“Why summon me and not your new zealot?” Nadia asked with a scowl, folding her arms over her chest.

“You’ve got smaller fingers, now get over here.” Calvin said, holding up the team of thumb-sized knick-knacks on the palm of his hand. They looked like little spelunkers with lanterns on their heads, getting ready to plumb the depths of an unexplored cave. They even had little coils of rope over their shoulders.

Unfortunately in this case, I’m the cave.

Nadia stepped forward and took the knick-knacks from calvin, marveling as the shrew-sized creatures wriggled in her grasp.

“Now, setting up the drainage hurt pretty bad, but this is going to be a whole different level. I need you to pull out the harpoon and jam those knick-knacks into my wound until I tell you to stop.”

“Now, I don’t wanna pass out, so let me – agh!”

Nadia slid the last portion of the harpoon out of his stomach and followed it with two knick-knacks in a single flowing motion. A spurt of blood made the back of his shirt wet as more Knick-knacks climbed up from his belt to stem the leak.

It was a precarious balance between trying not to scream and trying not to pass out while little things were crawling around inside of him with sharp needles.

To be fair, the knick-knacks kept the needles sheathed until they needed them, but it didn’t make it feel much better.

Oh, that’s a good idea. You could use some local anesthetic on that belt of yours. Add that to the shopping list.

“No kidding,” Calvin muttered, feeling like the veins in his neck were going to explode from the pressure of trying not to thrash around and make everything worse.

Calvin watched the little miners in Visualize as they made progress through his body, squirming gingerly between his organs until they made it to the problem area, an artery gushing blood. Thank the gods it wasn’t completely severed.

You know, I read a story about a guy who laced his arteries with an armor-like fiber so shit like this wouldn’t happen. Seems like you might wanna look into that.

“That’s nice,” Calvin groaned as the first knick-knack stood up and spread out its limbs, creating space around the gushing tube while the other one began knitting the two edges back together with fine silk.

Colon-clenchingly painful as it was, at least the knick-knacks were fast, stitching the artery closed at an inhuman rate, then turning around and started climbing back the way they came, making a few minor stitches on the way out.

As soon as they finished, the pressure in his heart skyrocketed for a painful couple of seconds, until Calvin had the presence of mind to choke back the amount of blood his gradual splitting spell was creating to the smallest possible amount, keeping it at par with the substantially reduced blood loss.

Nadia helped them out, pulling them out of his body with bloody fingers and an enthusiastic smile.

“Thanks for that, I haven’t had a free pass to hurt you in a long while.” she said, licking the knick-knacks clean suggestively.

Is she trying to weird us out or piss us off?

Both?

Calvin tried to get the knick-knacks to stitch her tongue permanently into that pose, but their damned programming wouldn’t allow it. Damn you, OSHA, My Kingdom will have no such thing.

“Oh is that why you did it so quickly? Because you wanted to torment me? It actually seemed like you were trying to be as gentle as possible.”

“Did you see how smoothly she took that harpoon out?”

So smooth. Like a lover’s caress.

Nadia balked. “No, I-“

“Dismissed.”

Calvin let that summon go, and she was gone.

I was protecting my investment, that’s all, Nadia continued in Calvin’s head. I can’t afford for you to die, or else I’ll be stuck in this box for all eternity. I want you to know that I enjoyed every second of your agony.

Right, Nadia still didn’t know about Calvin turning into a monster if he died. That was between Calvin and Elliot.

You’re gonna turn into a monster!? Nadia demanded as some of his stray thoughts caught hers. How, Why, WHEN!?

Goddamned Chained Mind, Calvin thought, mentally closing the door for Nadia to communicate with him, shutting out her barrage of questions.

Look at you, leaky Mc-Leakerson.

I still blame you for those dodgy mutations.

I put the warning on the damn thing.

“Calvin!” Ella’s voice cut through the woods as the Genosian entered the clearing where Calvin sat, talking to himself beside a massive crystal impaling a blonde in bloody finery.

“Ella.”

“We need to get you out of here – ” she paused and looked him up and down. “That’s a lot of blood.”

“It’s fine,” Calvin said, standing up and yanking the drainage tube out of his stomach. “It’s under control now.”

“Although,” he said, holding up a finger as a thought occurred to him. “I may want to avoid getting shot by another one of those dispelling beams because my blood is on loan right now and I can’t afford to have it poofing.”

Ella nodded and put Calvin’s arm over her shoulder, forcing him to stand on his tiptoes as she helped him walk out of the forest.

“Is Baroke keeping those things under control?” Calvin asked as they walked.

“We haven’t seen any more since a few minutes ago. The last of them dug themselves back into the earth and vanished.”

Saving energy for the next attempt, Calvin thought.

“Alright, I’ll take us to the palace, see who’s left. Hop on.”

Calvinian summoning

Heart of the swarm.

16/33 Bent remaining.

Calvin poofed into a giant wasp and gave Ella a lift, meeting with Baroke outside the city walls. Together the three of them made it over the flesh wall and to the palace in a matter of minutes.

The Mujenan royal palace had a solid, tall wall, with roots that sank a hundred feet into the ground, reinforced with Bent abilities over the course of the last hundred years. The soldiers on the wall looked as though they wanted to unleash arrows on the giant wasp that flew up to it, but Calvin spotted Andra waving them down.

Calvin landed right in front of the general, allowing his two passengers to disembark. Baroke took a few deep, calming breaths before he hopped onto the wall.

“Baroke?” Calvin picked up a familiar voice, and he focused his attention to his left, where his sister was approaching, wearing actual armor and some kind of silk sash.

“Vashniel’s icy cock! It is you!” Jinnei said, approaching Baroke. “I thought you were dead!”

“Jinnei?” Baroke said, frowning at first, then catching the raven-haired haired girl’s body as she practically tackled him.

Jinnei squeezed Baroke until his face registered something resembling pain, before stepping away. “Where’s Calvin, and what the hell is this?” she asked, pointing at Calvin and Ella. “Did you go native while I was gone or something?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Ella asked, a small frown dawning on her face.

Ooh, this is good. I’m just gonna stay a wasp for a minute.

I’m hoping for a catfight.

Gross.

Hey, it’s not my sister.

“So you’re not related to the people who kidnapped my brother and killed half the people I grew up with?”

“Listen,” Baroke said appeasingly, holding up his hands. “There are circumstances, Ella’s…kind of like…”

“Calvin’s uenha.” Ella said, standing straight, half a food above Jinnei’s head.

“What’s that supposed to be?”

“Life partner.”

“What!?”

“It’s a rough translation,” Baroke said, glancing at Calvin desperately. “Calvin, you wanna help explain here?”

Calvin responded by testing the ground with his mandibles, wiggling his antennae, and generally trying to act wasp-like as much as possible.

Jinnei’s gaze settled on him, and he knew he was screwed.

Abort! The wasp’s wings began humming as he started gaining lift -

“Oh, no, you’re not getting out of it that easy!” Jinnei said, whipping out a sword and crunching it down through the wasp’s brain-stem.

An instant later, Calvin coalesced out of imploding green smoke in front of an inquisitive Jinnei.

“Balls, Jinnei, what if I’d just been shapeshifted!?”

Calvin got tackled too as Jinnei wrapped him in a hug that threatened to burst the seams on his hepatic artery.

“Too tight!” Calvin whispered as he patted Jinnei’s back.

“Oh, Calvin, it’s been awful! I wound up being the mascot for a bunch of inbred pirates, and they all think I’m gonna be the next queen, and they want me to make decision for them when they’re all so stupid! It’s like herding the wool brothers back home, but there’s even more human shit!”

She inhaled a ragged breath.

“And the smell…Oh gods, the smell. Imagine a crew of thirty unwashed men with irritable bowels and an aversion to soap, then magnify that by the power of ten, they you’ll begin to understand what I’ve been through.”

She pushed him away, finally actually looking at anything other than his face.

“You’ve got a hole in your stomach and you’re covered in more blood than a human body could ever bleed.” She noted.

“Well said.” Calvin said. “I’m going to need some time to get that blood back. And some pizza. Or whatever the soup of the day is. Can we put off sharing our stories until…”

Calvin did some quick math. “Two hours from now?”

“Actually, I’d like to debrief you before then.” Andra said, putting a hand on his shoulder.

“Debrief and a sandwich?” Calvin asked. “I need to get my blood back.”

She glanced down at the blood beginning to crust and stiffen his pants.

“Fine.”

Is there a way that a Gradual Split can end gradually as well? Calvin asked. His level of alarm was dependent on the answer.

Yeah, looks like it’s a first in, first out basis, rather than ending all at once, which is good news for you.

Thank the gods.

“Two hours,” Calvin said to Jinnei as he followed Andra off the wall, Gadveran soldiers parting in front of them. “And try not to get into a catfight with my nubile slave girl. I went through Vashniel’s torture to get her, and I don’t want any structural damage to the palace.”

Calvin sent one glance over his shoulder and spotted Jinnei and Ella looking each other over speculatively while Baroke shuffled from foot to foot uncomfortably. I should thank Andra for the rescue.

Calvin followed the general to her fine-furnished office, and sat down in the chair across from her desk.

“Where’s the sandwich?” Calvin asked, holding a hand over the little hole in his gut.

“Food is being rationed.” Andra said. “Give me information worth a sandwich. First off, where’s Kala?”

“She’s off helping run the Uleisan government.” Calvin said. “They had some cutbacks, recently.”

“Does this mean her mission was successful?”

“Oooh, definitely not. She is helping run the show now though, so you could say the effect is the same.”

Andra crossed her arms and peered down at him from across the desk, eyes narrowed. “I think you should tell me the story from the beginning.”

“I think you should get me some food before I literally exsanguinate and turn into jerky.” Calvin responded.

There was a tense moment where Calvin half expected Andra to attack him, the way she was sliding her thumb over the Nem pommel of her sword. An explosion sounded in the distance, breaking the moment.

“Fair enough. For telling me the princess is alive.” She opened her desk and pulled out some sort of dried potato and gravy slurry, sliding the dried patty in front of him. “I’ll be back in one hour.”

Calvin was beyond being picky at this point, he tore into the thing with abandon and snatched up the water next to him, downing it in a matter of seconds.

Calvin closed his eyes. Now, to use Medi-Tate to concentrate two days worth of healing into an hour.

Bent Manipulation has reached level 5! 25% Correction.

Please choose an ability or mutation.

Oh right. Damnit.

Calvin took a breath. He wasn’t in immediate danger any more, so he could afford to check out his new list of abilities.

Show me.

Abilities:

Ghost hand: Manipulate Bent stored by Beli Ma as hands with physical attributes mirroring User’s mental Attributes. Increases range of Beli ma by 1 inch per level of Bent Manipulation.

^From Beli Ma

Bent Sense: User gains the ability to sense external Bent movement within (level)^2 feet with their own Bent.

^ First ability for counterspelling.

Bent Reclamation: User’s Abilities have a (correction)% chance to reclaim Bent spent on them when countered.

Bent Condensation: Condense 5 Bent into one hundred grams of black liquid Bent. One hundred grams restores 1 Bent.

^No wonder those potions are so expensive.

Spell Penetration: User’s Abilites and Bent Constructs are (Stability)% more difficult to dispel.

Sliding Scale: Add up to (level)% To one numerical effect of an Ability while taking the same percentage away from another numerical aspect.

^ Ex. +5% Duration, -%5 Mass

Mutations:

All Seeing Eye: User can physically see Bent.

^ Fuck Bent sense, Why not just see the damn stuff?

Warped Bent: User’s Bent is now closer to Warp in the way it interacts with the environment. More difficult to counter, more difficult to control. May cause mutations.

Damn. There were a lot of good abilities in there. Sliding scale and Spell Penetration were especially attractive, but he had to choose Bent Sense.

Right now, Calvin could feel Bent when it was within the range of Beli ma, and he could tell if people were making a move by body language but it was mostly guesswork. Only the few inches of Beli Ma wasn’t enough warning. Calvin wanted to be able to sense what was going on all the way across the room, and as the ability leveled up, even further.

Why not get All Seeing Eye?

I’m not going to dignify that with a response.

…Fair enough.

I choose Bent Sense.

Calvin took a deep breath as the technique settled into his mind, tingling as always.

Now to get this damn blood back.

He finished the rest of the food and closed his eyes, activating Medi-tate and slowly cutting off the supply of blood being created in his heart.