves that eating dragon meat gives me, he pummels me mercilessly. First, we started with bare-handed fighting techniques. Everything from aikido to taekwondo, to boxing, he¡¯s a master of it all. A couple of months into the training he pronounced me, ¡°Barely proficient.¡± I jumped up and down in excitement, thinking I wouldn¡¯t need to spend so long getting beat up every morning. Then, another faerie entered the room. She looked at me and sniffed disdainfully then said, ¡°As a favor to the Mistress, I will be training you in the art of using a blade. From now on, you will call me Mistress.¡± Then, she gave me a sword and pointed to some training dummies. From then on, I spent the first two hours of training every morning getting beat to hell by Gunther, then my new Mistress would come and force me to hit very specific area¡¯s on the dummy. Every day it¡¯d be a different blade, sometimes a normal sword, sometimes a dagger, sometimes a humongous two-hander that weighed more than me. The first 4 months of training with her I only fought the dummy while she yelled out stance names. She taught me 8 stances, all were supposedly created to enhance the attributes of one of the elements. Water stance was flowing, excellent at parrying and absorbing blows. Earth was stable and solid, the perfect defensive stance. Fire was explosively powerful, but somewhat slow. Lightning stance was fast, incredibly fast and also powerful. However, if you missed a swing you¡¯d be off balance and easy to attack. Air stance was elusive, allowing you to dodge with incredible ease, but the attacks were light. My teacher preferred air stance for daggers because it allowed you to move quickly and lightly, while slowly bleeding your opponent to death. Light stance focused on speed, nothing is faster than a master practitioner of light. Dark stance focuses on surprise, and instantly killing your foes. Yet, has no defensive moves at all. Psionic stance is a neutral stance; good at everything, but not great at anything. Of course, this is only until you refine enough psionic elemental energy to use it properly. At which point, it becomes a true menace, creating illusions and affecting your opponent''s mental state. All of these stances, when combined with refined elemental energy become extremely powerful. My Mistress is an electric element faerie, and she demonstrated some of the lightning stance¡¯s power to me. She was able to shoot bolts of lightning through the air and into the dummy from nearly a hundred feet away. I¡¯m pretty sure that she was holding back. I couldn¡¯t wait to start refining elemental energy, and start using the stances properly. But, Granny Kingsly refused to teach me how to refine, forcing me to focus on elemental affinities. The weirdest part of training was always the meditation. Great-Granny Kingsly had told me that my meditation would be different than others, but I had no idea how different. The technique involved absorbing a tiny amount of mana, and then differentiating between the elements composing the mana without refining it. In order to perform it properly, you had to withdraw into yourself, focusing wholly on the various elements in the mana already inside of you. Eventually, your conscious mind actually joins with the subconscious and the identification speed increases exponentially at that point. The first time I successfully meditated I was instantly shocked, unable to hold the mental state. I quickly ran to Great-Granny Kingsly to ask what the hell was going on, and she only replied that I¡¯d know when the time came. Damned woman, why does everything have to be a puzzle with you! Left with no other choice, I went back to my room and began meditating again. It took a while, but I could feel my mind withdrawing, entering into my subconscious. Standing there, as if they were waiting for me, was hundreds of versions of me. They all smiled happily, and ran over to hug me, congratulating me. This was so messed up! I asked what the hell was going on, why are there hundreds of versions of me in this place! Hell, why was there a female version of me hugging me and crying? If I didn¡¯t know better I¡¯d have thought she was my mother! Of course, they just had to be cryptic too. They wouldn¡¯t confirm it, but I¡¯m pretty sure that Great-Granny Kingsly put them up to it. After spending some time chatting with them, I asked what I was supposed to do in here since it seemed that I was increasing my affinities at an astonishing pace while we were talking. They just smiled and all said altogether, ¡°Train!¡± I groaned, I only have a few free hours in the afternoon. The rest of my life was taken up by training, and now I was going to be forced to train in my sleep. FUCK! One of them walked up to me and put his hand on my shoulder, then he said, ¡°Do you want to beat the shit out of Gunther some day? You better, because the rest of us really want to kill that fucker. So, come to the coliseum with me and let me train you in hand to hand combat!¡± After that, I spent every morning getting the shit beat out of my body, and every evening fighting to the death with other versions of me in my mind. The worst part was they didn¡¯t worry about injuring me at all, it was no-holds barred, to the death fighting that scared the shit out of me at first. However, I noticed immediate results. If anything, I learned faster in that world especially about the blade. Apparently, these other me¡¯s were all skilled at the blade but only mediocre at hand to hand combat. When I asked them if I really had to keep fighting Gunther, or training with my sword Mistress they just laughed and said, ¡°In here, you train your mind and learn new techniques. Out there, you train your body and gain muscle memory. They are both indispensable to your future. Now stop bitching and work.¡± It¡¯s amazing how similar these versions of me where to my actual fighting instructors. Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings. Today, a new face appeared in the practice hall. It was the tiny, two-inch tall faerie who seemed to act as Great-Granny Kingsly¡¯s secretary. My Mistress thanked her for coming. Then, we proceeded to spar for the first time. As she came at me, I used the earth stance in order to block her first attack. I instantly switched over to lightning stance and my blade shot forward striking at her left side. My Mistress just snorted and used air stance, easily dodging my strike. She then used light stance and before I even knew what had happened my left arm was flying across the room. ¡°AHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!¡± I started screaming and crying as blood shot out of my arm and pain wracked my body. Suddenly, my body was covered in a white light. My arm flew across the room and reattached itself, the muscles, nerves, and bones reconnecting in less than a minute. I had a very bad premonition that I would be spending my practice sessions from now on like this. I was right, my mistress said, ¡°Pain teaches better than anything else, so until you learn how to not be a fucking idiot, I will chop you to bits over and over again. How many times have I told you only to use lightning stance when your opponent is off balance!! Just be happy that Ali is willing to put you back together. Now, AGAIN!¡± To make matters worse, Gunther was watching as my limbs flew around the place. I managed to hear him talking to himself with his usual subterranean rumble as he left the training room, ¡°Why didn¡¯t I think of that earlier? He needs to learn what dislocated joints and broken bones feel like. Going to have to see if Ali is willing to show up a bit earlier.¡± I started crying, wishing that I could be sent back to the forest. At least I could hide! One good thing about this kind of training, due to the need to regenerate blood constantly, the energy the dragon meat gave me was exhausted much faster. So, instead of my normal Six hours of training. I got away with only 4 and a half. Of course, this was a mixed blessing. Apparently, they¡¯d planned for this ahead of time. I had a new assignment, every day I had to go down into the forest and hunt for my lunch. To make matters worse, the forest is nearly 20 miles away! I know that after awakening my physical body has become incredibly strong, but still! Twenty miles took me nearly an hour and a half of full out sprinting to reach. By which time, I was so starved that I could barely move. Much less hunt! Thank god for my experiences playing hide and seek with my family in my younger years! I was able to noiselessly stalk through the woods, looking for prey. After about an hour, I spotted a small group of three wolves eating a deer. I slowly climbed a tree after checking for snakes, I learned my lesson about those thank you very much, and approached the group. A few minutes later, I dropped down, flipping and using the centrifugal force and gravity to build up momentum. Smashing both of my closed fists into the skull of the closest wolf, its head exploded like a bloody watermelon with brain matter mixed in. I couldn¡¯t believe it, such a move wouldn¡¯t even budge Gunther. Maybe, I¡¯m stronger than I thought? I quickly acted, using a tiger claw strike to rip the throat out of the next wolf. The final wolf yelped in terror and started running, but it seemed so slow. Compared to the Mistress this thing could barely move. In less than ten seconds I¡¯d killed them all. Feeling too hungry to bring the wolves back to the mansion to be cooked, I started a fire. After my previous experiences in the woods, one of the first things I did during my minimal free time was learn survival techniques. I was pretty sure that at some point Great-Granny Kingsly was going to throw me in the woods again. This time, I was going to be prepared. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- While I was eating, Great-Granny Kingsly was watching from a short distance away, along with Gunther and my sword teacher. ¡°He has improved rather quickly.¡± said Granny Kingsly. Gunther replied, ¡°I¡¯ve told you time and time again, he improves faster than anyone I¡¯ve ever seen. It¡¯s as if he has done this hundreds, maybe thousands of times before. I know you said that he is talented, but this is just insane. We should have started teaching him how to refine elemental energy a month ago.¡± ¡°Do you agree, Elin?¡± ¡°Yes, mistress.¡± My sword teacher bowed respectfully. ¡°His improvement is truly incredible. He never gives up, even after I cut off his arms more than ten times today, he kept going. He has already reached the intermediate level in all of the stances except for psionic, and it is impossible to reach the intermediate level in psionic without refined elemental energy and a bond.¡± ¡°Good, I¡¯m glad you both understand just how special he is. Do not teach him how to refine elemental energy. Yes, he is technically capable of it, but it will not hurt him to wait until he is sixteen. Remember, he may seem older because he has already awakened, but he is still six! I won¡¯t ruin him by allowing him to think he is special. He will not become an arrogant brat! Anyway, by having him spend ten years focusing solely on his affinities and techniques, he will be a monster when he finally beings refining energy.¡± ¡°Yes, Mistress.¡± Both Gunther and Elin replied. ¡°What is it Elin? I can see you want to say something.¡± ¡°Mistress, I just wanted to ask if it was possible for me to bond him when he turns sixteen. I never thought that there¡¯d be someone with the potential to bond with me.¡± ¡°If he accepts you, who he bonds is up to him I will not make that choice for him. Now, I need to go get ready to deal with his soul.¡± ¡°Yes, Mistress.¡± They both bowed, then all of them disappeared. Volume One - Chapter Ten: Integration Volume One - Chapter Ten: Integration I¡¯d just arrived back at the mansion, when Ali flew up to me. ¡°The mistress would like to see you in her office, as soon as you have cleaned yourself up.¡± Shit, I haven¡¯t done anything wrong recently! Not long after I arrived at the mansion, I realized that these faeries and I were very similar. We love practical jokes! Early on, I got together with some of the younger (relatively speaking, they are immortal) faeries. We proceeded to terrorize the other inhabitants of the mansion. I¡¯m pretty sure that most took it as pure fun, I still remember the time we got Gunther. That morning, I woke up early and snuck down to his room. We turned the hallway leading to the staircase outside his door into ice. Using one of my friend¡¯s ability, he¡¯s a water faerie. Then, because we knew that earth faerie¡¯s all have incredible balance, we used my other friend, an air elemental faerie, to tug on his feet is tripping him. It only worked because he¡¯s always groggy in the morning, and I¡¯m sure he knew it was me because beat the ever living crap out of me that morning. Usually, he at least gives me a chance to fight back. Not that morning. Still, it was worth it to watch him sliding down the hallway and then rolling down the stairs! Of course, we didn¡¯t stop there. Who do you think I am? The next day, we tried to get Great-Granny Kingsly¡­ it was a horrible plan, and didn¡¯t even come close to working, so I won¡¯t bother to document it. Suffice it to say, Great-Granny Kingsly¡¯s methods of dealing with us were¡­ interesting. Since then, I¡¯ve avoided all contact with her whenever possible. I¡¯ve come to the conclusion that she isn¡¯t really evil, but some of her methods surely are! Getting called to her office happens for one of two reasons. One, I¡¯ve done something stupid. (Even I know that it¡¯s stupid I just can¡¯t help myself) Or two, it''s time for my training schedule to change. That¡¯s even scarier, because Great-Granny Kingsly seems to actually enjoy my practical joking and gives me minor punishments. But, she never, ever slacks off with my training. I quickly ran to the shower, because the last time I was too slow for her she threw me into a giant lake full of monsters. Telling me to have fun before strolling off. It only took me a few minutes to get presentable and sprint at light speed to her office. The faeries I passed on the way pointed at me, speaking in loud voices, ¡°I wonder if he¡¯ll survive this time.¡± Or in a falsely pitying voice, ¡°I¡¯d rather go a week without mana then get called to her office.¡± I arrived, expecting to find the door closed like normally, but it seemed that she was really looking forward to this meeting. As I entered the room she smiled and waved her hand, before I even realized it I¡¯d fallen asleep. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Jaw¡¯s POV We all knew this was coming, but there was nothing we could do. Our affinity to psionic type magic is total shit! Before this life, we¡¯d never bothered to use it before, and we didn¡¯t have the advantage of being alive. When you¡¯re alive you can increase your affinities quickly as long as you¡¯re willing to work hard. But, after death and entering the subconsciousness, it becomes incredibly difficult. We could have integrated fully in a few hundred years, but six months was far too short a time. We¡¯re screwed was all that we could think, as we looked at her evil eyes and hung our head. ¡°So, you didn¡¯t succeed, as expected.¡± We looked at her and glared, as if asking, then why did you tell us to do it so quickly! But, we had learned better than to mess with this lady. We held our tongue. She sighed, looking saddened before going on, ¡°I don¡¯t know what to do, much longer and you will start breaking apart, seriously damaging yourselves and harming David in the process. I give you 20 years, max. I really don¡¯t want to do this to you, but I don¡¯t see another option.¡± ¡°We know what we need to do, but our affinity to psionic magic is total shit. We had hoped to use one of our more powerful personalities, one that had been on the cusp of immortality while he was alive, as a focal point and connect all of the rest of us to him. Leaving us as separate entities, but all integrated and connected like we used to be. But, we just couldn¡¯t do it. We¡¯d need at least a couple hundred years.¡± ¡°You don¡¯t have a couple hundred years, but what you described would certainly work in the short term. In fact, it¡¯s very similar to what you do when you become an immortal. However, in order to actually become an immortal the main personality, the one in control, has to be the one that runs the consciousness.¡± We kept looking down, saying sadly, ¡°Do it, whatever it is you¡¯re going to do. We won''t take this chance away from David. Most of us have existed for tens of thousands of years. The oldest among us as existed for over 100,000 years. We will accept the death of some of us in order to reach for immortality.¡± This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version. ¡°What I was originally planning to do would have been a permanent fix, one that would¡¯ve lasted through all of your future lifetimes if David failed. However, it would have also destroyed the part of your soul that makes you so unique and powerful. It would have fully integrated you into one being at the cost of much of your power and knowledge. However, I think that I can do for you, what you originally planned to do. The fix will only last for a few hundred years at most, but it will give David the time he needs to become truly strong. When he finally reaches for immortality, and uses his power to fully integrate all of you I¡¯d much rather he received all of your knowledge and power. Not just the pitiful remainder that would¡¯ve been left if I had forcefully fully integrated you.¡± At that, she touched our forehead and entered into our subconsciousness for the first time. She suddenly used her powers, connecting all of us to her with a psionic link. Then, she moved the focus of the linkage from her to the most powerful of us¡­ the dick from the Magician¡¯s tower. Not finished yet, she created a small, tenuous linkage between the subconscious and the conscious mind. She then spoke to us, ¡°Do not abuse that link, it is only to be used in times of extreme peril! I made it to help David when he begins to study the mysteries of psionic powers. However, if I ever find out that you abused that link, and I will know, I will do what I originally planned to do. Teach him what you can while he meditates, I will ensure that he is powerful enough to succeed when the time comes.¡± After that, she disappeared from our mind, and David was back in control of the body. We looked around, and could feel the connection was back. It was even stronger than when I first joined the entity known as David¡¯s soul. We all looked at each other, saddened by our lack of privacy. But, at the same time we all felt better. We are meant to be a single entity, and with our connections reestablished we finally noticed just how seriously we had damaged our own soul by focusing so hard on individuality. Great-Granny Kingsly may have given us 20 years max, but we were sure it wouldn¡¯t have been more than another 10 years before we were damaged beyond repair. As scary as that woman is, it seems like she really does care about us. From that day forth, we focused on training David as best we could while looking out for him. We needed him to be strong, to reach immortality, and do it quickly. For all of us, including him. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- David¡¯s POV As I awoke again, I noticed that I was standing. I thought for a few moments and then began to grow suspicious. That place I was just in, it was eerily similar to where I go when I meditate. It was time that I started asking questions. Something was going on with me, and Great-Granny Kingsly was causing it. Finally, I spoke up, ¡°Ok, I think it¡¯s time you tell me what the hell is happening when I black out like that. I¡¯ve noticed that every time it happens, you wave your hand at me, then I black out. I never noticed before, but the place I go to is very similar the place that meditating takes me too.¡± She sighed, looking tired, ¡°You really are too smart for your own good, but that¡¯s to be expected. I will not tell you, and not because you don¡¯t deserve to know, but because telling you now would be harmful to you. Only when you begin to approach immortality will you be able to understand, comprehend, and accept the truth. It is something that all of us who seek power must go through, and it is not fun. Please, just accept that that¡¯s all I can tell you.¡± ¡°Fine, I never expected you to tell me anyway, I just had to ask. Instead, isn¡¯t it time that you taught me how to refine energy? I already know that I¡¯m far past where I can begin.¡± ¡°No, I will not. Nor will anyone else teach you how to refine until you are sixteen. Please, don¡¯t ask again. I won¡¯t explain why, either. There are some things that you are better off not knowing until you are older.¡± ¡°So, I just have to wait another nine and half years before I actually get to start living my life? Do I even get to see my parents or go to school?¡± ¡°Of course you do! I told your parents three years, and I meant it. You will have to train while you go to school and live with your parents, but it won¡¯t be as intense as this. Just, trust me, please.¡± She looked at me so sincerely that I couldn¡¯t do anything but trust her. Especially, because something inside of me was telling me that she¡¯s telling the truth. Finally, I just sighed and left. It was time to start meditating, anyway. Volume One - Chapter Eleven: Two and a Half Years A/N: So, this is the last regular chapter of Volume One, YAY!!!! Coming in at just over 25,000 words (God, no wonder I''m getting carpal tunnel:). This has been a lot of fun to right and I hope you''ve enjoyed it as much as I have. I''ll post of the epilogue either tonight or early tomorrow morning and we''ll be moving into Volume two shortly. Enjoy! Chit P.S. - Also, remember to Rate/Review/Comment/Favorite/Recommend !!! Volume One - Chapter Eleven: Two And A Half Years The next day my Mistress, or Elin as I was told to start calling her, stopped being so brutal with me. I only lost a limb once or twice a day, instead of the ten I had lost the day before. She seemed to spend more time explaining and focusing on techniques, rather than beating me to death. I don¡¯t know what happened to her, but it sure seems to be an improvement. Every now and again I catch her blushing about something, and I noticed that she was wearing more, and more revealing clothing. It makes it somewhat hard to concentrate on sparring every now and again... I have no idea why, but I really enjoy the sight. She has this extremely interesting tattoo of a purple lightning bolt on her lower back. The day I first saw it, I heard the people in my subconsciousness laughing hysterically. It wasn¡¯t until I asked the next night that I found out that it was something called a tramp stamp. For some reason, whenever they mentioned a tramp stamp, they all looked with pitying eyes at Jaws. I could never get them to tell me why though, it makes me feel left out! Elin keeps popping up whenever I have my free time. Its starting to get annoying, it has put a serious crimp in my practical joke planning and execution. Which, of course, just makes everyone look at me suspiciously. It¡¯s as if they think I¡¯m just biding my time, before pulling off my biggest stunt yet. Sorry people, I just have this annoying sword teacher who won''t leave me alone! Although, there are some good points. I¡¯ll never forget walking into my bathroom one evening to find her taking a shower¡­ It was a very nice view. I think she was slightly pissed off when I jumped in with her, asking her to help wash my hair. At least, that¡¯s how I decided to interrupt the next day when she cut off all four of my limbs in an instant, then had Ali heal me on four separate occasions. I thought it was a little overboard myself; what was I supposed to do? I needed to get to my room and start meditating. But, there she was, in MY shower. Don¡¯t jump in someone else¡¯s shower unless you want them to join you¡­ Something seems to have changed inside of me. Every time I meditate, it feels as if I¡¯m connected to the people living inside of me. I was able to glean from their thoughts that this was my subconscious, and that they were all various aspects of my personality. But, I know that there is more involved. After they realized that I was getting information from them they began to be extremely careful about what they thought about. For instance, I once ambushed the female personality and asked her some questions. In response, she tuned me out. Imagining the cutest, fluffiest cat she could think of. It appeared out of nowhere, and I stood in awe as she descended into cuteness overload. The worst part of it is that I experienced her extreme happiness with her. It took all of my strength to pull myself away from the cat without joining her. It was just too cute! One other factor of the new bond is my increased training speed. Using it, I can understand exactly what it is that my personalities are trying to teach me instantly. Also, even though the bond is much weaker, I could use it to ask for advice while actually awake. It has at least quadrupled my training speed. Unfortunately, my instructors caught onto the change quickly. I learned techniques at an extremely quick speed, so my physical fitness was holding me back. After a couple of weeks, Great-Granny Kingsly changed my training schedule to, ¡°better fit your needs.¡± Myself, I think she just wanted to torture me a bit more. Anyways, I¡¯m eating dragon meat twice a day now. The first time for training with Gunther and Elin, the second time for, ¡°physical fitness.¡± Of course, Granny Kingsly¡¯s definition of physical fitness is different than everyone else''s. I have to sprint as fast I possibly can to the forest, kill a minimum of ten beasts, then sprint back. At first, this wasn¡¯t bad at all, I actually kind of enjoyed the runs. But, apparently the word got out among the beasts, or I just killed them all off. They stopped appearing along the outskirts of the woods after barely a month. By now, I¡¯m forced to sprint nearly a hundred miles into the forest just to find the beasts. At least my running speed has increased greatly, it used to nearly take me two hours just to get to the woods, now it only takes half an hour on a good day. That¡¯s the good news, the bad news is that these beasts are much stronger than the wolves, bears, and snakes in the outskirts of the woods. I find myself battling with gigantic octopuses, rats so fast that you can¡¯t even see them, the same old wolves except now they come in packs of 50 or more instead of 3-12. I can¡¯t tell you how many times I nearly died, but was saved by the dragon meat. I didn¡¯t realize this at first, but as long as you have enough energy you can regrow limbs, regenerate blood, and close off wounds. If it wasn¡¯t for the excess energy from the dragon¡¯s meat I¡¯d have died at least 10 times by now. Even after all of this, the scariest encounter I had was with a Manticore. I ran into him half a year ago, or two years into what I began to call, ¡°The great faerie beast extermination of 612 A.G.¡± (Meaning After Granny) I began keeping track of the date not by conventional methods, but rather by the amount of time that Great-Granny Kingsly had been here. I managed to ferret out of her, after much hard work, just how long she¡¯s been here. Damn, that lady is ancient! Anyways, when I first saw him I was really tired, and only needed to kill one more beast before I could make the long, boring trek back to the mansion. I snuck up on him, readying my spear I lunged forward¡­ only to realize that what I¡¯d stabbed was just an illusion, or maybe an afterimage. I looked around frantically, knowing that I was about to die. This beast totally outclassed me, what the hell is Great-Granny Kingsly doing letting me come this deep into the forest? Behind me, I heard a deep, rumbling roar. Turning around, I nearly peed my pants as I saw the griffin sitting crosslegged on the ground, sipping hot tea! The fierce lion¡¯s face on top of the eagle¡¯s body looked at me and spoke, ¡°So, you have finally made it this far hatchling.¡± Of course, this freaked me the fuck out. How the hell is a bird with a lion¡¯s head talking!?!?!? More importantly, I¡¯d killed thousands of beasts by this point, but I¡¯d never killed something that could talk with me. Just the thought that I¡¯d actually tried to kill another intelligent being made my stomach roil. After spending so much time in the presence of the faeries, I had long since stopped thinking of humans as the only important species. ¡°I¡¯m so sorry! I thought you were just another mindless beast like the others. Please, forgive me.¡± ¡°Forgive you? Hahaha, there is nothing to forgive. Even if there was, I would forgive you. You¡¯ve already helped me afterall.¡± I stood there, stumped. I just tried to skewer this guy with my spear and he said that I¡¯d helped him. Is he mad? He waved at me to have a seat before continuing on, ¡°We manticore''s are an ancient race, but similar to the faeries we need an incredibly mana-rich environment to survive. Not because we need to absorb the mana, but rather because we need to eat beasts who have refined it since birth, faerie beasts. Tell me, do you know where all the meat you got from killing beasts went?¡± ¡°Of course, it¡¯s going into stasis so I can continue to eat faerie beasts after I leave this place! I don¡¯t think I can survive without it.¡± At that, he started laughing. Great guffaws that shook nearby trees, sounding more like a terrifying, defiant roar than mirth. Also, watching a manticore laugh is one of the more interesting things you can ever do. The wings on his back twitched in rhythm to the noise, while tears of mirth slowly rolled down his cheeks; catching on his whiskers and slowly dripping off of them. ¡°That¡¯s just great, the witch got you too! HAHAHAHAHA!¡± O great, I think I have a good idea who ¡°the witch¡± is¡­ Shit, I have the feeling my food is gone, NOOOO!!!! I¡¯d spent the last two years stockpiling the stuff, taking advantage of my training. NO way was I going back to eating regular meat. Regular meat is so bland, tasteless, boring¡­ It¡¯s like eating cardboard. ¡°Not long ago, my race ruled an area similar to this forest, one of the few remaining places of great mana density on this planet. But, land like this is incredibly important. The rich, famous, and powerful buy the land rights, building mansions. If that was all they did, then it wouldn¡¯t be a problem; but what rich person would clean his own home? Soon, the mansions are packed full of maids and butlers, while big entertainment conglomerates build vacation resorts. Of course, those resorts need people to run them. Suddenly, tens of thousands of people move into these mana-rich areas. All of them subconsciously absorbing mana, depleting the area. Before we even realized what was happening, our forest no longer produced excess mana. The beasts were unable to sate our hunger, no matter how much we ate.¡± Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation. He looked saddened, staring at the ground for a long time with a look of great loss. ¡°We killed all the humans in our area of course, I think they said it was some sort of natural disaster. It was too late, the damage was done. We were going extinct. It has happened to every other magical beast clan on this world, but in our arrogance we thought that we were better than them. Then, that witch appeared about six months ago. At first, we tried to kill her because of our great anger at the humans, but she was too powerful for us. We thought that she¡¯d come to kill us, for revenge. Instead, she brought more faerie beast meat than any of us had ever seen in one place before. She said that she would save us, allow us to live in this forest of her¡¯s for a price. Helping you. So, you see, if it wasn¡¯t for you my race would be extinct by now. That witch has watched all of the other magical beast clans of this world die off without a thought. Yet, now she saves us, for you.¡± Listening to the story, I couldn¡¯t help but feel ashamed. My race has apparently destroyed countless sentient species because of our ignorance, arrogance, and greed. If Great-Granny Kingsly didn¡¯t already have her hands full trying to save the faeries, I would condemn her too. But, the faeries have been the ally and friend of human¡¯s for longer than I can imagine. You have to be able to save your friends and family before you can afford to be charitable. I looked at the sad manticore, feeling his pain with him. Finally, I asked, ¡°So, what help can you give me that it was worth her moving personally?¡± At this, his face changed. The natural arrogance of his race coming back to his face. Proudly, he proclaimed, ¡°My blood, freely given. It transforms the blood in your body, turning it into manticore''s blood. Granting you a special ability, as well as strengthening your body. The further you advance in your cultivation, the more it will help you. Perhaps, you will be able to unlock the true potential of the blood, although I doubt it. Few manticores manage the feat. My race has only granted this gift to one other human, and that was hundreds of thousands of years ago.¡± At that, he used one of his talons to draw a line of blood across his face. Catching the blood in another tea cup, he handed it to me saying, ¡°Consider yourself lucky, hatchling.¡± Then, he vanished into thin air. I sat on the ground staring at the spot where the griffin used to be. ¡°It can¡¯t be any worse than that shit Great-Granny Kingsly calls tea.¡± I drank the cup of blood in one gulp, only to feel an incredible amount of energy flooding through my body. I automatically gathered the energy surging through my body, sending it to my brainstem like Great-Granny Kingsly did when I awakened. Screaming in agony, I could feel my blood being forcibly changed. I passed out quickly, unable to bear the pain. When I finally regained consciousness, I was laying down in my bed. I¡¯d been stripped of my clothes and cleaned up by someone. Great-Granny Kingsly was sitting back in a recliner next to my bed. She had a sly smile on her wrinkled, old face. I sighed, asking ¡°Can¡¯t you just stop using that damned illusion? You¡¯re not fooling anyone here.¡± ¡°Of course not, it¡¯s far too fun. Anyway, congratulations that was quite the gift you got.¡± Suddenly, I had a horrible suspicion, ¡°I don¡¯t think a congratulations is really in order, you set the whole damned thing up. Tell me, did you manufacture the whole thing. Cause the death of tens of thousands of humans, as well as ruining their home just to get me this?¡± She laughed! Laughed! I accuse her of planning the murder of an entire sentient race, as well as tens of thousands of humans, and she laughs! ¡°The Manticore¡¯s may not remember it, but their clan once saved my life. I¡¯ve been looking out for them since I came back, doing what I could behind their backs. Manticore¡¯s are incredibly prideful, they will not accept any charity. They would rather go extinct. So, I convinced them that I was asking for their help, paying them for their services by letting them move into my forest. I think they knew what I was doing, but they went along with it anyway. Also, I asked them meet you and help you if they could. I never dared to hope that they would give you blood. Now, get changed and go train. You¡¯ve slept long enough.¡± That day, Gunther and Elin trained me like normal, and as I was getting ready to go out to the forest when Ali flew up to me. As the tiny faerie smiled at me, she suddenly grew from two-inches tall to slightly taller than me, at just over 5 feet. That was when she announced my newest change in training, ¡°David, you won¡¯t be going into the forest any longer. It¡¯s past time for you to start school lessons, the Mistress has asked me to get you caught up with where your peer¡¯s should be over the next six months. It¡¯ll be tough, after all we¡¯re packing three years¡¯ of material into six months, but I¡¯m sure you can do it. At least, you better be able to if you don¡¯t want your new school mates making fun of you constantly when you go back home!¡± The next six months flew by. Between training my body and learning with Ali, I could barely find the time to breathe. At first, I was really worried about catching up. It¡¯s been a long time since I last played around with someone my age, so I really wanted to fit in. However, I quickly came to the realization that I wasn¡¯t like most children my age. What supposedly took my peer¡¯s three years of schooling barely took me three months. For some reason, my personalities knew more about science and biology then even Ali, so I learned incredibly quickly. Soon, my personalities began to add more courses to my education, starting with programming. I began to dread the boring classes that I was going to have to sit through in the future. For a while, I thought about just not going to school. Great-Granny Kingsly nixed that idea in record time saying, ¡°If you really don¡¯t want to go to school I¡¯m sure I could train you for another hundred years or so.¡± Yep, school sounds like so much fun, doesn¡¯t it! Sigh, at least I¡¯ll be able to focus on pranks in class. It¡¯s not like I¡¯m going to be learning anything. I¡¯ve already thought up some fun ideas to use on my new teachers. :) Anyways, here I am, it¡¯s my 9th birthday today. It has been 3 years and one day since I left home to live this hellish existence, and I think I¡¯m going to miss it. I¡¯m leaving today, I can¡¯t wait to see my parents and Lizzy again. Saying goodbye to everyone was rough though, my partners in crime, Suzi and Carl, came by my room as I was packing up my few belongings. They were crying, saying I needed to come visit when I had the chance. I promised that I would, but kind of figured that I¡¯d be too busy for that. After they left, I finished packing. Honestly, I didn¡¯t have much I planned on taking with me. Just a spear I¡¯d made by carving the femur of one of those gigantic bears. Since I was only 4 and a half feet tall, the nearly six foot long spear was honestly too large for me. I was hoping I¡¯d grow into it soon. Thinking back, I learned a lot while I was here, especially about working hard. Never again was I going to complain when Lizzy or Mom asked me to help fill the dishwasher. With one final wave goodbye, I walked down the private runway that Great-Granny Kingsly had carved out of the mountainside. According to Ali, she had summoned a blade bigger than the mountain out of thin air and with one chop had carved it out. Apparently, all of my plans to mess with Great-Granny Kingsly had to be pushed back¡­ I had just finished settling into my seat, hoping that I actually got to land with the plane this time around, when Elin hurried up the stairs to the plane carrying 5 humongous bags along with what looked like six swords over her shoulder. I was staring at her, wondering what the hell she was thinking, when she glared at me and said, ¡°What are you looking at? Get your ass over here and help me!¡± She didn¡¯t have to say it twice, I hurried over and helped her unload. Settling back into my seat, I looked at Granny Kingsly and Elin before asking, ¡°Why¡¯s she coming?¡± Granny Kingsly grinned mischievously before saying, ¡°You didn¡¯t think I was going to let you get rusty after all that hard work we put into you? You¡¯re going to be spending two hours a day in Elins hands from now on, be nice to her.¡± She smirked a bit then continued on in a stage whisper to me, ¡°Don¡¯t sneak into her shower again, she might not be so forgiving next time.¡± Elin started to blush furiously for some reason. ¡°But it was my shower, it¡¯s not my fault that she was in it!¡± Which only seemed to make Elin blush even more furiously. Great-Granny Kingsly was chuckling delightedly at the look on Elin¡¯s face. She turned to me, clotting me on the back of my head. ¡°You have much to learn about women, boy.¡± With that, I finally left hell behind. Except, I don¡¯t think I should really call it hell anymore. Maybe I¡¯ll just go with Granny¡¯s summer mansion. Volume One - Epilogue: Homecoming A/N - I''ve been having trouble coming up with what to call the Griffins. You see, a while back I was looking at mythical creatures and I came across and oddity... There are sphinxes (body of a lion head of a human) Griffins (body of a lion, head of an eagle) Chimeras (part lion, part goat, part snake), etc... There are tons of mythical creatures with the body of a lion. But, I never found a creature with the head of a lion and the body of something else. Which is where I came up with the idea of inverting the Griffin. The question is then, what should I call it? Unfortunately, I''m drawing a big, fat blank on this one. So, if you have an idea please comment! For now, I''ll just keep calling them Griffin''s. After all they are mythical, made up creatures so I can change them in my story right? :) Anyway, here''s the epilogue to Volume One, enjoy! Chit P.S. - Thanks Akitodb for rating and reviewing. Glad you''re enjoying the story! Volume One - Epilogue: Homecoming Eight hours later, we were still in the plane. The first time I rode in this thing I was too messed up, thinking about how I wasn¡¯t going to see my parents or Lizzy for another three years. But, I didn¡¯t remember it taking this long to get here. ¡°Hey, Great-Granny Kingsly, why¡¯s it taking so long? I don¡¯t think it took this long last time.¡± ¡°Your parents moved a year ago, the old house was great for pretending to be normal. But, you wouldn¡¯t have been able to continue training there. Also, your dad had been slacking off with his training for the last couple decades so I paid him a few visits. I only had to nearly kill him a few times before he got his act together, Kekekekeke.¡± Remembering some of the times Elin had cut me to pieces, I couldn¡¯t help but feel sorry for dad. Feeling a little tired, I decided to take a nap. It had been a long time since I got to sleep instead of meditate. A few hours later, I yawned myself awake. I¡¯d been sitting still for far too long, I¡¯m used to spending eighteen hours a day running around training, and fighting beasts. My body was screaming at me to move! So, I stood up and started doing some light stretching and warmup exercises in the small plane. I woke Elin up accidently while I was moving. She just grinned at me evilly and said, ¡°Guess it¡¯s time to train again.¡± Throwing a sword at me, she grabbed her own blade and charged at me. I was caught completely off guard, thankfully Great-Granny Kingsly woke up from her own nap right then. ¡°ARE YOU STUPID!!!? I SPENT A LOT OF MONEY ON THIS PLANE IF YOU BREAK IT I¡¯LL BREAK YOU!¡± Looking somewhat chagrined, but mostly bored, Elin sat back down. It¡¯s been eighteen hours since we left the mansion, and now Great-Granny Kingsly is starting to get cranky too. I have the feeling that Elin could¡¯ve run to my parents¡¯ new place hours ago, and Great-Granny Kingsly¡­ Well, I¡¯m pretty sure she could¡¯ve been there in a few seconds. I¡¯ve learned to put up with her weird personality; it¡¯s like she¡¯s roleplaying an old, crazy woman just to pass the time. As long as you play along, she leaves you alone. The instant you stop playing along, you find yourself on the bottom of a lake with a giant shark trying to eat you while she sips her coffee from the shore. Anyway, I could¡¯ve sworn that steam was coming out of her ears and every now and then I could hear her muttering to herself. ¡°I¡¯m going to kill that boy. Thinking he can get away from me just by moving way out here! He should know better by now.¡± Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author''s preferred platform and support their work! Another six hours have passed, only two more and it¡¯ll have been a full day since we left the mansion. Everyone in the plane is stir crazy, if it wasn¡¯t for Great-Granny Kingsly I¡¯m pretty sure that Elin and I would¡¯ve destroyed the plane by now. The scary thing is a couple of hours ago, Great-Granny Kingsly stopped muttering. Instead, she began smiling. It started as just a crack and then slowly widened over time. I¡¯m pretty sure that means she is about to destroy the world or something, especially since Elin is acting like a frightened little mouse. She¡¯s spent the last hour sitting perfectly still, with eyes wide, and blood slowly draining from her face. At that moment, I heard a mechanical sound and the plane started descending while the wheels extended themselves. YAY!!! We¡¯re about to land, if we can get on the ground fast enough maybe the world will be saved! At this, Great-Granny Kingsly seems to have broken free of whatever day-dream she was having. The smile left her face, turning into a frown as she glanced outside while she continued muttering to herself, ¡°That boy better have picked a good place, or I¡¯ll hang him up and tear off his limbs every time they regenerate for the next week.¡± We finally landed at a small airport in a valley surrounded by mountains. Looking around as I stiffly walked off the plane, the scenery was amazing. Off to the left was a giant waterfall, while on the right a forest bigger than Great-Granny Kingsly¡¯s stretched off. At first I thought that this must be another mana-rich environment, but I didn¡¯t feel the normal tingle. I¡¯d never noticed it before, but now I definitely noticed its absence. It¡¯s like standing on top of a mountain and breathing in the clean air. It revitalizes you, makes you happy, and gives you energy. No wonder even the ignorant humans flock to these places in such numbers that they end up destroying them. As I observed my surroundings I saw a car approaching us, and in the driver''s seat I could see my dad! I didn¡¯t wait for the car to get to us, damned thing was going too slow. 20 miles an hour? Please, I could run that fast two years ago¡­ I sprinted across the tarmac, making my dad slam on the brakes so he didn¡¯t hit me. Before he was even out the door, I¡¯d already dove into him with tears streaming down my cheeks. Hugging me back, my dad said, ¡°Its ok son, the evil witch won¡¯t hurt you anymore.¡± Of course, the evil witch in question heard that¡­ My dad handed me off to mom for another tearful hug, while he went to go say hi to Elin and Great-Granny Kingsly. Of course, he only made it halfway to them before he was sent flying, spitting blood as his internal organs were injured. ¡°You made this evil witch sit on a plane for nearly 25 hours!¡± Looking, my mom and I chuckled while I thought he¡¯d actually gotten off fairly lightly. No amputated limbs to regrow or anything! The shaking of the car from our tearful hugs combined with the noise outside woke up the baby in the backseat. I hadn¡¯t seen it at first, but my mom leaned over the seat to grab her, saying ¡°Say hello to your baby sister¡± Interlude - I Can Do This? (Mature Content and GB Warning) A/N - Ok, so I¡¯m writing this for Rota, NSFU, and the rest of you GB lovers out there. I was going back over some of the earlier chapters and I felt like I¡¯d lost a little something by focusing mostly on the serious aspects of getting the world and training out of the way. So, this is my slice of life/GB chapter. For those of you who don¡¯t like GB, or mature content feel free to skip this chapter it has absolutely nothing to do with the plot! Mature Content Warning - some sexy time¡­ Interlude - I Can Do This? On the plane ride home, I decided to take a nap. After all, it¡¯d been a long time since I last got the chance to actually sleep instead of nap. As I was drifting asleep, I found myself dreaming the weirdest dream I¡¯ve ever had. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Jaw¡¯s POV For the most part, the new connections didn¡¯t change our behavior. We still ran around doing stupid shit all the time, trying to pull one over and each other. It¡¯s a lot harder though, since they can tell what you¡¯re thinking if they focus on the link between us. So, you have to be much craftier. We didn¡¯t notice the biggest change until we were on the plane for an hour or so. Our favorite reality show, what we called, ¡°David¡¯s Life¡±, was pretty boring at the moment. No talking, just lots of watching scenery out the window of a plane. BORING!! Feeling kind of horny and bored, female drug heroic over to a corner and build a room for some fun times during the lull in programming. We didn¡¯t realize then what our connections would do to us. As they were going at it, I started feeling weird. Suddenly, a wave of heat traveled over my body and I felt the greatest pleasure I¡¯ve ever felt in my life. God, is that what an orgasm feels like for a woman? Feeling horny myself now, I decided to go find a place to rub one out. Thinking back, I felt a little bit jealous. I¡¯d like to try that out once. Wait, maybe I can! I went over to the corner, made a building and sat down while imagining turning into a woman. I started with female as my model and sure enough, it worked! Here I was, a perfect copy of her. Now, let¡¯s see, hmm¡­ Slightly taller, longer legs. Smaller boobs, man these things are uncomfortable when they¡¯re this big! Conjuring up a mirror, I looked at my body. Got to fix the jaw, can¡¯t be a woman with a metal jaw! It took a while, I¡¯d been walking around with the damned thing for nearly 160 years now, but I got it. Problem being the jaw was crooked now¡­ After spending half an hour, I finally got it right. Looking at the mirror I smiled. Damn, I¡¯m hot! After getting the body right, I got down to business. Female and Heroic had been going at it this whole time, and the feedback that I was getting from the bond had intensified since I turned myself into a woman. As I was playing with myself, a tentacle slowly crept into the room. ¡°Keee!!!¡± I heard high-pitched screams from outside, creating a window I looked out. Apparently, I wasn¡¯t the only one who had the idea of trying to be a woman. Looking around, I saw two octopuses¡¯, one kind of skinny with what looked like acne on its face. The other was just fat, only way to describe it. They were using their tentacles to terrorize the other personalities who had turned into women, pulling them up into the air and having their way with them! The worst part of it was, I could feel everything that they were feeling. I yelled, ¡°GOD, SOO GOOD!¡± as I came harder than I thought possible, falling to the floor unable to keep standing. This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author''s work. Suddenly, I was thrown from the building. The fat one caught me with a few tentacles, shoving one down my throat and caressing me, everywhere¡­ I quickly lost track of time, unable to control my body as I felt better than I''ve ever felt before. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- David¡¯s POV I feel kind of weird, for some reason my little guy is saluting¡­ Why? I just fell asleep and then suddenly I felt it. Through my bond with the personalities living in my subconscious came a wave of pleasure. Something I¡¯ve never felt before, it was overpowering. Slowly, I opened my eyes and found myself in the usual place. Except¡­ why are there so many female personalities today? And, why are they all hanging in the air naked doing something with a giant octopus? Suddenly, the original female personality was dragged out of another building by the fat looking one while I suddenly heard it speak, ¡°This is payback for all those times you tap danced on me!¡± As it started shoving tentacles into every hole it would fit in. Heroic flew out of the building and started battling with the octopuses¡¯ in anger. They had to put down some of the women in order to fight him. They lay there on the ground, quivering in pleasure. One of them started screaming, ¡°No, don¡¯t stop yet!¡± Turning around, I saw the Gladiator smile, then pick up the woman and take her into another room. Soon, I heard grunting sounds coming from the room. Suddenly, all the remaining male personalities were picking up a woman or two and taking them to a room. I stood there, unable to understand what was going on. What the hell was this? And why does it seem like so much fun? Through the bond all I could feel is a tiny bit of anger from heroic but every other personality was lost in pleasure. Suddenly, I awoke for real. Looking around, I saw that Great-Granny Kingsly and Elin were both dozing off. I felt something sticky on my little guy, looking down I noticed that my pants were wet. What the hell, I haven¡¯t peed in my sleep for years! Embarrassed, I went to the bathroom and changed pants, cleaning myself up. A couple of years later I realized what that was¡­ my first wet dream. From then on they started happening on a fairly regular basis¡­ Volume Two - Prologue A/N - Sorry I didn''t post a chapter yesterday. Saturday''s are usually incredibly busy for me, so don''t expect too many chapters on Saturday''s. Anyway, here you go, enjoy! Chit Volume Two - Prologue: School Hunting Two Weeks ago David¡¯s finally coming home! We cannot wait, the first year after he left was really rough. My wife and I were constantly worried, unable to forgive that witch for taking him away. When I first agreed to his leaving, I did so because I was angry with him, but as soon as they left I realized what I had done. What if she awakens him and he starts refining? She did that to my brother, and he looked like he was seven for a hundred years! Also, I know her training methods. What if he blames us for letting her do those things to him? We tried to bring him home multiple times. The problem being¡­ if the witch doesn¡¯t let you into the forest, then you don¡¯t get in. The barrier surrounding the place is incredible. Once, not long after I was born, she seriously pissed off another clan. They gathered all of their great masters and tried to break it¡­ two of them died from the backlash and the rest were so severely injured that they lost their abilities. Since then, no one has dared to piss the bitch off. Anyway, we were there to witness his first day in the forest. Standing on the outside of the barrier, we saw him sneaking through the forest, gaining more confidence. Only to make a stupid mistake; well he is a little kid. My wife was hanging onto me, crying and begging me to do something to save her only child. I soon joined her, watching him sprinting through the forest, somehow surviving, through a curtain of tears. Hours later, he survived and somehow managed to make it to safety. But, then he started awakening. NOOOO, I don¡¯t want him to have to go through what my big brother did! But, it wouldn¡¯t stop. Slowly, we began to realize that he had no idea what he was supposed to do. Watching your child screaming in agony when you know exactly how to help him, but being unable to do so is unbearable. It nearly broke us. Suddenly, Grandma Kingsly appeared, saving David. The whole time, she was looking at us and I heard in my brain. ¡°Leave, I won¡¯t allow him to suffer the same fate as your brother.¡± After that, we had no choice. Much as I hate to admit it, she¡¯s still the most powerful person I¡¯ve ever met, perhaps the most powerful person in the world. My wife blamed me of course, I was the one who said, ¡°okay¡±. It wasn¡¯t like I had much of a choice, she is the clan¡¯s matriarch, but I blamed myself too. We should¡¯ve hidden away as soon as he was born. It was obvious, ever since she visited that first time, that she had plans for David. Over the next few months our marriage was nearly destroyed. My wife soon moved out of our house. Living in the woods on the edge of the barrier, spending her days trying to catch even the tiniest glimpse of our son. She didn¡¯t even see him once, until six months had passed. She was so happy! For the first time in three months she called me. Of course, I got there as fast as I could, breaking the glass in every building between me and my wife. There was something on the news about it the next day, the government got blamed for, ¡°secret testing of experimental planes¡±. It was kind of funny watching the trials as they vehemently denied it. Eventually, they had no choice but to spend millions of dollars to replace the glass. Anyway, I got there just in time to see my son fighting the wolves. Well, I wouldn¡¯t even call it fighting, it was more like exterminating. For the next two and a half months, we saw him sprinting from the mansion to the forest at around the same time every day. We were both so proud of our son, he must¡¯ve gone through hellish training every day since he got there. Yet, he maintained his carefree attitude laughing and joking. We saw him sneaking out of the mansion with a couple of faeries every now and then, planning some practical joke on one of his teachers. It was after this that I finally convinced my wife to come home. It was obvious that our son was okay, and he needs a place to return home too. I¡¯d long since lost my job, disappearing for a few months without notice pisses off most bosses. Not that it really matters, I¡¯m in the direct line of succession for leadership of the clan. So, I can get a job in Kingsly Inc. with a single phone call, or I can just be lazy and not work, living off the family. Of course, I didn¡¯t do either of those things. My wife and I started our own day care center; I did it for her, she needed to be around kids or she would¡¯ve freaked and left again. A year later, she was pregnant, and we decided to move as far away from Grandma Kingsly as we could manage. My wife¡¯s family used to be very large and powerful, she still maintained the ancestral seat, which was over 10,000 miles away from the forest. Even Great-Granny Kingsly would find it annoying to fly all the way there, and knowing her roleplaying propensities she would never actually run or teleport. After clearing away the cobwebs, we stared at the gigantic mansion in the middle of the woods, trying to figure out how to actually live in this place! Lizzy was frantic, begging us to hire some more help for her. Eventually, we gave in and decided to buy a house nearby. For the next year, we lived as a happy little family again. My wife and I¡¯s relationship finally lost all of the previous tension when our daughter, Arabella, was born. We pretended to be a normal family, living in a suburban area on the outskirts of a gigantic wooded area. Of course, we knew that this couldn¡¯t continue on, but it was a great vacation from our responsibilities. Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.A couple of weeks before David was supposed to come home, we finally revealed our location to the clan¡­ Grandma Kingsly had known the whole time, the bitch. Apparently, until they reach a certain level of power all members of the clan are followed. My wife and I had long since passed that level, but not our daughter. We¡¯d always known that we were living an illusion, but it still hurt. Today, my wife and I are going school hunting. We know that David has been educated to the fourth or fifth grade level so he can fit into classes. We even have a letter of recommendation from his tutor saying that he¡¯s a genius. We went searching for the best private school in the nearby area. It had to have a good athletics program, given his training he could be a professional athlete without even trying, and it also had to have the very best of educational facilities. Finally, we settled on a place called the ¡°Bosswood Academy¡±. Only the richest, most talented, or best connected people can get in. Of course, our son qualified in all three areas so we figured it¡¯d be easy to get in. When we first checked the place out, we realized that it was actually a training ground for learning how to awaken and refine. All of the teachers were fairly powerful, at least by most people''s standards. It was the first time that we¡¯d heard of such a place, using the clan¡¯s power we decided to check it out. The nine great clans had started places like the Bosswood Academy all around the globe. Only accepting the most talented people they could find, the academies are designed to help kids awaken, and then take them to faerie havens like Grandma¡¯s forest so they can bond. Saving as many faerie¡¯s as we can. Achieving an awakening requires two things, a body that has absorbed enough faerie energy, and a certain mental capacity. By mental capacity I don¡¯t mean knowledge or wisdom, although having those things certainly helps. Rather, it is the ability to think in certain ways. All humans will eventually develop the necessary mental capacity, but it usually takes twenty or thirty years. Through learning, you can stimulate the growth of such a capacity. So, along with having top of the line training facilities, they also have the best teachers of mathematics, the sciences, literature, etc¡­ This place sounds perfect! Here, our son wouldn¡¯t have to worry too much about hiding his true strength and mental abilities. He would be able to meet people who would actually be his peers, make friends who wouldn¡¯t die centuries before him. So, we headed to the academy that day. As we walked in the gates we were stopped by an arrogant looking sixteen year old kid, ¡°Halt, no one is allowed in the grounds without permission.¡± My wife glanced at the kid, then spoke, ¡°We are here to speak with the headmaster about our son entering the school.¡± Without stopping, we kept walking. The kids face turned red as we refused his orders, running in front of us and blocking our way while yelling ¡°You cannot enter! Anyway, with parents like you, your son wouldn¡¯t be able to enter this academy!¡± At that, everyone in the nearby courtyard turned to look. The kids were laughing, while taking bets on how we were going to be thrown out. A teacher looked at us, then his face went pale as he started running to try and save the kid. Too bad, my wife was pissed. She kicked the idiot, launching him half a mile through the air and into the headmaster¡¯s window, while asking the teacher, ¡°Is this how you treat potential clients?¡± Everyone in the courtyard shut up, staring at us. Ahh, it¡¯s been awhile since we last showed off our strength! ¡°Who dares to cause trouble in my academy?¡± The powerful voice rang through the air. All the kids and teachers watching started smiling, again taking bets on how we were going to get kicked out. They all knew of the incredible strength of their headmaster; he was so strong that he was actually affiliated with one of the great clans that ruled the world! Suddenly, a flash of lightning appeared in front of the two idiots who were about to die. The headmaster stood there, glaring at the two. ¡°Who are you that you dare to disturb this place? It has the backing of the nine clans!¡± ¡°My name is Arthur Kingsly.¡± Five simple words, and a hush descended over the entire school. The headmaster stood there, looking dumb, before he started laughing¡­ ¡°HAHAHAHA, if you¡¯re Arthur Kingsly, then I¡¯m Zeus.¡± At that, he shot a little bit of lighting us, probably expecting us to be sent flying away. Before the lighting could hit, a barrier of light surrounded us, diffusing it. A little pissed off, I decided to teach the fool a lesson. For the first time in nearly a hundred years, I released my aura. Instantly, all of the students fainted, unable to bear the pressure. Then, my wife released her aura. Within a two-mile radius, every person fainted. From the background could be heard the sounds of cars crashing and people falling to the ground. Only three people remained standing, the headmaster and us. His knee''s were shaking, finally realizing that he had just attacked a scion of one of the nine great clans he looked like he was about to vomit. ¡°You¡¯re relieved of your duties. My clan will be appointing a new headmaster. Now, GET THE FUCK OUT BEFORE I KILL YOU!¡± With that, David¡¯s new school was chosen. Volume Two - Chapter One: Home A/N: Thanks all for helping me to realize just how little I know about mythical creatures 0.0 .... anyway, the griffon''s from the previous chapters will be mentioned as manticore''s now. I''ll be going back and changing them. Here''s the first chapter of Volume Two, Enjoy!!! Volume Two - Chapter One: Home ¡°Mom, what did you just say?¡± ¡°That¡¯s your baby sister, Arabella.¡± ¡°But¡­ why didn¡¯t you tell me?¡± ¡°We thought it¡¯d be a good surprise for you.¡± She smiled¡­ smirked really. ¡°If anything, you thought it¡¯d be fun to watch me be surprised.¡± Her smile just grew broader, ¡°Good, you did learn something in her care¡­¡± At that point, dad had finally recovered enough to start walking back to the car¡­ slowly. Great-Granny Kingsly had already appeared, and was looking at the baby while smiling. Yes, that¡¯s right, she was smiling. Usually, she smirks or the glint in her eyes makes it evil, in other words it scares the shit out of you! This one was heartwarming, it just wasn¡¯t right. After my dad tried to get some revenge on Great-Granny Kingsly, and failed by becoming what looked like a gigantic bug splattered on the concrete, we all got in the car and headed to my parents new home. When we arrived in the suburbs looking at a nice, but small two story home, Great-Granny Kingsly turned and slapped my dad in his face saying, ¡°You said that you¡¯d found the perfect place for David to train! Then you take me to this shithole, how is he supposed to train here?¡± Of course, she slapped a little hard, so he was still pulling himself off the ground about a hundred feet away. Mom answered for him, since he was obviously unable to do so ¡°My family home is about 10 miles away in that forest. We figured he¡¯d get a good warmup running to the place.¡± ¡°Alright, lead the way!¡± Great-Granny Kingsly shouted at dad now that he was back with the group. Perhaps feeling tired of being beaten half to death, dad just led the way without complaints. About 10 minutes later I was wheezing like I was about to die, and that¡¯s after Elin helped me for the last couple of miles. I know my family was going slow, for them at least, but still! Fucking crazy people! After finally catching my breath, I took a good look around. It was like we were back in Great-Granny Kingsly¡¯s forest! All I could see was a giant mansion with a courtyard training area the size of three basketball courts. My mom looked at the house sadly, as if thinking about her childhood spent here. Elin smiled hugely; she¡¯d been looking for an excuse to start training for hours, being cooped up in a plane for so long was not conducive to her mental health. Before I even knew what was happening, I¡¯d been drug into the courtyard. Two swords appeared from thin air, and before I even caught mine she was already attacking me. Within seconds, we were trading blows, switching between stances while my mom and dad watched. Behind me, my dad started yelling at Great-Grandma Kingsly, ¡°You let him start refining! Look at that, you can¡¯t be that strong without being at least a third step.¡± Great-Granny Kingsly started cackling again¡­. ¡°You can if you eat dragon meat twice a day for three years. Kekekeke¡± At that, both mom and dad were flabbergasted. ¡°But¡­ But, I thought all the dragons went extinct long ago?¡± Asked my mom. ¡°I have my ways.¡± She said while smiling wickedly. While my parents were busy trying to figure out how in the hell she got dragon meat, Great-Granny Kingsly was wandering around the mansion. Finally, she came back and told my parents ¡°I think this is even better than my little abode¡­ hmm maybe I should set up a mana barrier and move here.¡± Both my Mom and Dad went completely rigid, looking at each other in fear. Noticing them standing like that, Great-Granny Kingsly smiled and said, ¡°There¡¯s that giant forest that no one is using, and I kind of promised the Manticore¡¯s to give them my old forest. How about this, if I move up here then when little Arabella turns six you guys get to see her every day instead of what you went through with David. I know how much that hurt you.¡± At just that moment, Elin finally cut off a limb. It was a new record, I¡¯d lasted for an entire 4 minutes without losing an arm. As I started screaming, my mom ran over while yelling at Elin. My dad started shaking his head while remembering his own experiences training with the witch. Great-Granny Kingsly just laughed and then Ali suddenly appeared out of nowhere reattaching everything. Within a few minutes, we were back at it. Although, I started getting tired quicker than normal since I hadn¡¯t had any dragon meat that day. Half an hour later, I was completely exhausted with sweat and blood staining my clothes. My mom was a wreck, Arthur had told her what training with Great-Granny Kingsly was like, but she thought that he was just exaggerating as he does sometimes¡­ Now, she knows better. ¡°If you think I¡¯m letting my daughter go through that you are crazy!¡± My dad went over to comfort her, talking to her quietly. ¡°Its going to happen, we have no choice in this matter. If it was just the clan I¡¯d tell them to fuck off, but she¡¯s far too powerful. At least this way, we¡¯ll never have to worry about her getting abducted by normal people.¡± While this was all going on, Elin was helping me to stagger back towards my parent¡¯s place. As soon as we were out of view in the forest she picked me up in a princess carry, it was extremely embarrassing. After being fed a nice meal that actually had some faerie beast meat in it, I felt much better. Just when I¡¯d finished eating Lizzy came home. I stared at her, shocked I saw the red colored wings on her back. Lizzy of course didn¡¯t know why I was staring at her back like that, she turned around looking. ¡°Was there someone behind me?¡± Of course, when she turned around I got a clear view of them for the first time, I reached over and touched them, unable to believe my eyes. ¡°I never guessed that you were a faerie, who are you bonded too?¡± She jumped as I touched her wings, shivering as she spun in mid-air and glared at me. ¡°Didn¡¯t anyone ever teach you that it¡¯s rude to touch someone''s wings?¡± ¡°But, the faeries at Great-Granny Kingsly¡¯s place do it all the time (in a whiny voice), anyway you¡¯re just distracting me from the important issue! When did you grow wings?!?! And who are you bonded too?!?!¡± "I¡¯ve always had them silly, you just can¡¯t see them until the faerie energy changes your brain chemistry. It increases your mental capacity, and allows you to perceive this things. For your second question, I¡¯m the same as her.¡± She pointed at Elin. Now that she mentioned it, how was Elin able to be here with me for the next 7 years without a bond? I looked at her questioningly for the first time noting the jealous, angry look on her face. What does she have to be angry or jealous about? Lizzy answered my question finally, ¡°There¡¯s a second type of bond, one that only sustains us but doesn¡¯t grant the human half our powers. It¡¯s called a parasitic bond, all of the more powerful of our kind are in these relationships because truly bonding is just too difficult. In order to bond one of us, it requires you to train for years without bonding another faerie and then we have to actually like the person enough to be willing to bond them.¡± The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation. This explained a lot, I¡¯d always wondered how Great-Granny Kingsly could stuff so many faeries into her safe haven. Apparently, she¡¯d allowed them to bond her in that way. Thinking back, while none of the other faeries were as strong as Elin, Gunther, or Ali, all of them are pretty strong. Just how many of them are in a parasitic bond with her? My parents and Great-Granny Kingsly finally got back to the house. In my Mom¡¯s arms, I saw Arabella struggling to get free while crying. Mom was glaring at Great-Granny Kingsly angrily while my dad just tried to stay out of it. I walked over to mom, taking Arabella from her hands. I¡¯ve had enough experience with the witch to know when someone needed to get far, far away from her. So, I went upstairs and left the adults to their own devices while I got down to the serious business of playing with my baby sister! It took a while, but I found her play room. Toys were strewn everywhere, and as I set her down I remembered some of these from my own past. Over there were my Lego¡¯s, I dove in deciding to make a castle. Of course, my little sister joined in making what might have been a house. It¡¯s good to be with family. While I was playing around with Arabella upstairs, the adults were having a serious conversation in the kitchen. ¡°So, what do you say Arthur? Nicole?¡± The couple looked at each other, before Arthur spoke for them, ¡°You can live there, there are never enough safe havens and having one nearby would be nice. But, we already choose the school that David and Arabella will be going too and you won¡¯t be able to change that.¡± ¡°I know, kekekeke¡­. That¡¯s why Elin¡¯s here, that school is supposed to have an electric element master to run it. So, she¡¯s going to take it over.¡± ¡°What?!?! The reason we picked that place was because we wanted him make true, lifelong friends. Not to be held up as the future leader of our clan! If Elin is there as the headmaster, then it¡¯ll be obvious who he is!¡± ¡°It¡¯s the only way to keep him from becoming thought of as the greatest prodigy in history, by now he should already have the highest level of affinity to at least two of the elements. I know that he has already maxed out his electric affinity, because Elin has asked to be allowed to bond him when he starts refining, and she is only able to bond someone with maxed affinity.¡± At that, everyone started staring at Elin, she started blushing before timidly explaining, ¡°I¡¯ve always wanted to bond with a human, but my mother was bonded to someone incredibly powerful. So, I was born as the highest class of faerie. I¡¯ve been looking for the right partner for hundreds of years. If it wasn¡¯t for Mistress finding me, I would¡¯ve died long ago. My becoming the headmistress of his school was my idea. When you enter that school, you are tested for your affinities by the headmaster of the school. Since he¡¯s spent the last three years being trained by Mistress, all of his affinities should be quite high. I think we should pick two or three of his lower affinities and announce these to the world. This way, he would only be seen as talented, not the greatest prodigy in history.¡± ¡°My son is only 9 and a high-class faerie already has his eyes on him¡­ Sigh, he is destined to have an interesting life.¡± Lizzy suddenly realized what this means. She has been serving the Kingsly family for generations, hoping to find someone suitable to bond with. She had long since given up, just being happy to be alive. Then, David had been born. As soon as she¡¯d seen him, she¡¯d known that he would have the ability to bond with her. Then, David comes back from his training and this stupid electric bitch appears who wants to steal him away! ¡±Master, Mistress¡­ I would like to bond him when the time comes. I¡¯m obviously better suited to him, at least I¡¯ll never cut off his arms!¡± At that, Arthur started laughing hysterically, ¡°Great, now two high-class faeries want him. Nicole, what are we going to do?¡± She had no clue how to respond. The bond was deeper than just the sharing of powers, it is very similar to getting married. Most people who have bonded even one faerie find it difficult to bond with another, the bond comes with complete, unquestionable fidelity between the two. You will never betray someone whom you¡¯ve bonded with, and because of this it makes even finding a human partner to marry difficult. Much less sharing the same bond with another faerie¡­ they are all jealous creatures. The Kingsly clan is so powerful because they¡¯ve learned how to bond with multiple faeries. But, they are only able to bond multiple low-class faeries, and then grow with them. Bonding a high-class faerie is the same as announcing your plan to never bond another, for they would never accept a lesser faerie as their equal. She¡¯d always believed that her son was special, but bonding a high-class faerie would be the same as destroying his potential! Sure, he¡¯d be insanely strong in that one element, but he has the potential to be insanely strong in them all! She was broken from her reverie by Great-Granny Kingsly, ¡°Don¡¯t worry, he will be able to do it. The reason no one¡¯s ever been able to successfully bond with multiple high-class faeries is because in order for a second bond to occur, the other faerie¡¯s that you''re bonded to have to agree. High-class faeries are a pretentious lot, they¡¯ll only accept other high-class faeries. They¡¯ll even refuse to bond to someone who has a bond with a lower-class faerie. Both Elizabeth and Elin are of the highest class, they might fight a bit but they should be able to come to an agreement.¡± Contrary to her words, both Elin and Lizzy looked like they wanted to kill each other. Arthur and Nicole both felt that hell was more likely to freeze over then getting two high-class faeries to agree to share a human. To them, it¡¯s the same as agreeing to polygamy. Hell, most low-class faeries won¡¯t agree to it either! While the two of them were getting ready to fight, Great-Granny Kingsly put her foot down, ¡°If you two cannot agree then neither of you will be bonding him! I will personally ensure that you¡¯ll be unable to bond him unless you agree. Who knows how long it¡¯ll be before someone both able and willing to bond with you two is born.¡± That shut them up real quick... They¡¯d both spent over a thousand years searching, and this is the first human they¡¯d ever seen who was able to bond with them that hadn¡¯t already been bonded with someone else. It has to be understood that the quickest way to increase your affinity to an element is to bond with a faerie and train with them. It¡¯s extremely rare for someone to awaken then spend years training before bonding with a faerie. In all likelihood, David was the last chance for both of them. They couldn¡¯t keep living like parasites, it was unfair to everyone involved and only the strongest people alive were capable of helping them in this way. The two faerie¡¯s looked at each other, completely unwilling to share him, but also unwilling to forget about bonding David. Volume Two - Chapter Two: Cat-Fight A/N; Over 100 followers!!! I guess doing the followers dance really works! (something like a rain dance just involving interesting, probably illegal, acts with a computer...) Anyways, thanks so much everyone for reading and enjoying the story. Chit P.S. - RATE/REVIEW/FOLLOW/RECOMMEND - Pretty Please... Volume Two - Chapter Two: Cat Fight Playing with a toddler is surprisingly exhausting. We¡¯d only been at it an hour, with her demolishing the miniature castle I¡¯d built by accidentally putting a foot through it, (Note for future castle designers, gigantic babies are dangerous) before I was growing tired. Maybe it was the lack of dragon meat, or just the excitement of seeing my family and meeting my baby sister, but I was just wiped. Arabella seemed to be feeling the same way, because she started wailing. Within two seconds mom had appeared out of nowhere. She looked around the room, smiling down at Arabella, ¡°It seems you are blessed with a great big brother little one. Your room is the second one on the left. Go, get some sleep you have a big day tomorrow.¡± ¡°Tomorrow?¡± ¡°Well, tomorrow is Monday, and the new term was supposed to start a couple weeks ago, but it¡¯s been delayed because the Headmaster suddenly decided to retire. Tomorrow morning, the new headmaster will give a beginning of term speech and then on Tuesday school will begin for real.¡± She walked over and gave me a big hug, along with a kiss on the cheek, saying ¡°I¡¯ve missed you more than you can imagine. I¡¯m so glad your back.¡± Then, she was gone off taking Arabella to bed. When I got to my room, I went to sleep instantly. Not even bothering to look around the room. At 5 AM the next day, I was forcefully dragged from my bed by Elin. ¡°I was looking forward to sleeping in for the first time in years, damnit!¡± Elin just laughed as she put the usual plate of dragon steak down in front of me. ¡°We could wait and do it after school, but then your mother would probably come find us and I¡¯m sure you don¡¯t want to watch her crying over your severed limbs again.¡± ¡°WHAT?!?! I thought that since Ali was gone the whole severed limbs thing was done with!¡± ¡°Hehehe, I asked Ali to stay behind too. We¡¯ve got an hour and a half to burn off the same amount of energy that used to take you 5 or 6 hours to burn off. Don¡¯t think that just since you¡¯ve moved back home you get to slack off!¡± With that, the hellish days of training began¡­ again. Starting off with the 10 mile sprint to my mom¡¯s old home, I was actually feeling pretty good. I didn¡¯t realize just how much I love the feeling of energy coursing through my veins until I went a day without eating dragon meat. No wonder they went extinct, they¡¯re just too tasty. After arriving at the courtyard we immediately began training. Something seemed¡­ off today. Usually, Elin is slightly stronger than me at all times, forcing me to exceed my limits in order to fight her. This time, she seemed distracted and erratic. Sometimes moving too slowly, other times moving so swiftly that I didn¡¯t even notice her move as my arms were separated from my body. The whole time she seemed to be glaring, unlike her normal, cheerful self. Finally, I heard someone laughing. Turning my head, I saw Lizzy walking out of the forest while shaking with barely suppressed mirth. Elin, was shaking too, but in her case it was in anger, ¡°What¡¯s so damned funny!¡± ¡°How poorly you¡¯re doing training him! I sincerely hope that you do a better job normally.¡± ¡°It¡¯s hard to do a good job with you obviously thinking about killing me the entire time!¡± Suddenly, I heard laughter coming through the link to my subconscious. Confused, I focused inwardly and caught an image of a purple and a red cat. They were both happy, shaking their tails and purring while I petted them. They opened their eyes and noticed each other. Suddenly, all of their hair stood on end and the hissing match began. Before long, they started fighting. I couldn¡¯t help it, I started laughing harder than I¡¯ve ever laughed before in my life. The two faerie¡¯s turned to look at me, ¡°You ... *laughs*... two ¡­ You¡¯re like two kittens fighting over who gets petted next. Don¡¯t worry, I like you both. Why don¡¯t you come over here so I can pet you?¡± The two faeries couldn¡¯t believe their ears, where the hell had this come from? They looked at each other, then as one turned towards me. One shot lightning from the tip of her sword, while the other flung enormous fireballs at me. Over the course of the next hour I was electrocuted and fried who knows how many times. I certainly don¡¯t want to know. When they were finally done tormenting me, Lizzy looked happier than I¡¯d ever seen her, while Elin was downcast. ¡°Hehe, I won! I hit him 28 times you only got him 27 times!¡± She started dancing, why was she so happy to have hit me more times? As we were running back to the house, the two faerie¡¯s started bickering again. ¡°I¡¯ll win next time.¡± Said Elin with a cute pout on her face. ¡°Not if I have anything to say about it!¡± ¡°Stupid fire bitch, stay out of this!¡± ¡°You¡¯re the one who should stay out, I¡¯ve been here longer!¡± Soon, Elin¡¯s sword was back out while fire engulfed Lizzy. All I could do is sigh and watch as the two fought, setting the forest on fire. It wasn¡¯t until I heard the sound of firetrucks in the distance that I realized how much trouble they were about to get us in. ¡°WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU¡¯RE DOING?¡± I turned around, to see my mom standing there, hands on her hips while glaring at the two miscreants. The two faerie¡¯s stopped fighting, looking at my mother with eyes downcast. My mom grabbed me, then moved. Within 3 seconds we were inside the house over 5 miles from the fire. I was sent upstairs to take a shower while my mom had a ¡°talk¡± with the faeries. Love what you''re reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on. While I was humming in the shower, downstairs another meeting was taking place¡­. ¡°Not even a single day has passed since you were told of your choices! Yet, this morning you tortured my son, didn¡¯t train him properly, and caused a major fire! I thought High-Class faeries were supposed to be dignified! Now, you have one week to either come to an agreement or forget about my son. If you don¡¯t, I¡¯ll send you both to Grandma Kingsly for ¡°reeducation¡±.¡± She left the two of them standing in the hall, trying to figure out their own feelings. At last, Elin sighed. ¡°I have to get ready, we need to talk.¡± ¡°Yeah, I think we do. Tonight, at the training grounds.¡± ¡°I¡¯ll be there.¡± When I got out of the shower, I found some new clothes setting on my bed. Smiling, I put on the jeans and t-shirt. It¡¯d been far too long since I wore decent clothes, my old stuff didn¡¯t fit anymore, and Great-Granny Kingsly only gave me training clothes. I went downstairs feeling famished, getting burned and electrocuted really takes it out of you! On my spot, I found a humongous pile of ham and eggs, along with an upset looking faerie. ¡°I¡¯m so sorry David, Elin just pisses me off so much that I didn¡¯t realize what I was doing. Will you ever forgive me?¡± ¡°For what? Throwing fireballs at me? Please, that¡¯s nothing compared to what I¡¯ve gone through for the last three years.¡± I thought for a while, she seemed truly sorry about it for some reason. Finally, I had an idea! ¡°If you really feel bad, then figure out a way to make peace with Elin. She¡¯s going to be a part of my life until I turn 16, probably longer now that I think about it.¡± She really didn¡¯t like that, pouting cutely at me. It was hard, but I didn¡¯t let myself fall for it, ¡°I¡¯d really appreciate it if you did this one thing for me, please¡­.¡± I pulled off my own cute pouty face. Ha, take that! ¡°Fine, for you.¡± Hehe, I win! Who said you can never win an argument with a woman? My mom walked in, looking harassed while checking the time. ¡°We¡¯re going to be late again¡­¡± She looked up, noticing my clothes, ¡°Why aren¡¯t you wearing your uniform David?¡± ¡°What uniform?¡± ¡°The uniform I put on your bed this morning. Lizzy why isn¡¯t he in his uniform?¡± ¡°Mistress, Elin said that he doesn¡¯t need a uniform, something about the school¡¯s policies changing.¡± ¡°That woman¡­ seriously, what the hell is she thinking putting that addlebrained bimbo in charge. First she electrocutes my son, then she gets rid of the school¡¯s uniform without telling anybody. GAH! Go, put on the uniform I¡¯m sure everyone else will be wearing theirs still. No need to make your association with that idiot too obvious.¡± ¡°What Idiot?¡± ¡°O yea, we didn¡¯t tell you last night. Elin is the new headmaster at your school.¡± ¡°WHATTT?!? I thought I was going to get a break from training at school!¡± ¡°No time honey, just get your uniform on we¡¯ll talk about it later.¡± Lizzy rushed up the stairs ahead of me, by the time I got to my room she¡¯d already prepared everything. I shoved myself unceremoniously into the uniform, then ran back downstairs. Within seconds we were all stuffed into the car while my dad was in the driver''s seat grumbling under his breath, ¡°Damned women, always making us late.¡± ¡°Arthur, unless you want to spend another day as roadkill, I¡¯d shut up if I was you.¡± ¡°Yes, dear.¡± ¡°And speed¡± ¡°Yes, dear.¡± We arrived at the school gates fifteen minutes later, with what looked like 10 cop cars behind us¡­ just in time to be fashionably late. We hustled into the building, while my dad dealt with the cops. Elin was standing at the podium in the auditorium looking pissed. Over the speaker¡¯s all I heard was, ¡°Why are you all wearing those ugly things?¡± One of the teacher¡¯s standing behind her couldn¡¯t help himself, ¡°What ugly things?¡± ¡°Those uniforms of course! What respectable faerie would contract with someone wearing one of those?!?!? ¡°Headmistress, they aren¡¯t supposed to know about that yet. Many of these students are first years.¡± ¡°Bah, screw it¡­ Welcome everyone! This is the ¡°Bosswood Academy¡± for elites. This school has a tradition of excellence and all that, yada yada yada. Now, for the important information, my name is Elin and I¡¯m a faerie!¡± At that, all of the 2nd year and above students gasped. The few students who had already awakened had spent the last 5 minutes not talking, unable to believe their eyes. ¡°Yes, yes, surprising right? The matriarch of my family is moving nearby and she¡¯s bringing with her a shit-ton of faeries in need of a contractor. So, I¡¯m here to make sure that you imbeciles are capable enough. There won¡¯t be many changes around here, just some minor changes to the training schedules. O, and anyone wearing one of those ugly assed uniforms in front of me will spend an hour with me in the gym. You will not enjoy it! For you confused first-years and parents there¡¯s an introductory class that¡¯ll explain everything, for everyone else, you¡¯re dismissed.¡± With that, the faerie jumped off the podium and stalked off while muttering, ¡°Who in the hell thought that mustard yellow was a good color for a uniform?¡± Volume Two - Chapter Three: Infromation A/N: Sorry it''s been so long since I last updated... My sister just flew in from South Korea on Friday so I''ve been spending my time with her. She''s moving to China in a couple months, so I probably won''t see her again for another year or so.... Expect slower releases for a while. Volume Two - Chapter Three: Information ¡°Hello everybody, my name is Inra King and I am the teacher for the first years. I can see the confusion on many of your faces, I¡¯m sorry for our new headmistress. She is rather eccentric.¡± I was sitting in the auditorium still, after all the 2nd years and above left the first years and their parents walked slowly to the front of the room. To my left, a couple whispered, ¡°I thought that this was supposed to be the best school for thousands of miles. What the hell are they doing picking a headmistress like that?¡± To the right, ¡°Should we move Jimmy to another school? I can¡¯t see how this place could possibly live up to its reputation with her here.¡± While all of this was going on my Mom sat in between me and dad with a glare on her face. Judging from its severity, Elin was going to have a sore backside tonight¡­ On the other hand, dad was doing a poor job of trying to turn his laughter into coughing. Under his breath I could hear him whispering to mom, ¡°Its fine honey, if anyone leaves then that just means more attention will be given to our son in class. Anyway, those uniforms are disgusting.¡± ¡°Normally, we spend our time to demonstrate some abilities and work our way up to the explanation, but our headmistress this year ruined our plans¡­ *cough* ¡­ Anyway.¡± At that, she split into two people, then split again. ¡°This is an ability using the art of illusion that I gained insight into along with my faerie.¡± Finally, the incessant whispering stopped while everyone stared at her. One particularly belligerent parent said, ¡°Pssh, that''s just done using mirrors or something. That has absolutely nothing to do with faeries or magic¡± She suddenly lifted her hands into the air, and lightning shot down from the sky coalescing on the palms of all of her clones. ¡°This is the ability to control lightning that everyone who bonds with a lightning faerie gains.¡± ¡°HAHAHAHAHA, that¡¯s total bs! Come on, let¡¯s leave.¡± Before he could even stand up the teacher pointed her hands at the man, and the lightning shot at him. I cringed, remembering earlier that morning. Getting electrocuted is not fun! ¡°AHHHH!!!!!¡± That distinct smell of burning flesh, god am I getting tired of it. ¡°That, was just a tiny bit of what every teacher and any student over the age of 16 is capable of. As for our new headmistress¡­ let me warn you, she is one of the most powerful beings in existence you¡¯d best try not to piss her off.¡± I glanced over at my parents¡­ they are obviously more powerful than Elin. Hell, they have someone just as powerful as her living as their maid. I think I got insanely lucky to be born into this family. While I was thinking this, everyone else in the hall started screaming. The kids who didn¡¯t piss themselves were jumping up and down in excitement, the wife of the belligerent man started crying, thinking that her husband was dead. Then, Ali flew into the room sighing, ¡°Why is it that everyone thinks that all I can do is heal¡­ I should transform into a bigger body and train David. Then, maybe I can do something other than healing all day.¡± As the tiny faerie landed on the man''s forehead, his body was covered in a light bright enough to blind. Seconds later, Ali was flying on her way, waving at me, while the wife stared at her husband in stupefaction. ¡°That was Ali, an extremely powerful light elemental faerie, she is a member of the same clan as the headmistress and will be helping out in our infirmary.¡± Finally, everyone shut up. They¡¯d seen too much, and as much as they wanted to deny everything, they all thought that man had been dead. Yet, here he was slowly sitting up, looking better than before he¡¯d been electrocuted. ¡°Forget everything that you¡¯ve learned about how the world, it''s all a lie. Since the beginning of time, this world has had two forms of power, mana and faerie energy....¡± I zoned out as she explained everything that I already knew. If it wouldn¡¯t make me stand out, I would¡¯ve taken a nap on my mom¡¯s shoulder, but I didn¡¯t want everyone to know that I already knew this stuff. I wanted to fit in with everyone. I started daydreaming, using my link to my subconcious to mess around with the people hanging out in there. Maybe half an hour later, I was broken from my hypnotic state by the voice of the teacher, ¡°¡­ The 9 great clans truly rule this world. The various governments and nations are all fake. They have some power, but only because the 9 great clans are too busy to deal with running the world. The power of these clans is unimaginable, if they wanted to the leaders of these clans could easily destroy the world. Until 600 years ago, these clans were extremely reclusive, never showing their true might to the world. However, a great calamity happened and the faeries began to die off. Mana began to leave the world, and faeries live off of mana. The only way to keep them alive without it is to bond with them, but most humans can only bond with a single faerie after training for years to force their body to awaken. There was no way for the clans to possibly form bonds with all of the faeries in the world. The 9 great clans were gathered by the matriarch of the Kingsly clan in order to save the faeries. There, the true might of the Kingsly clan was finally revealed. The matriarch taught all the other clans how to create a mana barrier, keeping all of the mana produced in an area in, not allowing it to leave.¡± ¡°Unfortunately, this is only a temporary fix. Even the mana in those areas will run out, and become unable to support the faeries who have been our friend¡¯s for thousands of years. Which is why, the 9 great clans also opened 9 academies, each one focusing on their particular training methods. Any student who reaches a sufficient level of power will then have the opportunity to join the clan he is affiliated with as a full member.¡± The McAlistar clan runs the ¡°Haven Academy¡± which is located in the capital city of Haven, focusing on the Earth element. The Ignis clan runs the ¡°Holy Fire Academy¡± located in the center of a volcano in the ¡°Holy Light Mountain Range¡±, focusing on the fire element. The Ardus clan runs the world famous ¡°School of the Ocean¡±. Which is actually located under the sea of light, they focus on the water element. The Adtonitus clan previously ran the ¡°Bosswood Academy¡±, however they recently moved to take over a different school. They renamed it the ¡°Fulmen Academy¡±, and they focus on the electric element. The ¡°Anima Academy¡± is run by the World Walkers, a nomadic tribe of great power. They focus on teaching the air element, and instead of having a set school location they travel the world while teaching. The ¡°Holy Light Academy¡± is run by the Holy Empire, they focus on the light element. There are also academies focusing on the dark and the psionic elements, but they both prefer to hide themselves in secrecy. Only the strongest members of other clans, teachers, and the students of those academies know where these schools are located. Finally, we have the ¡°Bosswood Academy¡± which was recently taken over by the Kingsly Clan. You are all extremely lucky to have the opportunity to study at this academy, because the Kingsly clan is the only clan that knows the secret behind bonding with multiple faeries. All of the clans have great power, and excel at something, but the Kingsly Clan are widely acknowledged as the most powerful.¡± Stolen novel; please report. ¡°That¡¯s the basic information, more detailed information will be provided throughout the school year. Class will begin tomorrow at 8 A.M. I am looking forward to teaching all of you this year. Also, our new headmistress has gotten rid of the school uniform, so dress appropriately in class.¡± With that, she walked off the stage and my parents stood up. My dad started grumbling as he stretched out, ¡°Finally, that took forever!¡± When we left the auditorium, and were granted with the view of Elin terrorizing the 6th and 7th year students. ¡°None of you little bastards are even close to being qualified, now get the hell out of here before I kill you!¡± Observing from a distance I could see blood stains where limbs had been cut off. One student was even lying on the ground, attempting vainly to keep his intestines in. Ali was flitting around, going from patient to patient. One of the 7th year students was getting healed, and as soon as his arm was reattached he charged Elin yelling, ¡°You will recognize me!¡± He used the lightning stance, and all I could do was sigh. For years, Elin had drilled it into me to only use the Lightning or Fire stances when they were sure to kill your opponent. Looking at that poor form, and stupid usage of the sword, I could see the future. His right arm is going to get chopped off in the blink of an eye and Elin is going to stand over him berating him¡­ But, I was surprised when Elin didn¡¯t chop him to pieces. Instead, she started laughing as if she¡¯d had a great idea. Walking away from the idiot, she threw me her sword. ¡°David, teach these idiots a lesson for me, please.¡± That stupid bitch! I¡¯m supposed to be here incognito! Of course, everyone started staring at me and my parents now. It was obvious from the looks on their faces that they were wondering just who we are. ¡°Headmistress, I don¡¯t know how to use a sword.¡± ¡°Then, what did I spend the last three years teaching you? Go, get some experience fighting people who are weaker than you. I¡¯m sure you¡¯ll enjoy cutting off arms more than getting yours cut off.¡± The seventh-year idiot was staring at me in incredulity, ¡°I am not weaker than that little kid over there!¡± Elin just glanced at him, then sneered, turning and walking away. ¡°Dammit, I will form a contract with you!¡± O shit, that¡¯s what this was all about. These 6th and 7th years who had already awakened wanted to form a contract with Elin. For some reason, that really pissed me off. Glaring at the idiotic 7th year, I decided to teach him a lesson. I slowly stalked into the courtyard, readying myself to kick his ass. ¡°Hahahaha, you can¡¯t be serious! A first year wants to fight me?!?¡± ¡°You are not qualified to bother the Mistress, she has asked me to deal with you, so I will. Don¡¯t blame me for not going as easy on you as she did.¡± ¡°Don¡¯t blame me for killing you!¡± With a howl, he charged at me, again using the lightning stance to attempt to cut my head off. The parents behind me were gasping, unable to believe what they were seeing. The seventh-year student was moving with superhuman quickness, his grace drawing gasps of admiration from the younger women there. In the background, I heard my dad¡¯s voice filled with humor, ¡°David, make it fast. We have dinner reservations.¡± In my head, I analyzed him as he approached. I smiled slightly when I heard my dad, which only made him even more pissed off. He finally arrived, and we exchanged blows. I shifted effortlessly into water stance, deflecting his blows while observing him. His strength is similar to my own after I had been in the forest for nearly a year, but his technique is lacking! He only uses the lightning stance, as if that¡¯s all he ever learned, and he had no subtlety. Every blow was filled with his entire power, and every time I deflected his blows he lost control of his body for a second. I could¡¯ve killed him 15 times over by this point. From behind me, I heard Elin yell, ¡°Stop playing with your food!¡± Shaking my head, I blocked one last time. Switching from water stance to light stance, I chopped off his sword arm then spun around behind him, chopping of his other arm. In an instant, he was on the ground screaming as blood poured out of his body. Cleaning and sheathing the sword, I walked over to my parents saying, ¡°If that¡¯s a representation of the best students here, then it¡¯s a waste of time for me to study here.¡± My dad smiled, glancing at a dark corner of the building we¡¯d just left. ¡°I think you¡¯ll be pleasantly surprised. I have a feeling that many geniuses will appear here.¡± He whisked us off to the car, where we found Lizzy and Arabella waiting for us. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- In a certain dark corner, a father and daughter watched the family getting into the car. The darkness seemed to wrap around them, completely covering their bodies. ¡°He¡¯s talented, but why am I here father?¡± ¡°You are here to get to know him.¡± He pointed at David¡¯s back. ¡°What?!?!?!¡± She took another, calculating look at the boy. An arrogant look came to her face, she was obviously looking down on him. ¡°He¡¯s beneath me! This is a waste of time, take me back home. I can¡¯t believe I lost an entire day of training for that worthless child!¡± For the first time in years, her father seemed truly angry with her. ¡°It appears that I haven¡¯t taught you properly, you have become far too arrogant. To belittle him, you will bring shame on our clan!¡± ¡°But father, who could he possibly be? We are members of the Caligo Clan, even though his parents had an aura of strength, killing them wouldn¡¯t be hard for us.¡± Her father slapped her on the face, it was the first time that he¡¯d ever hit her outside of a training salon. ¡°What was that for?¡± ¡°I have been far too soft on you! To think that you wouldn¡¯t even recognize Arthur and Nicole Kingsly!¡± Finally, she realized what she had just said. To easily kill Arthur and Nicole Kingsly? All scions of the great clans have a list of people never to be offended, her father was on that list. However, a second list existed, the list of people no one, not even clan leaders, can offend. It¡¯s a small list, consisting of only three names, and that boy¡¯s parents were both on that list!