Edited by: Flubbykin

The kid somehow managed to free himself from my grip, turned around and jumped away three times gathering distance. His eyes were shining with primal joy, like a puppy seeing his master after a week.

“Kim? I am sorry kid, but I know only two Kims - one is a hot ginger chick saving a world on a daily basis and the other one is fatty with access to nuclear weapons, as you can see, you don’t really fit the descriptions.”

I tried feeling his presence with everything I got - mana flow, temperature and even smell. The problem was that he clearly was there, yet the only sensations I could notice were those belonging to me, as if I was looking at my magical twin. Fuck, even his sweat smells just as mine.

He eradicate every possible trace of his presence and replaced it with mine. Why for? Was he hunting me?... Or maybe he wanted to frame into some crime leaving prints of my essence behind him?

The kid was definitely not innocent, just as inquisition's twins that hunted me in the forest of dread, he had an aura of a skilled assassin, yet he didn’t emit a single portion of killing intent.

Why? Didn’t he want to fight with me? If not, why did he drag me out?...

… was he buying time? Waiting for city militia to come after finding evidence of “my crime”, then he would start crying as another victim I was trying to kill? That’s the only logical conclusion…

“I… I…. I wanted to see you for sooo long!”

He smiled, and his smile caused me to shiver, he looked like an addict that was just offered another dose of a drug, worshiping the syringe before injection.

“I was following traces you left behind… but not just that! I was killing! Killing a lot! Killing and eating! All to get stronger, all to become more useful! Now… Now I'm finally ready to…”

The sound of a bottle being dropped and shattered into a hundred pieces could be heard from the back alley - a drunkard came in wobbling on his feet. Around his 40-ties, with a shirt wet with alcohol and, guessing by the smell, undigested meal he was eating some time ago, yet because of booze couldn’t remain in his stomach.

“K-kids?” he asked looking in our direction “... g-great! Give me y-y-y your money! Papa Stev gotta buy more vodka! Come on! Hand it over!...”

Neither me nor kid even flinched, still occupied with gazing at one another, turning our heads away for a split second could mean that once we would turn our heads back, we would notice them lying on the ground, detached from our necks.

“Do you hear me!? Oi! Hand your money! Right now!” up until now, he was waving in our direction yet another empty bottle, this time, he shattered it over the wall creating a provisory weapon and raised it in my direction.

Something changed in the kid. His eyes became narrow slits, he slightly bend his legs in the knee before jumping in the air. He was fast, for a moment he literally vanished from my vision range, appearing on the side of the scum and sliced his throat with a sickle.

A red vertical line appeared on the man's neck, after second blood gushed out like from a fountain. Man wanted to scream, but apparently, his vocal cords were damaged as well.

He felt on the ground trying to catch a breath, moving his mouth like a fish. Soon, he stopped struggling. He died with his eyes still open from the shock.

“No touchy big brother…” he said quietly.

Once again, I didn’t feel any killing intent. Even though he carried on a perfectly planned attack with a clear desire to kill - his aura didn’t flinch.

It was like… killing was natural to him, an act deprived of any emotion. He put as much feeling into it as into tying a shoe.

Only now I was able to take a closer look at his weapon - he did that with a sickle indeed, the only problem was that he didn’t “draw” that weapon - it was his right hand, his pale-fleshed thin human’s arm was turning around his elbow into dark, covered in chitin insectoid limb.

He once again looked at me, back on the corpse, and once again on me. And then he smiled like a child proud of completing mother’s task and waiting to be praised.

“See? SEE?! I am useful! I kept killing! I kept eating! I am strong, big brother!”

I was still on my guard, saying nothing, analyzing the new situation I got myself in. Kim apparently wrongly interpreted my thoughts, for he simply tilted his head to the side before speaking.

“Big brother still doesn’t believe me? In that case… I have to prove myself… but how…” and then he smiled innocently once again “... I know!”

And he jumped at me with his morphed arm ready to cut off my head. I raised my hand up keeping a guard. His sickle stopped on my forearm, with a curved blade inches from my face. His eyes widened in shock, he was expecting that my arm would be sent flying, yet all he managed to do was tearing a hole in my robe’s huff.

He jumped away. Through the hole in my clothes, he could see a single ten centimeters long scale on my body.

Morphing took some time, usually just a few seconds, but when you deal with enemy as fast as this kid, you can’t afford this luxury.

Fascinating, he is another shapeshifter? But I have never heard about anything that could turn into insecto…

The kid jumped once again repeating the same attack. I knew that there had to be more to that, he wouldn’t simply continue same attack-pattern seeing that already failed once. Once again I raised my hand to block the strike and prepared another one to counter. The sickle once again stopped on my reinforced arm, yet before I could strike him back, his hand changed again, but not into human’s hand-no, his hand was slim, fingers about twice longer than average human’s fingers, and they were armored with thin, long razor-sharp claws. His fingers quickly dug into skin around my scales, locking himself with me as his other hand equipped in a similar set of deadly claw-blades aimed my chest.

I grabbed his hand with mine around the wrist, now we were locked.

I started morphing my head into mix of snake’s and wolf, the reason for that is that I wanted to chomp his head away. Wolf’s head was perfect for that task, and snakes jaw’s bones allowed me to spread my mouth even wider.

I was milliseconds away from dealing with this annoying rascal, yet he managed to jump slightly up, rest his feet on my chest and kick away, forcibly separating us from the grip.

His claw ripped a huge part of flesh from my arm, but as my grip on his other hand was quite strong, I was able to hear cracking noises of his bones once he was forcing his way out. His left arm was broken in several places and shoulder dislo…

He quickly grabbed his shoulder and forced it back without even flinching before I even managed to think about it. There was still nothing he could do about his hand though, apparently, he was lacking powers of regeneration.

I demonstrated him my still bleeding arm, just so he could see how within seconds the wound treated himself. That trade ended with my victory.

His eyes sparkled once again.

“As expected from big brother… This is so fun! I am learning so much! Big bro! Let’s play some more!”

Additional limbs started growing from his corpus, which also started twisting like a mass of self-aware horror. Kid, no, chimera - started growing in size taking a form of a monster which from appearance looked like a tarantula hawk. Three meters long, two meters tall, his posture almost completely covered the narrow storage place on the back of some inn.

“Stop right now! Change back!” I growled not hiding my wrath.

I was pretty sure that he would ignore my order and attack me anyway, yet, to my surprise, he actually listened to me. It took him ten seconds to once again take the appearance of an innocent looking boy.

“Is papa mad at me?” for the first time he showed a true emotion - sadness and terror. These fears dulled his aura. “Don’t me here!... If Giselle would hear that, she would chop my body into pieces, lock em’ in chests and bury them six feet underground below forgotten temples, preventing my regeneration… And yes, I am mad at you! What were you even thinking!? Morphing in the middle of the city? What would you do if someone saw you!?’ “Eh? I would just kill them?” his expression was really puzzled.

Good thing to know - because of some reason, he is attached to me, considers me as his kin or mentor… and guessing by the display of his shapeshifting abilities, that could really be the case.

“Shortsighted fool!...” I hissed making him gulp his saliva.

I quickly gathered my thoughts recalling all the information about the local area.

“Leave the city. Wait for me outside the western gate. Try not interacting with humans, at the very best avoid any contact at all. I will deal with my most urgent businesses here and join you. By the mercy of the Three - do. Not. Kill. Anyone! Fuck. I have to think of a way to get rid of the body…” I looked at the bleeding corpse of the drunkard “... If I burn it, I will leave a magical track that could lead them to me...:” “Big bor…” Kim called shyly “... do you… do you want to get rid of traces?” “Of course, that yes!” “I CAN HELP!”

Before I was able to protest, he morphed again for a split of a second, swallowed the man whole and morphed back.

Then, he smiled back at me and burped loudly.

The thing that fascinated me - what happens with the food we devoured and morph back if the food we swallow is bigger than the next vessel we chose? Would love to have a ted talk regarding this matter, but maybe there is better time and place for it.

For now, I had no luxury to think about it, I had to deal with a sociopath-chimera… that apparently is a divine chimera made of… me.

There is no other explanation. That’s a fact I know from multiple sources - that at the same time there can be only one devourer. So, how can you make two of them appear at the same time? The answer is simple - clones.

Someone, somewhere, is playing with my DNA, and there was only one scientist mad enough to play a god. There was only one scientist, that I voluntarily gave samples of my blood and skin.

Hieronymus van Kleir.