"Right now?" Melody asked.

"Yes, right now." Arainell nodded. She nodded sharply toward Loghain, who immediately spun around and started barking orders to everyone in the room. Trusting Loghain to get all the people in place, Arainell headed back to the building she and her daughter had been staying in.

"Uh, Mom?"

"Yes, dear?"

"Are you going to put me down?" Melody was starting to feel awkward, with her mother still holding her tightly as they walked through the streets. It was only a few minutes to get to their building.

"Absolutely not. You are staying in my sight until we get home." Melody's mother sounded completely serious.

"What? I thought we were going to see Grandma and Grandpa?"

"Yes, little bird. We are going to our family's ancestral home. You'll be safe there. I'd like to see… but he wouldn't dare." There was so much venom in her mother's voice, Melody started. Her mother was a calm person. Melody couldn't remember seeing her angry. Right now, though, she wasn't sure how else to describe the look in her mother's eyes.

"Mom, what's wrong? What happened?"

"You don't need to worry about it. Loghain and I will handle this. Then I'm sure Grandmother will have something to say. You are alright, right?" Arainell, mood continued to oscillate. One moment she was giving calm reassurances; the next, she was fussing over Melody. She lowered the girl onto her bed in the room they shared and began to poke and prod.

"Mom, Mom, I'm fine. Cut it out." Melody tried to fend off her mother's poking. "I even got the first one! You saw, right? I totally need to get the Swarm to absorb that one! There was something weird with it. I'd probably get some good resources. How did the cages open anyway?

Seemingly satisfied with her daughter's condition for the moment, Arainell stood back and stared down at Melody.

"Fine, We'll stop by the disassembly hall on our way out. We don't need to wait here while your Swarm works, yes?"

Melody nodded. "Yup. I don't think they have a range once I tell them what to do. They should come find me when they're done." Melody hadn't had a chance to check that, but she didn't see why it wouldn't be true. She had had the Swarm absorbing stuff while she slept hundreds of feet away all week after all. As far as she could tell, the Swarm was just… around.

"Good, now get packed."

Melody rolled her eyes. She walked over and pulled her suitcase from under her bed. She had never unpacked. Why bother when she could just pull from her case.

"Ready."

{}

They were rolling across the terrain as fast as the troop transport could carry them. Once again, Melody was in the back, with her mother all suited up in her combat gear. The main difference was Loghain, who was now seated next to her. They had rushed out of the camp like they had a tier nine beast chasing them, barely stopping for the scant few seconds it took Melody to direct the Swarm to start cleaning up all the Beast remains that stained the disassembly hall.

At this point, Melody was intensely curious about what exactly was going on. Initially, she had assumed that what had happened had been caused by some weird Beast ability or the cages malfunctioning. Her mother's reaction and stubborn refusal to answer questions had led her to believe something else was the cause.

Right now, though, she couldn't learn anything. Her mother was stonewalling her, and Loghain had been equally quiet on the topic. Out of frustration, Melody called up the Interface. She had retrieved the gun from the disassembly hall when they had stopped by, and Melody wanted to make another bullet for it. What she saw shocked her.

"What?! Over half a million?! What was that thing!"

"Melody?"

"The Beast I shot. It gave more experience than everything I killed all week combined. There is no way that's normal third-tier experience. It should have been, like, a fifth of that. At the most!" She explained. "This is nuts!"

"Mmm," Arainell hummed in response. She shot Loghain a look. He nodded.

"Oh, you know what's going on? C'mon, you have to tell me!"

"It's not your problem, Melody. We'll handle it."

Melody pouted. Her mom had that tone. She wasn't going to listen no matter what Melody said. With a huff, she turned back to the Interface. She had a lot of experience to spend, and she knew exactly where it was going. Because of this little incident, Melody realized the critical flaw in her Swarm. She could build many, many things. The problem was, she had to have what she wanted ahead of time.

That was a problem her Swarm shared with the one she knew from Warlord. It simplified a lot of the production line, but it required forethought. That, or you could do what Melody did and boost the construction and absorption speed until the build speed limits didn't matter while avoiding a fight. That way, she could build an army in seconds right where her opponents were not expecting it. Sure, the army was practically made of paper; but with good positioning, it rarely mattered.

She quickly bought the next two levels of the Swarm, bringing her to level 10. She also got the next levels of all the speed upgrades. All of that practically cleared out her entire reserve of experience. She had 10,423. Worth it, though. She had just reduced construction time by a third.

A message popped up on the Interface, blocking her from doing anything else.

You have met the requirements for a class change.

Requirements:

Reach Swarm level 10

Spend less than 1000 experience in the Shop

Kill an Agent of your patron god

Class: Nanomachine User (Neophyte)

Pro:

Access to additional options in the Shop, Interface, and Swarm

Construction speed increased

Absorption speed increased

Assimilation speed increased

Nano-Storage unlocked

Con:

Armaments will no longer be discounted

Protection of patron god removed

Reduced experience from combat

Melody had been hoping for something like this. Most games that had levels made the tenth special. She had been hoping for something at level 5 too, but nothing had happened. She wasn't sure how to feel about what she got, though. She was really excited about the additional options, and obviously, the speed increases were exactly what she was looking for. The sticking point, really, was the reduced experience.

Her mind was running in circles with what-ifs. There were so many unknowns involved. What if the new options weren't what she wanted? That would mean she was going to slow her growth for something she might never want. She could gain or lose with this new class. She had really been hoping for a straight upgrade. This… was not that.

Take the class, dear. You'll like it, pinky promise.

Love, Tia

Melody accepted the class.

The Interface flickered, and the whole slate shuddered and flexed. Then everything settled back the same as before. Except, when she started reading, it was completely different. First of all, with the Interface automatically opening on the Shop, she was overwhelmed with the difference. Before, Melody would have guessed that 90% of the items in the Shop were some variety of weapon. Most of the rest had been junk. Just completely useless stuff.

Now though. Now the Shop seemed to have everything from a table to a t-shirt. It seemed like she could get the Swarm to Construct literally anything for an experience price. The weapons were still there when she searched, but there was so much more now. With some trepidation, she pulled up a simple sword. "Ugh." The price had doubled. Looking over several other weapons, she could remember the prices for, all of them had doubled. She hadn't even known she was getting a discount!

"Something the matter, dear?"

"Um, not really. My class changed." Melody had forgotten where she was.

"Is that bad?"

"I'm not sure yet." She answered honestly. Melody trusted Tia quite a bit, but she needed to understand more. Diving back into the Interface, she started to sift through the other tabs.

After a few hours, Melody felt much more confident about her choice. To sum up all the changes, the number, and variety of things she could purchase had increased dramatically in every single tab. Her Swarm level had reset, but she found that all her previous upgrades were still in place after constructing her replacement bullet. So, that was a massive bonus since the cost to buy the next level had reset as well.

What had gotten Melody really excited was the new tab she had. It was labeled Storage, and it had taken her a second to figure it out. Now that she had, though, her mind was whirling with ideas. She could designate anything she had constructed, and it would turn grey and dissolve, much like things she absorbed or assimilated. The difference was, it happened in a fraction of a second. The item then showed up in her new tab, and she could call it back just as fast. The things she could do with this… She was still coming up with ideas.

At this point, she was animatedly brainstorming ideas out loud while her mother nodded along half-heartedly. Melody knew her mother wasn't really paying attention, but she was so excited! Her mind was filled with soo many ideas they practically burst out of her.

Suddenly, Arainell whipped her head around.

"Stop the transport! Loghain, get Melody!"

In an instant, a strong hand landed on Melody's chest, pressing her into the seat.

Then the world flipped.

It took several seconds for Melody's mind to catch up with reality. By that time, she realized she was hanging from her harness as gravity pulled her to the opposite side of the vehicle. She also noticed a massive hole in what used to be the roof.

Looking around, Melody couldn't see her mother in the transport, and Loghain and most of the guards were already unbuckled and moving. Even as she noticed this, Loghain was reaching up and releasing her. He lowered her to what was now the floor as guards assembled around her.

"We need to get out of here. The vehicle's no good; the physical magic's busted. The lady is handling whatever hit us, but we need to get the young miss out of the way so she can do that. Move." Loghain rapidly spat out. He then picked up Melody and jumped through what used to be the roof.

Only to immediately stop and pull melody behind his massive bulk.

Past him, Melody could see her mother, bow drawn and in hand, facing off against a man with grey skin and tusks. The man wore barely any clothes and held no weapons, but he was terrifying purely by virtue of his size. He made Loghain look like a child.

"So, this is where you went, Bremain. Your family was right to cast you out. Despicable." Arainell's voice was sharp and cold, with a weight to it that Melody had not heard.

"HA. YOU THINK I WAS HIDING HERE? FOOL!" The man, Bremain, boomed out. His voice was almost a physical force; it was so loud. Melody felt liquid trickle down from her ears. Reaching up, she pulled her hand away to see what it was. Her ears were bleeding.

"No, you gigantic idiot. I didn't mean this physical location. I know you went to Gun." Arainell responded, unaffected by the absurdly loud voice.

The giant's face screwed up in confusion. "HOW DID YOU KNOW?"

"It's not that hard to figure out if you had more than two brain cells in that obscenely large skull of yours."

The confusion was replaced with anger. "I DON'T CARE. I HAVE GAINED POWER UNLIKE ANYTHING YOU HAVE SEEN!"

"He helped you breakthrough, right? Tier nine?"

"ARGH." Bremain bellowed in anger at Arianell's casual response to his grandstanding. "YOU DIE NOW!"

Before he could move a single step, Arainell simply disappeared. There was a muffled boom, and an arrow slammed into the hand he had lifted. Immediately, there were other booms as Bremain started sprouting arrows all along his body. He had collected over twenty of them in seconds. Melody was stunned.

As much as he seemed to be growing arrows like some strange plant, Bremain seemed more annoyed than worried. With another massive roar, his skin glowed a dirty brownish-green, and all the arrows were ejected from his body. None of them seemed to make it very far past his skin in the first place. The wounds only bled for a second before they healed back to flawless condition.

"YOU CANNOT HURT ME WITH THESE SMALL TWIGS! FACE ME!"

The only response was another rain of arrows sprouting from his back and climbing up to his face. Melody wasn't sure what her mother was doing. The arrows really didn't seem to be doing much. Over the next thirty seconds, this cycle repeated twice more before Bremain seemed to become fed up.'

"ENOUGH." He bellowed before slamming his foot into the ground. The ground quaked, churning and writhing like a living thing as chunks of the white grass and small bushes were tossed into the air, the dirt staining the formerly white surroundings with shades of brown.

For the first time since the fight started, Melody saw her mother. She appeared behind Bremain, stumbling on the churning ground. The ground continued to shake, Melody holding tight to Loghain for support as she watched Bremain whip his head around, clearly looking for her mother.

When he finally saw her, he roared and bolted toward her, his feet creating their own booms as his massive form blurred from the force of his steps.

Only, once again, Arainell disappeared. However, this time, she appeared almost immediately, hovering above Bremain's still charging form. She had four multicolored wings growing from her back, the same shades of brown, blue, and purple as the feathers growing from her head. She had an arrow nocked, but she wasn't firing. Instead, she continued to hover in place.

A soft hum filled the air, only to grow to a whine, and then a roar. Melody watched as the arrow in her mother's bow and the bow itself started to glow with a bright golden-white light.

With a piercing, bird-like cry, Arainell let the arrow fly.

It released its own cry in flight, the scratch of an angry eagle so loud it dwarfed every sound made throughout the whole fight. In a streak of blazing light, it slammed right into Bremain's chest. Dead center.

And kept going.

Unlike the other shots, this one passed through the giant's tough skin like it was more air, barely slowing. The arrow blazed off into the distance, leaving its target behind.

Contrary to her expectations, the noticeable hole in Bremain's torso did not end the fight. Instead, the man let out an irate roar and began to change.

With the sound of breaking bones and tearing flesh, Bremain's form expanded rapidly. Melody had thought him large before. Now, his new form towered over a hundred feet tall. His face warped and stretched, tusks lengthening, a new protrusion growing.

In moments, Melody was looking at an incomprehensibly massive elephant, its body covered in a greenish-brown armor plating, like the shell of a tortoise. Its tusks were longer than Loghain was tall, and its trunk could have circled the troop transport.

Arianell, seemingly unsurprised by the transformation, charged up another arrow, much like the last. This one wasn't as loud or as powerful, but it still slammed into the side of Bremain's new form with enough force to shift his immense bulk. It hit dead center on one of his armor plates, and a small crack appeared. The arrow itself disintegrated upon impact. The sound it made was like a muffled gong.

Slowly, ponderously, Bremain began turning toward Arainell, still hovering in the air, charging another shot. As he turned, she slowly shifted in the air, easily staying directly perpendicular to the elephant's bulky side.

Another shot, another crack. Another. Another. Melody was confused. Bremain had taken on this form, but he seemed to be even more helpless than before.

Then, he came around, facing the broken troop transport and Melody's group of guards. She saw the look in his eyes.

Then, he charged.

Immediately, Arainell caught on. She disappeared once again. This time, she didn't reappear anywhere Melody could see. Bremain continued his charge. The fight had carried them a good distance away, and he seemed to have to build up speed, so it was taking him a while.

"S-shouldn't we move?" Melody whispered.

"No. Your mother will handle him. None of us can, and he seems to have control of the earth to an extent. Moving away from our only cover will make it easier for him to assault us magically." Loghain calmly replied. He seemed unconcerned.

True to his word, Melody began to notice visible swirls of air rising around the elephant's approaching form. By the time he had crossed half the distance, it had formed a maelstrom surrounding the massive Beast. Bremain seemed harder and harder pressed to approach.

Then, he started acting strange. Stopping mid-charge, he keeled over in the eye of the rapidly forming tornado. Melody had no idea what was happening.

"Your mother formed a vacuum. His lungs are trying to come out his throat."

"Oh." Melody grew a new appreciation for her mother.

"If he wasn't an incredibly durable Beast, he would probably be dead now. Your mother's command of Gas magic is immense."

As if to defy that statement, Bremain heaved to his feet in that instant. A red sheen coated his body, and he began to change again. His shell-like armor darkened to almost black, and grew spiked. His tucked lengthened, and he grew a second set, right below the first.

Once his new form settled, Bremain seemed utterly unmoved by the vacuum that had almost killed him moments ago.

Then, to Melody's horror, his truck blurred forward with more speed than he had shown in any form. When it stopped, it was wrapped around a struggling winged figure.

"Mom!"