A/N - Hey everyone! So, I had a crazy busy weekend so sorry I didn't write anything yesterday. I'll try to make it up by writing a second one tonight but we'll see how it goes! Anyways, some exciting news... with this chapter I've now written just under 16000 words for this project (15397) which I find crazy seeing as how I started it a week ago. So, please enjoy and rate/review/follow/comment if you like the story! (or even if you dont!)

Volume One - Chapter Seven: Awakening

Everyone was cheering as David jumped off the cliff. If this went well, then we’d be safe for a while. Of course, in order to keep him from dying we had to possess him again. We hope that evil witch will understand. David passed out the instant he hit the water, maybe he was too exhausted or just plain stupider than we thought. He jumped headfirst off a nearly 80 foot high cliff… DUMBASS! Thankfully, no lasting damage was done, but if we weren’t there to save him he’d have died. After some quick thinking, that dick from the magician’s tower was put in control. While mana was leaving the world, he could still use some basic spells since he was insanely talented at it. After using some water magic to move us to the shore, we noticed that the wolves had followed us over the cliff. Yippee, MEAT!!!! He used a little more magic to start a fire, and to drag the wolves over to it after they drowned.

At that point, we couldn’t keep possessing David any longer without hurting him permanently. He’d be alright as long as nothing serious happened. We had our own shit to deal with, reintegrating all of our personalities was not going to be easy. Remember back to when I first died and joined my fellow personalities? Back then, everyone could read each other's thoughts. Apparently, we were still integrated at that point. We were just eccentric, not schizophrenic. Unfortunately, at some point over the next 150 years we had gone a little too far, breaking our connections to each other. Now, it was too late. Since we didn’t deal with it at the time those connections could never be fixed.

The only way to keep ourselves from falling apart is to rebuild the connections from scratch. The bad news is that required a type of telepathy… and none of us had ever bothered to learn how to do that. What was the point really? We could already read each other’s minds, and by the time we couldn’t, it was kinda nice having a brain to yourself again. Did I ever mention that we are a bit shortsighted?

Anyway, for the next six months it was intensive training time. At least we were all motivated, we really didn’t want to learn how that scary woman would forcefully reintegrate us. Hell, many of us were looking forward to this. It’d been far too long since some of us felt the need to become stronger. The good news was both Bookworm, and the dick from the magician’s tower, had books detailing how telepathy works. So, we all dug in, hoping we could figure this shit out before the deadline was up.

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David’s POV

My head hurts, and I’m not talking a headache. No I’m talking full blown concussion combined with something that I could only describe as “expansion”. It literally feels like my brain is too big for my head. No, that’s not right, it’s as if something too big to fit in my brain made use of it. I’m just confusing myself at this point, which makes it hurt even worse.

Groaning, I started trying to figure out where I was. The last thing I can remember is jumping off a cliff head first. No wonder my head hurts so damned much. Why is it so dark out? It was around 4 or 5 PM when I jumped over the cliff. Then, I realized that a fire was dying down nearby, and next to it were twelve wolves. I tried to rush over to them, afraid they’d wake up and eat me. But, even just sitting up made me dizzy. By the time I got to my second step I’d fallen over, puking. This isn’t good. I can’t move, and I still don’t know if I’m really safe. Wait, where did this fire come from? Hell, how did I even manage to get out of the river? That isn’t a slow current, and I’m not even 200 feet from where I must have hit the water. Maybe Granny-Kingsly was keeping an eye on me. Maybe she isn’t as evil as I thought? That would make sense, how else would I have made it away from that damned horde of monsters. Shuddering, I remembered the many near misses. I should’ve been dead a hundred times over, before I even jumped off the damned cliff. I think I’m going to have nightmares for years because of this, no wonder Dad looked so frightened when the witch said she’d train me personally.

Having learnt my lesson for the day, don’t move quickly when I have a concussion, I slowly crawled to the wolves. Thankfully, they were all dead, and the shore of the river had no lack of sharp stones. It took an agonizingly long amount of time, but I finally managed to remove the majority of the skin from one of them. My stomach was rumbling so much that I nearly ate it raw, but something held me back. It felt like something in my brain was forcing my hand away from my mouth. Sighing, I gave up. Thankfully, my dizziness left and I was able to walk back to the fire… Shit, the fire died while I was trying to eat it raw. I started crying, I’m hungry, tired, and my head felt like someone had set off a crate of dynamite in it just to see what would happen. Whatever force was holding me back disappeared in the face of my extreme emotions. Like a ravenous wolf, I devoured the meat in my hand raw.

As I ate, my head stopped throbbing terribly. All my joints made popping sounds, my overtaxed muscles started to relax, I even felt my bones lengthening. The feeling of awakening is completely unbelievable to anyone who hasn’t gone through it. The overwhelming sense of energy coursing through your veins, you feel like a God. It is the most wonderful feeling in the world, if you know how to control it. Of course, I had no clue what was going on at the time. One moment, I felt better than I’d ever felt in my life. The next, my body started to tear itself apart. I began screaming in total agony, clawing at my chest as if trying to rip out my own heart.

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Great-Granny Kingsly’s POV (2 hours ago)

I had just settled into my mansion at the top of the mountain when the first report from my spies arrived. Of course, I didn’t just leave my most important great-grandson alone to die in that hell hole! I know just how dangerous that place is! Despite his powerful soul, David isn’t even six years old yet. How could I have expected him to survive long in that place alone? Reading the first report, I was surprised. He shouldn’t have been able to run that fast, that long. At least, not until he awakened. “Must have been the dragon meat.” I muttered while rereading the report.

The faerie-beast meat I’d fed him on the plane was of the highest quality. A little over five years ago, I personally went to the beast world to find some quality meat. It was just after I’d met David, or at least his soul, for the first time. I’d known for over 10 years that my grandson’s son would be powerful, but I had no idea how powerful. He stunned me, and it had been nearly a hundred thousand years since I was last truly stunned. The way his soul had responded to spending thousands of years alone between lives was just ingenious. Not only that, but the soul was actually healthy! It must be understood that most powerful souls had just existed for too long. They had too many horrible memories to process, finding themselves drowning in a permanent nightmare. Yet, this soul was happy, bright, laughing, totally enjoying every moment.

Hell, I wasn’t like that before I reached immortality, and I’d gotten lucky. I was born on this planet nearly 200,000 years ago, right after it had come into existence. At that time, it had been overflowing with both mana and faerie energy. It allowed me to reach immortality after having lived a measly hundred lives. Yet, I was already showing the signs of having existed for too long.

This soul is just incredible! I decided right there and then to do all I could to help him reach immortality. Of course, I wasn’t going to compliment him, and I sure as hell wasn’t going to say I actually admired him. So, I overreacted a bit… Well, it was kind of fun to watch all those personalities of his pee their pants whenever they see me.

Anyway, I killed that dragon for him to eat. If eaten at the proper time, it will help me awaken to faerie energy. Seeing as how faerie energy is unique to this universe, I doubt they’ve dealt with it before. So, when the time to train David came I fed him some dragon steak and gave his soul a mission. Then, I threw him out the door of the airplane. I didn’t have too, but just imagining the look on his face, “Kekekekekeke”. That’ll keep me entertained for months! Well, it looks like that dragon was stronger than I thought. Honestly, I’d been a bit underwhelmed when I killed it, the last time I went dragon hunting it’d been a challenge and the meat that time didn’t have this good of an effect. Sigh… I’m too strong for my own good.

I just got another message from one my spies. Opening it, I stared at it with bug-eyes. I couldn’t believe it, even with the dragon meat I’d expected him to need at least six months to awaken! Shit! I haven’t taught him what to do yet!

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David’s POV

It hurts! I’ve been screaming in agony for almost 15 minutes now, I wish I had some type of weapon so I could just kill myself already. Not that it’d help, by this point I can’t even move my body at all. Suddenly, someone touched my back causing me to scream even louder. The slightest touch was excruciating. I caught a glimpse of Great-Granny Kingsly out of the corner of my eyes, apparently she was back in her beautiful young woman mode. The look on her face frightened me, I’d never seen her serious before.

“AHHH!!” Something changed, it still hurts but it’s as if the pain is moving. Originally the pain was everywhere, but now it was gathering. It started in the toes and fingers, I could feel it slowly moving through my extremities. The lower-half eventually running through my balls. “AHHH!!!!” (That hurt) before coming to a rest just under my navel. In the upper-half of my body I felt the energy gathering around my chest, before finally ascending coming to a stop near my brainstem.

While my body no longer hurt, my head was starting to hurt. The energy that had stopped near my brainstem was… doing something. Something uncomfortable. Behind me, I heard Great-Granny Kingsly say softly, “It’s ok love. It’s done know, I’d have taught you how to deal with this, but it shouldn’t have happened for at least six more months.”

O, so she know’s what this is? I slowly managed to croak, “Wha… What was that?”

“That, was an awakening. Now be quiet I need to concentrate”

“What the fuck is an awakening?!?”

“Be quiet!”

A few minutes passed, and I finally regained the ability to move my body below my neck. I went to stand up, but I couldn’t. Great-Granny Kingsly hugged me from behind. I think… I think she’s crying! No, that’s impossible that old hag would never cry over me! I pulled away from her, turning and yelling, “WHY DID YOU PUSH ME OUT OF THAT PLANE!” as furiously as I could. Her eyes looked a little red, but that doesn’t mean she was crying, right? I almost felt sorry for yelling at her while she was like that.

That is until I heard it… the sound I’d begun to associate with impending doom. “Kekekekekeke, I did it because it was fun to watch your cute face screaming in terror” Ok, that’s it I was definitely wrong. She would NEVER cry over me. I think I’m going to start crying every time I see her from now on, though. “Well, since you’ve already awakened I guess I’ll take you to the mansion. You really need a bath.” The two of them disappeared, reappearing in the mansion on top of the mountain.