Tamer Benjamin Noecren (POV)

Day 11 AFP 6.30 AM

A circular portal opens up at the bottom of a pool through which a young man with an athletic body emerges from. His face resembles a brown Asian Professor Xavier with a bald head and a clean-shaven face.

No air bubbles emerge from his mouth or nose as he turns around to wave his hand at the portal, which disappears.

He doesn't gasp for air after poking his head above the pool's surface. Instead, he looks around and finds a dark empty bunker that begins lighting up its interiors when the artificial intelligence in the room notices his arrival in the pool.

[Captain Benjamin! Welcome back to the UGP safe house number four! Have you completed your Mana recharge for the mission?]

Benjamin only nods his head as a reply, but the Bunker Butler uses its scanners to pick it up.

[Since there is an hour for your cooldown to complete. Do you wish the food printer to cook breakfast?]

Benjamin nods again with a thumbs up this time.

[Any ingredients in particular?]

Benjamin uses his hands to communicate 'no seafood or insects' with a repulsed face.

[That is a shame, the Tamer Battalion's Food production wing and Logistic wing deposited quite a few cans of preserved monster crab meat. Luckily they sent over mushrooms, along with potatoes. I will get them ready as soon as possible]

Benjamin pulls his body out of the water and onto the dark granite floor around the pool. He is wearing black swimming trunks and a wristband on his arm that has an ultra smartphone attached to it. The phone is encased in a waterproof seal to operate underwater.

Benjamin opens the seal covering his phone and then types the command 'Cancel Combat Style,' which his butler carries out on his behalf. There are no changes to his body, but a Dumbo Octopus that looks more like the chibi version of a Cthulhu head appears on his head. Its body constantly changes colors and patterns as its cute eyes dart around.

Horrible pain soon floods Benjamin's mind as he can feel the hair on his head being pulled out by its grubby little tentacles. Most people assumed Benjamin was bald because of constantly shaving his head. But very few knew that it was his monster who wanted a clean dome to rest on and was willing to remove the itchy hair out of the way by any means necessary.

Benjamin tries to force it off his head out of reflex, but several tentacles slap his fingers away. After that, the little Octopus starts to enlarge itself to fit over Benjamin's head like a condom.

The Octopus's huge eyes position themselves over his own, and its tentacles hang down from his lower jaw like a beard. Benjamin now looked like a human with a Cthulhu head.

The monster's mind rips away the control of his body from him.

"You dare try to remove me from my seat of power!"

An alien voice came into existence inside his mind.

Benjamin used his mind to reply to it.

"Could you at least stop pulling out my hair?"

"I do not listen to a leech! As per our agreement, you must defeat me in a battle of wills, and only then will I recognize you as my Tamer."

After giving the warning and reissuing the challenge, the Dumbo Octopus reverts to its original chibi form and releases ink that drips down all over Benjamin's face.

This ink always came out after his monster partner used its entire body to cover Benjamin's face before shrinking. Benjamin lets out a tired sigh before he walks back to the pool to wash away the ink.

He didn't bother to un-summon the creature as that would have also resulted in his mind being taken over and forced to give up. So until Benjamin activated combat style again, the Dumbo Octopus would remain on his head.

Benjamin stared at the Dumbo Octopus through the reflection on the swimming pool's surface. Why did he end up with such a terrifying partner?

Benjamin missed the first avatar of his monster partner, who had been a lovely little frog he named Kermit that went out of its way to cheer him up. Unfortunately, Kermit was killed by an Icebug during the battle in resurrection bay while Benjamin still served the Pacific fleet as a sailor.

At the time, Benjamin's ship was destroyed by an Icebug that made a kamikaze attack towards the fuel tanks. Luckily Benjamin used his Frog leaping skill to jump into the sea in time to avoid being caught in the center of the explosion. But, unfortunately, most of his friends and shipmates weren't so lucky to have that kind of reflexes.

Benjamin's body got burned by the flames and stabbed by the metal shrapnel. But, by the grace of a higher power, he canceled his combat style so that his monster partner could come out to help him.

Kermit dragged his body over to a capsized ship and protected Benjamin from Icebug attacks on its own until Tamer Soma Nathan arrived to help.

When he woke up in the hospital in Seward, Soma informed Benjamin that he had been clinically dead for a few minutes until Soma decided to use his lightning skills to restart the heart. Thankfully it worked, but the injuries to his body were too severe.

Dale noticed Soma was trying to help the wounded after the battle and came over to use his Holy flames to heal Benjamin's damaged body. Everything except Benjamin's vocal cords was healed since the skill couldn't fix a problem that a target was born with.

Dale was disappointed about this limitation, but it brought tears of relief to Benjamin as he was saved from death, being scarred with burn marks for life and shattered bones that would have needed months of recovery time.

This incident was kept secret under a gag order by the Admiral since Dale did not want anyone to know about his powerful healing ability as it took a significant toll on his monster and exposed his weaknesses.

After two days of mandatory rest, Benjamin tried to summon his monster only to find an egg in the Monster App. He wondered what happened and brought it to Soma's attention. Benjamin soon found out from the report of Asher's rescue mission that a monster partner was linked to the heartbeat of their Tamer.

Connecting the two cases, it was theorized that, even if the Tamer came back to life, it would not bring back their partner. So, he had to start from scratch again to get a new monster partner.

After completing the first five tasks and selecting the options that created his original partner, the monster app informed him of an unexpected problem.

[The soul of your monster partner wishes to choose the form of its next incarnation. Will the User accept its demand?]

Benjamin found it weird, but he thought there would be no harm if the monster's soul was the same. So he gave permission and completed the rest of the tasks until it hatched.

He was surprised to see an octopus as it was not among the species listed as options in the Monster App. It was cute, but it could quickly turn into a mini Eldritch horror whenever it was pissed.

The new monster had a bit of the soul of the original, but there was something sinister about it. Benjamin could sense the soul had become prideful and dominating when provoked, which had never happened before. He first discovered it could speak when it wrapped its bulbous head and tentacles over his face after it evolved into its second form a week ago.

Both Benjamin and his monster could communicate with anyone around them within ten feet with their minds. This was a passive ability of his new monster and not a new skill.

Benjamin's monster's new skills terrified him when he first saw the skill sheet the monster app shared with him.

Tamer: Benjamin Noecren

Type: Mind, Sea, Intelligence, ERROR, Poison

Mastery: Extra Skill Slot

Combat Style: Skill Transfer

Skills: Whispers of paranoia (Beginner), Gate to the Seven Seas (Beginner), Eldritch Abomination Vision (Beginner), Old One's Blessing (Beginner), Psychedelic Camouflage (Beginner)

Skill Features:

Whispers of paranoia - The monster or the User uses willpower to create invisible tentacles of Mana that latch onto the minds of one to eight opponents within line of sight. As long as Mana is supplied through the tentacles, the targets will constantly hear incomprehensible whispers in a language they can understand and hear in voices they recognize. The longer the skill is used on a target, the more paranoid they become, lowering their ability to resist mental afflictions.

Gate to the Seven Seas - The monster or the User can open a one-way portal between any of the seven seas or small bodies of water as long as they are ten feet deep. Other than the monster or its User that executed this skill, no other living creature can pass through the portal. It has a cooldown of an hour after every use.

Eldritch Abomination Vision - The monster or the User uses willpower to create invisible tentacles of Mana that latch onto the minds of one to eight opponents within line of sight. As long as Mana is supplied through the tentacles, the targets will see Eldritch Abominations where ever they look. They will be unable to distinguish friend from foe through sight alone. If the targets have already suffered from the skill 'Whispers of paranoia,' then inducing a heart attack increases.

Old One's Blessing - The monster or the User can breathe underwater and absorb Mana while inside a body of water of at least ten feet deep. The deeper the depth, the higher the Mana concentration and conversion. This is the only method to absorb Mana. The amount of Mana stored is equal to the willpower of the monster only.

Psychedelic Camouflage - This skill requires Mana to activate and sustain. It can make the Monster or the User invisible to those who rely on sight.

Benjamin tried to use the mental affliction skills on some crab monsters in the food production support wing's farmhouse. Unfortunately, he lost control and struck three nearby Tamers, causing them to go into hysteria and attack each other. They had to be sent to the mental health hospital for treatment, and it took three hours for them to calm down and understand what had happened to them.

Benjamin realized his new mind affliction abilities could easily harm his allies by accident since his willpower on its own was not strong enough to control the monster or its skills without practice and mental discipline.

That is why he volunteered himself to be sent far away on a solo mission that required his new skills and gave him personal space to learn how to tame his new monster partner and its skills.

Not everything that came out of the second rebirth was terrible. For example, Benjamin wasn't born with the ability to speak. So when he was able to talk to people with his mind, it made his deepest wishes come true.

Benjamin used this method to communicate with his handler whenever he came back to rest at Seward.

Ting!

[User Benjamin Noecren has received a direct message from User Soma Nathan through the Monster App. Will you view it now?]

Speak of the devil!

Benjamin nods his head toward the phone, which then plays the message.

[Video Message from UGP Intelligence Gathering Wing.

Tamer Soma Nathan:

Ben, it's time for operation Mad Queen's Egg to begin. The evacuation team is on route to pick up the survivors in the stadium, and the Ranger battalion is prepping the city killer missiles for launch.

Remember! Everything is in play to help you get out of there with the package. So don't screw it up!

End of message]

Benjamin had a smile on his face whenever he interacted with Soma. The man saved his life by literally restarting his heart that tragic day and helped him find a way to serve in the war effort by using his abilities in unorthodox ways.

First, Soma convinced the Admiral to transfer Benjamin from the Navy into the Tamer Battalion's intelligence-gathering wing. Then he looked at all the Evacuation requests and strategic hotspots on the US map and decided Texas would be the best place to develop Benjamin's skills and save many lives at the same time.

The Communications wing was in constant touch with the survivors holed up in an old stadium surrounded by a swarm of Icebugs. Finally, Soma decided those people needed Benjamin's unique skills to ensure the Icebugs stayed away till an evacuation mission could be arranged to lift them all to Alaska.

Soma found the old maps of underground reservoirs near the stadium and pictures to help Benjamin create a portal. Benjamin had found out after much trial and error that the skill needed him to visualize the location to have a chance at opening a gate.

Benjamin was successful in this endeavor. He then connected the Gate in a reservoir in Texas with a pool inside a safe house in Seward. This way, Benjamin could travel back and forth between Texas and Seward. In addition, he would use his phone to record the ground situation for the UGP to plan their operations in the area.

Benjamin would activate his Psychedelic Camouflage skill and spend a few hours patrolling for any scout or soldier Icebugs that got too close to the stadium boundaries.

Once enough of them released cautionary pheromones into the air around the stadium, the rest of the Icebugs would not bother it unless a survivor came outside to scavenge. Benjamin killed several Icebugs by scaring them whenever they overcame their fears and ventured towards the stadium to find weak points.

Most of the survivors believed that their stadium walls were too thick for the Bugs to bother with, but the truth was that it was Benjamin that deterred them from even trying to come near it.

Once Benjamin was confident about the security, he provided the survivors in secret. He would explore the Icebug's giant tunnels that they dug underneath the continent of North America as a way for their kind to move their troops from city to city without being detected.

Soma suggested checking them out after the Communication Support wing received intel from the survivors of a possible sighting of a young Icebug Queen and her bodyguards a day before Benjamin arrived in Texas.

Benjamin did not expect his little exploration venture into a random bug tunnel he came across to lead him to the young Icebug Queen's egg-laying chamber. There were hundreds of Royal Guard Icebugs protecting her and the colony's eggs in that place.

This was a sign that a new Icebug fortress would rise up soon. It would be protected by countless Mana barriers and thousands of Giant Icebugs. Currently, that was too much for the UGP to handle if they allowed it to be built or take root.

The discovery of the Queen and her Royal guards alone would have been enough to get the UGP to bomb the whole place immediately, but then Benjamin spotted a Royal Egg that should hatch into a new Queen in the future. That complicated things...

Sure enough, his findings grabbed the attention of the UGP leadership. They didn't stop at finding a way to kill the Queen. No... they now wanted the Royal egg for their Scientific Research team to study and possibly create a monster army to fight on the human side.

The UGP leadership decided that Benjamin should use his abilities to make the Queen turn on her own minions or vice versa. Benjamin would then take advantage of the chaos to steal the egg and rush through a portal back to Seward, with none of the bugs being wiser until it was too late.

If the Queen noticed the theft and came out to the surface to search for her precious egg, she would be greeted with a city killer missile. If she didn't, her swarm would definitely surface to look for it, and they would be vaporized in one blow.

That was the initial plan before Soma reminded them that the Royal Egg was still a living creature that couldn't pass through Benjamin's underwater portals even though it was unborn.

The mission planning committee combined the survivor's evacuation mission and the Mad Queen's Egg mission. Once those JTDs left the airspace, the Ranger Battalion would wipe out everything surfaced, searching for the egg with 'Rod of God.'

Soma even pulled Dale into the mission along with a few heavy-hitter Tamers. A dozen US Marines armed to the teeth with the new anti-monster battle tech were assigned the primary duty of making sure Benjamin got on one of the two JTDs with the Royal egg at all costs.

The resources and firepower mobilized for this operation caused Benjamin to worry.

All of it depended on him stealing the Royal Egg by getting the Queen and her bodyguards to fight each other through mental afflictions. Thus, Benjamin focused on testing and developing his skills on the Icebug workers and soldiers first without letting them sense his presence.

Every test to inflict paranoia and a little madness was a success. Even a few Royal Icebug Guards showed distress, but the effort to lower their willpower drained Benjamin.

Even if Benjamin made several Royal guards go crazy on the others and the Queen. It was insufficient to cause the chaotic situation he needed for stealing the Royal Egg.

Since Benjamin could not make fifty or a hundred Royal Guards go crazy at once, the next best option was to focus all his mental affliction skills on the Queen herself. This was when Benjamin realized he was nowhere near strong enough to fool her. Her mind was a fortress of willpower, and he was a man holding a pistol at it.

In desperation, Benjamin decided to offer his Cthulhu-looking monster partner total freedom to use his body in a battle of willpower against the Ice bug Queen. He didn't think his monster partner would be willing to agree to it, but the Dumbo octopus looked excited by the proposal.

It desired a worthy opponent who could challenge it since watching small fry die by heart attacks from just Benjamin's willpower alone. However, that didn't mean it was overconfident about its own abilities. On the contrary, the Dumbo Octopus needed Benjamin to top up on the Mana pool before the mission began to have a chance at inflicting paranoia in the Queen.

So Benjamin spent the last few hours inside the water reservoir in Texas before returning to the safe house. All that was left was having breakfast and then going back through the portal once the cooldown was over.

After all this preparation and planning, Benjamin felt that there could be no way for him to screw anything up.