Edited by: tommyjl7

A lone monster was running across the forest near the capital of Neira. It looked bizarre - as if it was patched up from several different kinds of monsters, though these parts did not completely fit each other. The oversized head was completely destroying the balance of the creature, making it perform weird movements, almost like a ship sailing across the stormy sea.

Despite its grotesque body shape, it was still dangerous, if not to the adventurers, soldiers or people living in the big cities, then to villagers focused on working in the field or resting travelers. The beast’s fluffy paws made almost no noise at all allowing it to sneak up to the prey. And the oversized head allowed it to bite half of the body with a single snap of the jaws.

Yet it was not allowed to spread havoc across the land. The vines emerged from the ground binding the creature.

- “Pyrox, now!” fairy yelled.

- “I am gonna make da boom them!”

A crazy laugh followed as punk-pyromancer entered the clearing. The creature squirmed and cried, yet to no avail. Magician danced a weird dance of triumph ended with a snap of his finger.

That snap created a crater in the place where the beast was standing trapped inside of prison of plants.

After a minute, Marika joined her companion visibly displeased.

- “Pyrox, mind telling me what do you understand of the phrase: wanted dead or alive?”

- “Marika’s always mad at Pyrox!” he pouted “… Dead or alive, means either dead… or alive! Here is dead!”

- “No, airhead! It means we are supposed to deliver a proof that we killed it! How are you going to prove that we killed it?! HA?! WHERE IS THE PROOF?!”

As if only waiting for that command, from the sky fell a huge part of the monster’s head with a loud “splash” sound. Two adventurers looked at it for a split of second or two. Then they faced each other. Pyrox was smiling from ear to ear.

- “SILENCE! Don’t you dare to say a word!” she was furious.

The pyromancer never stopped smiling.

- “For real, how do you do it?! Has luck completely filled the vacuum between your ears after you lost your mind?!”

Pyrox still did not answer, only grinned like a madman.

- “And you will be the one carrying this disgusting meat piece!” fairy tried to relieve her stress bullying the lower ranked adventurer, yet he didn’t mind.

And because he didn’t mind, she was even more furious.

- “Whatever. You can talk now.” She rolled her eyes annoyed

- “Pyrox believes it is because Pyrox is with Mari! Pyrox’s having fun time! Mari is second to big boss!”

- “Whatever…”

Still, she had to admit one thing. Pyrox was efficient. Lately she, Mrogul and Pyrox were taking so many quests that ranking up within the ranks became only a matter of time. Yes, fire mage caused her several headaches, yet somehow he always managed to slip off from the consequences. If he burned the house they were supposed to clear of monsters, the owner actually wanted to destroy it and build a new one, so he even paid them something extra; if he would destroy the artifact they were supposed to deliver, it would appear that the item was cursed, and they were hired by nun which wanted to get rid of the corrupted item – which once again ended by getting something extra…

… and now this. A monster, whose head was resistant to the effects of fire.

- “It was supposed to be the last one, right? Oy, Pyrox, how many did we kill already?”

- “Dunno! Pyrox is bad at math!” and once again, this disarming smile of a fool.

- “So, Pyrox, how much money do we expect to get from this quest?” she decided to taste the water.

- “Hmm? Was that 50 silvers?” good. So he can at least remember the single numbers as long as they are not

- “And how much is 50 silvers divided between two of us?” she squinted her eyes

- “Ermmm. Dunno?”

- “Isn’t it 5?” there is no way you could cheat him so easily..

- “Heh? Is that so? Mari is smart, Pyrox believes Mari!”

That was too cute! Completely not fitting his appearance! But.. she couldn’t do that to him.

- “No, Pyrox, it is not 5.”

- “But Mari just said…”

- “Look, if you would ever want to buy anything, doesn’t matter if it would be house or sweet roll, just call me first. Ok? I don’t want you to be cheated by some merchant.”

- “Oooh. Oh. I see. Sorry Mari.”

- “What for?”

- “Pyrox causes troubles to Mari. Sometimes by accident, sometime…” he stopped as if he just noticed what he said.

- “Wait, are you sometimes pushing us in troubles on purpose?”

He turned his head away.

- “No, no-no-no, I will not let you avoid this topic that easily! Look at me! Pyrox! I will be mad, if you would not look me in the eyes now! Pyrox, just what, when and where did you do on purpose?!”

- “It’s because… Pyrox hates silence. And sometimes Mari is very quiet. And Pyrox just wants to hear your voice, no matter if praise or scold. And Pyrox noticed that it is easier to make Mari angry than happy so…”

- “Why do you hate silence so much? Don’t you like the sound of birds? Or insects?”

- “They are too quiet. If something isn’t loud enough, Pyrox hears explosions.”

- “But, don’t you love explosions?”

- “Pyrox does, but not the one inside of his head.” His mood darkened.

Once they took a longer quest, the one that forced them to travel through the land. Few times they camped, few times they rented local inn, yet Pyrox almost never slept. An hour per night was plenty for him, and once she actually looked at him during his slumber...

He had nightmares. He was violently shaking in the bed. She did not believe that his man was afraid of anything, not because he was that brave, but only because he was too stupid to understand what danger actually is. He never thinks twice before jumping into the middle of deadly battle, as if the conception of his death was strange to him.

She talked with Zariel about him once. Apparently, something traumatic happened to the Pyromacer before, something that made him lost his mind, yet boosts his connection with the fire.

She could say that herself. As a fairy, she simply smelled and saw auras of other people. This is why she loved sitting and drinking with Zari, he was like a deep backwoods, smelled like old, wet trees.

Pyrox, on the other hand, smelled like ashes. And when she looked within him, she saw that his skeleton was a burning ember, as if he was the spirit of fire – salamander - trapped inside of human flesh. There are rituals that were supposed to bind one’s life with magic, with elements, but they usually ended with death of the one that performed the rite. Or maybe not death, but changing his life into another form of existence.

Pyrox looked as if he was trapped inside of the last phase of such rite, burning from inside, yet not allowed to turn into ember. Not allowed to move forward.

Or maybe she was wrong, and he was just an extraordinary person? Just like Zari?

- “Mari? Is everything alright?”

She snapped out.

- “Pyrox, don’t do that. Never again.”

- “O-ok.” He was sad. Devastated even

- “Instead, if you would ever want to talk, just inform be bout’ it, kay?”

- “Mari sure? Is Mari ok with Pyrox?”

- “You are a pain in the ass, I can’t deny that, but then again, you will never be worse than Loki, so… Whaa, What are you doing?! Idiot! Dummy! Put me back! I am not a toooy!”

Yet it was too late. Mage, twice as big as the fairy, already picked her from the ground and started spinning around.

- “Mari is great!”

- “PUT ME DOWN YOU IDIOT OR I WILL TURN YOU INTO PLANT’S NUTRITION!”

- “MARI IS HOOOT!”

- “THAT SOUNDS WRONG!”

Later she would scold him and whoop his ass.

In the end, fairies had some sort of complex regarding their size, and picking them up from the ground was usually considered as offending.

- “That would be the last one.” Marika hissed as Pyrox put remaining of the monster on the table in front of the professor Kleir – the man that hired them.

- “Ah, wonderful, wonderful. Truly splendid! Even if these are failures, I can still use them for further researches.” Old magician nodded with approval.

- “May I ask you one question? Where did these come from?” she looked at the cages filled with couple of similar beasts and table with already dissected monsters that wouldn’t allow themselves to be captured alive.

- “The war is coming. I was hoping I could breed some monsters that Neira could use on the battlefield, just like warhounds or horses.”

- “But, chimeras? Why chimeras?”

- “Multiple reasons! One, they can have traits of many monsters, I was hoping to breed a variation of monster that wouldn’t have weaknesses of its original kin. Imagine Yeti whose fur is extremely hard to burn, or..”

- “I get it, I get it…”

- “Also, Because of Zariel’s contribution. He truly pushed our understanding of these specific monsters years ahead! And his blood…”

- “Wait, are these…”

- “Zariel’s clones. Yes. Well, greatly imperfect. Come here, come here, I will show you something…”

- “What is it?” Fairy opened her eyes open.

- “Ah, just a tool of my creation, think about it as a magnifying glass. Just thousands of times stronger. I called it a microscope. Allows you to see the single being that builds our tissues. I called them cells. Now, take a look. Here is a drop of Zariel’s blood.”

Mairka bowed to the machine. Her vision was filled with dozens of tiny circle-like structures.

- “Now, see what would happen if I would add a drop of blood of other creature.”

A single needle appeared in her field of vision which poured a liquid with another “cells”

After two or three seconds, the cells that already were inside would almost immediately leap at the others one, embracing them and dissolving.

- “A perfect adaptation. Unfortunately, here, look what would happen when I would add another drop of his blood, that devoured different creature.”

Once again a needle poured cells into the pool.

And then all the cells became mad. They started feasting upon each other. All, until only one remained, which bloated heavily and popped.

- “Somehow, after the first adaptation, the cells can only distinguish cells that have the same structure. Which means that here I am limited to just a few mutations. The more time would pass from the moment I took his blood out of his body, the less mutations can happen and the faster would they reject another absorptions. I have no idea how to stabilize the process. Maybe it is because of his spirit, specific mana waves? Or maybe because of cores that Zariel’s grows? Unfortunately, I still have no idea how to grow these in laboratory…”

- “Wait, Zariel grows the cores?”

- “You… you did know that he is a…”

- “Chimera deity? I do. But not with the details.”

- “I see. Well, that’s just a technical details, so…”

- “Still, I am amazed that he allowed you to grow his copies…”

- “W-well…”

- “You DID ask him for permission, right?”

- “He… agreed to help me with my experiments… so…”

- “I can’t believe this.” Marika covered his face with her palm

- “I… I wanted to inform him about it, but he already left and…”

- “That’s your problem. Not mine, though I will inform him about this as soon as I would have such opportunity.”

- “Ha, no need to do so, I myself would want to do that, for I am stuck, I really want to ask him for some more experiments, blood samples and such….”

Old man once again lost himself in describing all the details of his research.

Yet Marika was focused on the grotesque creature. It didn’t have same air like Zari. Not the affinity, not the air. Nothing.

- “Is this… how Zariel’s real body looks like?”

- “What? NO! It is impossible to tell that. According to the legends about his species, he is formless. The closest thing that could be called his shape would be the form before reaching devourer stage of his soul and body. Thus, in his case, a human. His form is based on the cores he has, we could learn his shape after we would be removing cores from his body. How would it look like if we would remove the human core as the last one? There are many conceptions, one says that his physical manifestation would perish – that he would turn into smoke and cease to exist. That’s only a hypothesis though with no way of proving it without killing a…”

- “But you are NOT going to check that, are you?”

- “Now, I am offended. Is that really what you think about me?” old man pouted “… yes, I am very… dedicated to my work, but one: I consider him to be my friend; two: killing him would make rest of the experiments impossible.”

Fairy decided to drop the subject and once again gazed on the corpse. Monsters were escaping to the west – the place where Zari headed to. Was that a coincidence? Doesn’t matter. Not now.

The beasts escaped the facility, for one of Kleir’s apprentices screw up and accidentally destroyed the barrier that was holding them in place. Yet now, they have either gathered or killed all of them.

From the crater that was made by Pyrox a piece of monster started crawling up. It was just a piece of a head and a single limb. Monster was no longer bleeding, even more, the part of hydra’s DNA was helping him to slowly regrown its former form.

Something was calling him. Something deep to the west. Something beautiful. Something strong. Something he was part of. Something he had to serve. The creature was fueled by a multiple thoughts that made a single need. Consume. Adapt. Reproduce. Overcome. Reproduce.

Serve.

He need to serve, it had a mind of a swarm. He sensed its king, far away. He needs to reunite with him.

But before it… Consume. It needs to consume. It needs to get stronger in order to serve better.

It started digging in the ground looking for insects it could feast upon.