As happens after such events as this, the world just keeps moving.

I’m not sure exactly how long it took before Typhin poked his head into the room and asked me if I was okay, but I think it was anywhere between five minutes and five hours. As is customary, I told him I was fine. Whether he actually believed it or not is uncertain, but at least he let me stay in here. Just for a little while.

I lean back on his bed and close my eyes. The world shifts to a starry black and I’m out among the stars again.

It’s kind of funny, right?

When I’m all the way out here, it almost feels like I could do anything. All the stars I see and all the planets are just stars and planets. The world is populated by trillions upon trillions of humans and aliens, and still, from this far away, all I see are little dots of light. Whatever’s happening on their worlds, be it war or slavery or famine, from all the way out here, I can’t see any of it. It’s all just the same.

Absently, I bring another rock the size of any spaceship I’ve ever seen to my face. I crush it easily.

If I’d brought only a single primary tentacle to the rebel base, no troopers would have died. Lots of rebels, sure, but isn’t it okay to capture them, too? Nobody would’ve had to die. It could have-, it would have…

In my hand, the rocks are ground to dust.

...No. This situation is… It’s just not something I should get involved in. At all. If I start killing people in order to protect those I care about, when will I ever stop? Will there actually come a point where I decide that enough is enough?

This is all just… I can’t.

There’s a line drawn in the sand and I can’t cross it half-way.

I slowly bring rocks to my mouths. I don’t want to think anymore. For once, I crave that simple mundanity of monotony.

It feels like years pass.

I snap out of it when I hear a voice calling my name. For a few seconds, I just cycle through my consciousness until I return to Typhin’s room. It seems I’m not alone anymore. A pair of sunken eyes hidden behind tawny blond locks meets me nervously. “Mort?” Atte asks. “Are you alright?”

I shake my head. “I don’t think so.”

Atte makes a strange face before turning behind him, where Typhin stands straight-backed, framed by the open doorway. Almost like a silent spectre, Typhin steps through the doorway, past Atte and over to where I sit mutely. I look up at him. His face is shaded, but I can tell he’s tentative.

I feel like saying something, but no words come out of my mouth. Maybe I should tell him that I’m okay? I’m not sure whether it worked last time, but if I’m lucky, he might just-,

Slipping one hand away from his back, he stretches it towards me, holding something out. For a moment, I’m too stunned to do anything but look at it. “This is…?”

“A stun blaster,” Typhin explains simply. I glance between his shadowed face and the blaster. He nudges it towards me, and if only to be polite, if only because I don’t know how to refuse this man, I accept it. “I pray that you won’t need it, but when you do, a blaster can make all the difference.”

I want to tell him that with my body being as it is, I won’t need it. There are plenty of people on this ship, heck, in this whole darn galaxy that would need a stun blaster better than me. But I won’t let it go. It’s small, and it easily fits in my hand. Clutching it to my chest, I nod at him. “Yeah,” I say and swipe at my eyes. “I’ll keep it close.”

He leans down, bringing his face into the light. There’s a small smile on it, and it makes me feel a little better. Now his face is at the same level as mine. “This is a war, Mort. I would not expect you to understand. It is not your war, and this you must accept. I know that you must be feeling many things, perhaps even a desire to join it, to perchance keep casualties at a minimum. You must know that this war is not your responsibility.”

“But what if it is?” I press the stun blaster closer to me. “Isn’t it the moral responsibility of every man to do what he can to-, to prevent atrocities?”

He gives a nod. A simple one, showing that I’m not just talking. “It is, but only insofar as he can. Do you think your softness is a weakness?”

“My… softness?” I feel my brows squish together. Softness. He probably isn’t alluding to my physical softness, but rather my moral one. “I think… If I wasn’t soft, I could do a lot more for the world. For the galaxy as a whole.” Like eat bad guys.

A shake of the head. “Softies are the ones who avoid war at all costs. When all of this is over, the ones who rebuilt society are the soft ones. A lot of people have become hardened by this war, but after it’s over, they won’t be able to become soft again. It’s a one-way street, and I dread the day you walk it.” He presses a hand against my chest. “When this war ends, we will need you far more than we do now.”

I look down at my lap. “...You promise?”

“Of course.” He gives a sad smile. “But, I suppose, from now on, we’ll avoid having you see such things, alright?”

Somehow I muster a smile. “Okay.”

He pats me on the shoulder and stands back up. Before he can turn around fully, I pinch his sleeve. He turns to look back at me. “Um, sir?” I glance down at the stun blaster in my lap. “Are you sure that I should keep this? I mean, I don’t really know how it works or anything, and I don’t wanna hurt anyone by mistake, so…”

He scratches his chin and turns to Atte, who’s still standing somewhat dumbfounded by the doorway. “Trooper, will you assist Mort?”

Startled, Atte snaps back into a straight-backed salute. “Y-, yessir! Will do, sir!”

Typhin nods at him before turning back to look at me, eyes soft. “I’m afraid I have much to do in this aftermath, not least to survey the situation on the prisoner.”

“...The prisoner?” I ask. I had kind of assumed there wouldn’t be any since we pretty much just rushed the whole thing with blasters doing the talking for us, but maybe we got lucky? I see it as a win either way.

“We were very lucky,” he said. His brows furrowed thoughtlessly. “Rather, I suppose we should be glad, somewhat. It seems that, since the blasts hit, uh, you, they missed hitting anyone else. I haven’t had the displeasure to meet him yet, but from what I’ve heard, it seems that the rebel leader of the post was so startled by your very presence that he didn’t make any substantial struggles.”

“I-, I see…” I fiddle my thumbs. “Well, that’s good, I guess? That-, that he didn’t die, that is. That would’ve been…” I shake my head.

Typhin watches me with a strange expression. “I’m impressed that you should be so forgiving to the man who almost took your life.”

I shrug. “I don’t think I want to meet him again, but a life’s a life’s whether I agree with them or not, right?”

For a few seconds, he just looks at me. Then, he turns away, taking three large steps to the door before pausing again. “No matter what, I hope that you retain that moral position. Value life, Mort.” Finally, in a whisper so low I doubt he meant for me, or anyone else, to hear it, he says, “Don’t become like me.”

I watch him leave, and then Atte steps inside, his face very obviously conflicted. Not that I feel any different. How else am I supposed to feel after the kind of day this has been? Everything is all topsy turvy, but it seems things have calmed down a bit. At least for me.

Not all of them died. If I was a bit more cynical, I might be unhappy about it, but I can’t bring myself to feel anything like that.

I hold the stun blaster a little tighter. Maybe I’ve been narrow-sighted? Right now, I have the kind of body that can hurt and kill, but I don’t think there’s much I can do in terms outside that. I look down at the stun blaster. Yes, I should be like this thing. Killing is out of the question, but if it comes down to it, I should at least try to have something that can immobilise people.

Looking down at my hands, I can’t help but feel like there are things I could do. I don’t want to change my body outwardly, but if I had something hidden inside that I could shoot out, then…

Okay, alright, I’ve got an idea. I don’t usually think too much about how my body works, but one thing I know is that mouths are holes, and you can put stuff in holes, such as tentacles.

“Mort, what are you doing?”

I look up. Oh, yeah, Atte was supposed to show me how the blaster works! “Uh, sorry Atte, I’m just thinking about making some modifications to my body. I’d like to be more ready in situations where I need to be able to, um, restrict people, or something.”

“I see…” he says in a way where it’s very obvious that he doesn’t really understand what I’m trying to do.

“It shouldn’t take me too long to get done. You, uh, you don’t mind waiting a little, do you?...”

He shakes his head, making his sand-blonde hair sway. “No, not at all. I’ll just take a seat, I guess?” He goes over and sits down by Typhin’s desk, face craning to look at the surroundings. “So this is the Commander’s room, huh?...”

I turn back to my hands. A pair of mouths, comin’ up!

Grow mouth? Cost: 5 (you have 137 660)

Yessir, two of ‘em!

137 660 -> 137 650

It’s pretty much unnoticeable if you’re just looking at them, but a pair of mouths have definitely appeared on my hands. Just to test time, kind of like clacking a tong, I open and close the mouths a little. With this, I can eat thrice as fast…!!

But I’m not finished there.

Sure, having mouths on your hands would probably be an easy way to startle people, but that only keeps them stunned for a few seconds at most. I need more. So, making them as long as possible, I will a pair of tentacles to grow within either mouth.

137 650 -> 137 648

Opening both mouths, I watch with slight disgust how the long tentacles slither out. These things got much longer than I thought, to the point where I wouldn’t need to move at all in order to poke Atte. I’m not going to do it because I think he looks just as apprehensive as I feel, but I imagine it in my head. Mmm. Good thought.

-Now then! Just this is technically enough, but I don’t really trust it, so I’m putting four more tentacles on the end of these, to make a hand-like protrusion, I suppose. This way, coupled with my natural strength, I can easily lift a person, kind of like how you might lift up a toddler to keep them from breaking any more plates and bowls.

137 648 -> 137 640

Indeed, like hands. I flex my tentacles a little, trying them on. With this, I’ve kind of become an organic man-catcher, huh? It won’t block much, but I could definitely use them as an organic shield in a dire situation.

“So, uh,” Atte looks at me oddly, “what’re those supposed to be?”

“Man-catchers,” I say. “In case I lose the stun blaster, or I need a quick way to restrain someone.” I turn them over, feeling how they feel and their weight. “Might need to train with them a bit, I’m not really sure how to…” I turn one sly eye on Atte. “...We’re supposed to train a little so… You wouldn’t mind, would you?”

Atte gulps audibly.