Becoming Monsters: In the Mirror 51

This is still a story of the Becoming Monsters universe by Ai Loves, setting used with permission. All canonical and mechanical errors are my own. The yarrb is the exceedingly cute creation of FelisRandomis, used with permission.

Annabelle Hawthorne once again appears briefly in person.

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Chapter 51: In Your Head

"Wh... What?"

My wife sat up and scooted a bit away from where we had been snuggling, though still there on the bed. She turned to face me. "I didn't stutter, Jeremiah. How long have you been hiding that brain injury? Can't be all that long."

"Why do you think I have a brain injury, Lucy?" I mean, did it even qualify as one? Does English even have a word for a soul injury?

"I've suspected something was up since we got home from the hospital this last time, but I couldn't really put my finger on it. Lots of little things, though. You were acting like you were made of spun glass for a while, not just me. Sleeping like the dead, barely waking up in the mornings, energetic as a zombie on valium when you think I'm not looking. To be fair, that would have worked if I didn't have seven other pairs of eyes spying on you. Yes, I'm including Nibbles on this. Even then, I thought it was just you recovering." She was very, very focused.

"Um. Not sure if it's a brain injury, probably not."

"So you have been hiding something. Even with all of that, you want to know what tipped me off? That something was... is... seriously wrong?"

You know, at that point, I definitely did. Mouth dry, I could only nod.

"Today, several of us leveled up. Thing is, despite being in nearly every fight and every activity this Guild has participated in for the same time? You didn't. Something is wrong inside you, Jay, more than just the scars we're dealing with. Tell me what you have figured out. Please."

I sat up, the two or so feet between us on the bed feeling like a million miles. "You remember the onyx plains, right? When we had the fight in my head?"

Her head tilted to the side. "Kind of hard to forget, especially with what led up to it." Her hands were over her abdomen, where a tracery of scars still remained from where she had been accidentally bound by the Glasya Curse for one terrible evening.

My own scars were aching. I hadn't done my stretches this night. "When all of that went down... it kind of broke something. That mirror I shattered was a lot more than a metaphor. Or maybe it was exactly that? I still don't know. Thing is, when I shattered it, I shattered my Class."

She blinked. Looked like she was about to say something, paused. Then started again. "Shattered your Class? What does that even mean?"

"Ask the Class line in my Status screen. I've been stuck on 99% progress ever since. Same with my Attribute progress, same with my Ability progress. Also had a huge headache, but that's fading as I fix things. I have to gather the pieces of that mirror back together from around my soul every night."

"You know we're all still here right? You don't have to go do that alone."

She sounded frustrated. I'd been doing a lot of learning in the last month, often at the hands of pain. In this case, though, my own frustration matched her own. "You don't think I tried that? Once I realized what I was stuck doing, I spent an hour trying to call all of you there again. It got nowhere. Tried asking the Oneiromancer at the hospital, too. Joseph, that Duck. He didn't have any more of a clue than I did, said that all of his data pointed in a direction he didn't think was possible."

"So why didn't you tell us?" Her voice was angry. So were her emotions under the surface. It really was something I should have known better.

I deflated. "By then, I knew both that I couldn't get direct help from you all, and that I was slowly managing to actually fix things. At the rate things are going, I'll be done before our baby is here. I didn't want to worry everyone else, right when everyone needed to focus on healing themselves."

"You don't know that, Jeremiah. You CAN'T know that. Your case is unique. It's a whole stack of unique cases that got shuffled together, and you keep on adding new things to it! You can't keep doing this to yourself. One of these days, you're going to find that one thing you can't deal with. That WE can't deal with. The more you go and borrow trouble, the faster it's going to happen. I still need you, Jay. Our daughter will need her father."

Lucy has known me better than anyone but myself... okay, probably including myself... since before the Change. She knew how to make the point land. Ow. "I'm still standing, love. Still healing. Body and mind."

"I wish I could believe that, Jay. I know you do or you wouldn't be saying it, but I don't. You're the one who chased a demon halfway across Seattle less than six hours out of the hospital. Now you have this injury of your brain or your soul, and I'm not sure which of those is worse. This week alone you've gotten into one duel and fought off two Gates that I know of. Tomorrow you're going back to Camp, too, and you don't exactly have the best track record of peaceful trips out there." It took her approximately one second to see the sheepish look on my face. "Please do not tell me that you are intending to go into a meeting of Major Guild Leaders, including the Marshal, ready to fight them."

I shook my head. "Nothing like that. After the meeting, I need to get Nate and the Twins onto our Guild rolls officially. I was going to take them to the Dungeon Gate and poke around near the entryway as an intro."

"You did NOT just help your case, and I will be out with Amber. Paige and Whitney will be there, at least. Let's add Gloria to the plan. Take Nibbles, too, and no matter how quickly I expect you to ignore it I want you to promise me that you won't just dive in if trouble shows up."

"That was the idea. Three trainees, two... I guess three... escorts, and I'm in command of the expedition letting the newbies get experience in the easiest part of the place."

She sighed again. A resigned kind of sound. "You understand that I'm going to be scared out of my mind until you get home, right?" I found her leaning into me, again under my arms. It was nice. She belonged there, just like my arms belonged around her.

"Yeah. I do get it. Look, I know the Dungeon isn't the safest place in the world even on the best of days, but between the fact that we just cleared out the nastiest thing in the Labyrinth and the fact that we will be almost literally five wingbeats from the Gate, the group should be able to handle any likely threats."

"The likely threats aren't the ones I'm worried about, Jay. Just... hold me tonight, and tell me that if you can't identify something, you run, okay? Please don't be the hero. Not now. I know I'm not going to get any promises better than that out of you."

"You got it, love."

We laid back down together, my wife in my arms, and slowly there I passed back into the black night of my dreams. There, before the great mirror, I knew my task. I needed to fill in the last bits of the reflective face, to complete it so that I could finish healing. I just... couldn't. My legs felt leaden, my body slow, my head foggy. I sank to my knees, my scars aching, my ears ringing. It was there on the ground that my vision filled, the memory of an old nightmare filling it.

The skies were no longer black, but the roiling gray of storm clouds. Rain and lightning pelted the area as titans danced or fought on the shattered plains. Where previously there had been two, now I could perceive that there were more. A tangle of limbs and motion as they moved together and against each other, in patterns I could barely perceive, much less hope to understand.

Each time they moved, thunder struck. Their footfalls felt like detonations, their shouts as if the rage of the world were forcing me to my knees. I knew, without doubt, that I had no hope of preventing any of their actions. I couldn't even hope to survive being near them, much less what might result if any one actually paid attention to me with any hostility. Let alone if several did. I could tell, now, that all of them were present in my life. Whether truly titans of their own literal being or representations of the forces I fancied myself able to face. There was motion. I was not on the ground, as I originally thought, but on the shoulder of another giant. Much, much smaller than the ones before us. That it was striding towards.

I knew then that I had no choice in this matter. Or, rather, that the choices were long past. The course of my life, which I had chosen by my actions, was on a collision course with those powers ahead of me, backed by what I could scrape together. Both the source of my strength, and that which I desperately needed to protect. I couldn't avoid the confrontation, but I could be selective about the targets. I could make the choices left to me, how to protect that slowly-growing giant upon whose shoulders I rode.

There would be time for the weary to rest after it was done. As long as I was here to see it, that required me to act. And so, I must.

The vision cleared from my eyes, and I found that silvery powder was floating from my shoulders. Up, up into the great mirror, filling in those remaining gaps. I had, as before, continued to gather the shards unconsciously. Here they were. Seemingly all of them. The mirror stood, enormous, and for the first time since I first shattered it there was none of the gaping red void visible behind it. The mirror wasn't whole. It was still shattered, the lines visible throughout, but through the face I could see my reflection. He was inspecting the injury. Smiling. As the scene around me faded, I could hear his voice in my ear. "Almost there. We just need to heal."

My eyes opened once more, to the world of reality. It was Monday, and a lot remained to do today. Starting with, apparently, Paige. The statuesque Pride demon was squat-riding me in cowgirl position, the scene one that would have gone incredibly well in any porn you care to name. Lucy was to the side, having apparently awoken before me, nodding appreciatively as if judging her technique. For all I knew, that's exactly what she was doing.

Paige looked down from where she was gently raising and lowering herself on me, smiling broadly. "Good, you're awake! I can have my real fun then." She immediately began her own signature move, a much deeper motion than before, gripping hard on the upstroke every time. It was a trick I'd only ever seen from others with supernatural assistance... you know, like my wife.

Lucy nodded approvingly. "We got a bit sidetracked last night before I got to have my fun. Emily assured me she couldn't detect an actual physical injury this morning, though."

Not exactly sure why Lucy always liked to have these discussions when my dick felt like it was catching a glimpse of Heaven directly. Bit of a pattern. Certainly effective in making sure I had to focus. "You... you certainly waste no time."

Paige was having her own fun, and I felt her press down in her first orgasm of the morning. Between panting breaths, she was grinning as broadly as Lucy. "You don't waste time, so neither can we. You neglected yourself again, too, and you weren't going to have time before this morning's mission. We did your care steps before you woke up."

I was attempting to come up with a witty retort. This process was sharply interrupted by my own orgasm, shooting deeply into Paige as her talent combined with her head start to make me fire off what felt like pints of cum.

"I still need to hold off having sex with my husband until I get checked out today. Paige was happy to help with that part, since you keep on forgetting to take care of yourself."

"One of many reasons I'm thankful I married you."

"Also glad you gave me permission to do this kind of thing way back when I never thought I'd be asking for help with it. Whitney will do you around lunch, and if all goes well then it's my turn after dinner. Seriously, dry spells are not something Succubi are equipped to deal with."

And here I thought I was the planner in our little family. Paige practically rolled off of me and left to let us get to the shower, wobbling slightly as she went. It was while Lucy was scrubbing between my wings (because seriously, that feels amazing for those of you who have wings but have never tried it) that she remembered something. "You told us yesterday that the Cat Beastfolk sent you an email?"

As usual, it took me a moment to get my head back to the present. "Ah, right. Kind of forgot in the furor." Something about certain revelations knocked the morning meal out of my mind for the evening. "Seemed to think that I'd need it today. The bus trip should give enough time to look them over."

From just on the other side of the shower curtain came Amber's voice. "Not if my brother gets on the bus a few stops down." Why was everyone in the family suddenly making sure I had my life straight? I've done all this before, if not for today's particular stakes.

"Alright, I'll look it over while Gloria finishes up breakfast. Waffles will help me digest whatever's in there, anyway." This was doubly true with the sausages I had smelled as Lucy and I got into the shower. Though I couldn't exactly take a lot of time, I definitely stretched out and made sure to get some of the muscles moving more deeply while under the hot water. It was the little things in life that helped. Things like a water heater that did its job. Things like my wife's appreciative gaze as my muscles flexed.

Okay, maybe that last wasn't so little.

I got dressed and loaded for bear. The fine Manashed shirt Sarah had made went over my mail this time, with an undershirt beneath that. My pants were tough denim, not truly armored but it would catch a lot. My Saber belted to my hip, Shield Gauntlet on my wrist. Most importantly, my badge on the left chest, nearly at the shoulder. More than anything, that represented just exactly who I was on this day. The Guild Leader. The representative of my people and their purpose.

I took a glance at myself in the mirror, making sure everything was straight and set. Today I was stepping into a new territory. It would not do let myself misstep before I could even open my mouth. I realized I was stalling.

A few strides brought me to the old reliable computer. Perhaps not used quite as much by me anymore, but given the task at hand it was better than my phone. Although I did not remember giving Maia my email address, a few seconds of scrolling brought me to the one from her.

Jeremiah,

I know you might not want to open the email attachment from a hacker... (oh, right, that might be a bad idea)... but I promise there's nothing there but data. About 20,000 emails, mostly between the people around the table you'll be sitting at tomorrow (slightly guilty feeling, thankfully kept out of my Aura) or their senior officers. Looks like these guys aren't totally evil for the most part, maybe a couple of them, but they KNOW the effect they're having on the independents and don't really care. Not compared to their own missions. Watch out for Guild Leaders Pierce and Smith. They are gathering and researching for a Greater Working that I couldn't determine.

-Maia

Pierce and Smith? Who... right. Guild Leader Edgar Pierce of Munin's Wing, Jake's boss and the guy I was poaching a couple of Technopaths from. Guild Leader Patrick Smith, of Borealis. Both Wizards of some serious power, though understandably cagey about revealing their more specific specialties. If they were undertaking something in partnership, it was a Big Freaking Deal. I didn't have time to do more than skim the data, though it seemed to hold up to the analysis.

It just looked like the bigger guilds were turning all of their resources inwards. They were making the deliberate choice to keep their knowledge and materials out of the hands of the rest of the camp in order to pursue projects for their own betterment or vanity. Thing is... there was no way to know exactly what those projects were, or for what purpose. Refusal to share map data and new knowledge might be due to verification, or it might be to keep others from hunting in those grounds. Rare materials might be needed internally, or might be getting hoarded to hinder outside crafters. All I knew, again, is that they were doing so, and did not care about the effect it was having on the rest of the Camp.

The thoughts were heavy on my mind, almost enough so to make me miss that the waffles were fluffy enough to nearly float from the griddle to my plate. Almost. The fact that the sausages tasted good enough for nearby spiders to figuratively weave "eat this one" into their webs certainly helped.

After the team split up for the day, we made another discovery. Amber had, if anything, underestimated her brother's enthusiasm. Whitney, Paige, Gloria, Nibbles, and I arrived at the bus stop near the apartment building to find a certain mercury-skinned teenager already there waiting for us in his signature gray hoodie. I would like to note here that HIS stop was a couple of miles away. He either jogged over, or specifically took the bus several stops out of his way just to get more time with us. Equal parts endearing and frustrating, that, I'd hoped to get some more time to plan what I was going to say at the meeting. "Jay! Sir! Couldn't stand still so I jogged over this morning!"

My headache, which had been fading as my Inner Mirror repaired, decided that it was a good time to say hello again. "Nate, good to know you didn't get cold feet about all of this."

"Why would I be getting cold feet over joining the coolest profession of all time?"

"There's the first thing I need you to get out of your head. What we do is certainly very popular, the strongest among us are sometimes living like rock stars, and we get the opportunity to do a lot of real good. You have a long way to go before then. For that matter, if I hadn't gotten lucky and went viral, I'd still be struggling to make rent."

We got on the bus to start the trip to the Guild Hall, passing the time by chatting about some of the nitty gritty about life as a Delver. Balancing costs against the need to live, prioritizations while leveling, ensuring personal projects happen in order to prevent burnout, the basics of conduct at the Seattle Guild Hall.

He was less amused when I also assigned homework. Tough. If I had to do a class binder and research, so did he. At least on that part he had a bit of a head start, thanks to the tutoring I'd arranged for him a couple of weeks prior. Also mentioned that I expected him to keep up with his schoolwork as his main priority, other than specifically today. "After all, most Delvers leave the business early, and need a life to go to after that."

He liked that one even less.

The bus rolled up to camp without further incident. It was what was waiting for us that surprised me. Well, not what, but who. Chaske and Misun were expected, ready to interview our latest member, but they were accompanied by two others. The first, I knew directly. Stephen Goa, the tall and spindly Owlfolk, who I had so recently talked to his officers about. Same person I was about to ask his Guild Leader about. The other?

Everyone at camp knew her. I did, too, if only from when she was at Saturday's meeting. The writer Annabelle, the Archivist, was waiting with a sheet of paper in hand and an eyebrow raised. "Guild Leader Kithkin, even after the furor I saw last time we met I was not anticipating the kind of response the little arrangement has managed to garner. Advertising?"

I shook my head. "Just word of mouth. Advertising is for once I have everything formed and we go public. I'm almost afraid to ask what's on that paper."

"This isn't the signature page, but it's the tally as of an hour ago. Wild Pack was the last bunch to sign on this morning, bringing your current membership total to 179 Delvers."

At first, my brain registered that she said 79. I was duly impressed. A moment later, the fact that there was a one in the hundreds place caught up to me. I was equal parts shocked and terrified as I got the sheet from her and scanned the information on it. "In a day and a half? How?"

"Something about a lot of enthusiasm combined with you personally dueling someone about it, then going out and taking down a gate the next day along with recruiting a talented teenager. Plus the meeting. And your websites making it easy to check your information. In at least one case, and I quote, 'because Nibbles is too cute to belong to a bad guy.' Not sure how you want to take that one."

Nibbles grinned broadly. It was, after all, his just due to be too cute to turn down. Since he couldn't verbalize his response, I was obligated to. "I'll take it. Thank you for the information. I will need it very soon."

"That is approaching ten percent of the camp, including the part-timers. Your control might not be quite as direct, especially just yet, but it means that you have about the same level of resources as Golden Age assuming everyone works together."

My mind flashed back to my conversation with Dev the previous morning. "You don't know the half of it yet, but I can talk about the other side of things once they come to be." She nodded, and I decided to take things as they were. "Stephen, I can't say I expected to see you here."

His voice was the same melodious British accent I'd come to be familiar with. "I also heard about what was forming. Suffice to say, I want to transfer to Shield Against Shadows, but if Guild Leader Cartwright does not release me to do so then I will quit the Guild and sign on as an independent."

I blinked, then grinned. My smile was slightly feral, there. "In that case, our number is at least 182 Delvers by this evening. Best not blink, or it will change again. Chaske, Misun, I got permission directly to induct you two as well. You've been working with me for a while now, but welcome to my team officially." Their cheers were infectious, and I prayed it would be enough to cheer them up about missing Nathan's induction. "Stephen, your presence is welcome, but complicates things. Feel free to help give my newest apprentice," this while nodding at Nathan, "the tour of the Camp. I will need to wait for after the meeting to do inductions. That work for everyone here?"

Seven people muttered agreement.

"Oh, last thing. Nathan, while you are among your kind here, not everyone at camp is going to be a good person. Until you are better known and established, stay with the group. Whitney, Paige, and Gloria between them can handle just about anyone who gets belligerent or greedy. Implied tasks for the rest of you: keep Nate safe, and do not under any circumstances disclose his nature unless the person is known and trusted to myself or my Guild. Understood?"

Eight much more grave nods came back to me. Nathan was still a Metal Slime, no matter his humanoid form, and constantly at a significant risk of being murdered for what he was. Here, though Delvers tended to defend each other, anyone who decided to try for his life would be significantly more capable of getting it done than the average elsewhere.

They left to go and see major highlights... as a group. I turned to once again go to the Main Hall. There, I would face a gathering of some of the most dangerous individuals within hundreds of miles, who would nearly all have cause to either dislike or hate me personally by the time the meeting was through.

The life of a Guild Leader.