Heating up a couple cans of chicken noodle soup constituted making breakfast nowadays, but eating with Reeanth wasn’t the restful activity one would hope for. Mulling over what the various immortals said in their carelessness over the past day was hopeless as the Centauri soldier (now sorceress) glared at me. Her vision now literally was painful, her eyes emitting beams of light that saw more than they should while scouring off the top layer of flesh.

“I said I was sorry!” The glare didn’t stop.

“Seriously, turn that shit off woman.” The circumference of light pouring from her eyes lessened but the intensity picked up, as if a sick kid were burning ants through a microscope. My natural regeneration via flesh sorcery was more than enough to keep the damage to a minimum, but my temper was starting to pick up.

“I’m going to give you to the count of three,” I growled, picturing myself talking to a child as my flesh steamed and regrew. For a split second, the light intensified then shut off. The hand holding the spoonful of soup trembled as I contemplated burying her way down deep in the earth, or making Spot learn what human tasted like. Sometimes, imagining random thoughts of violence helped keep me sane, like thinking about running people over in horrible highway traffic.

“That’s better. How was I supposed to know there were weird boundaries about messing with someone’s magic? For all I knew, you knew nothing and fucked the whole thing up.” Her silence was a sharp riposte to my ignorance.

Looking down at my bowl and taking another bite, I murmured through the food, “Guess I should;ve let you be fucked up. Then at least I wouldn’t have to deal with some psycho who got pissed off with me helping her.”

It’s like modern society all over again, with some certain kinds of people acting like assholes when you hold a door open for them. Everyone knows what I’m talking about, instead of saying a simple ‘thank you’ and continuing on their day, the shitstain of society goes off on how they could have gotten it themselves or “what, I’m too weak to get my own door?’. Fuck them. It’s called being nice or polite, or having basic manners. Some things never change.

“You know what?” I growled, looking back up at her, “You’re swore your service to me, either you get your shit together or I’ll make you butt-fuckin’ ugly, literally. I’m a damn flesh sorcerer and that would be waaaay too easy. Think pimples on your face and your butt while you struggle with buck teeth.”

Her attitude ceased, or at least the outer show of it did. One of the things I figured out from the flesh copy of Reeanth’s brain that wasn’t encrypted is that the concept of privacy seems to have a much greater social consequence in the Centauri society. It seemed to be related to everyone having magic on some level. Because magic is an exercise of the soul, at least in part, the Centauri regarded the inner workings of their soul as taboo to outsiders, the way some fundamentalist religions of old held the burka in regards to the faces of their women. Some things were just kept secret for the sake of it.

“I won’t do it again if I can help it, and besides, we went over this. Random bits and pieces of the power were stuck in the wrong spots,” I explained as I wolfed down breakfast. “Anyways, magical sight and some kind of eye-beam that hurts? Wonder what it’ll do to some mutated animals?” The attempt at humor didn’t help.

Still not talking to me, Reeanth’s eyebrows rose as her curiosity got the best of her. “Yes, we’re going east. Gotta find some random dude and then he’ll help me get my brother, supposedly.”

Angrily throwing her soup back, Reeanth slammed her bowl into the table and walked away. “Fine! Stay her and guard the damn tree!” I yelled at her rapidly diminishing figure. “AND DON’T DO ANYTHING STUPID!”

Grabbing the ball off the floor that used to be sentient Gungnir, I walked outside and leaned my back on the tree noting that the sun was still rising to the east, the direction I needed to go. Looking down at the compact sphere of magical crystal and wood, I held a moment of silence for Gungnir. My magical senses told me that it was still technically the same thing as it was two days ago, but the driving intelligence was gone. With a flex of will, it morphed into a tri-bladed spear, then into a small javelin and then into a crystal-capped staff. Stabbing the metal-tipped base into the dirt, I pulled a small bit of energy from the earth up through the staff, let make its way through my body and then back out my arm as it reached its final destination in the crystal blades. A soft pulse let me know that non-sentient Gungnir was full up on energy, that and the way it thrummed with power, a barely audible hum coming from the weapon.

Uhg, this reminded me of my old nemesis, or the previously conquered issue that plagues all magic users, mana. The personal generators I had that converted matter into mana, kinda like a nuclear process, didn’t work anymore due to the heightened levels of ambient mana in the atmosphere interfering with the delicate process. The newer idea of using Gungnir as an energy tap while walking on ley lines held some promise, but I couldn’t guarantee that I’d always be walking on a ley line. Using my new sorcery of consciousness, I felt the emanations of my soul, how the living part of me that the old earth didn’t believe existed created mana by the simple fact of living, but not too much. It made or exuded more than I needed at any given time when I wasn’t doing anything, but the output wasn’t overly huge. What was big was how much I could hold of my excess, but that paled in comparison to what Svalinn, my arm gauntlet shields, and Gungnir, my shifting staff weapon, could hold.

Remembering my old gear, the weight vest filled with energy storing crystals, I began conjuring and shaping small diamonds roughly the size of a twenty-first century phone and then placing them on the ground. That old concept was good, but I could make it far more efficient. With a bit more power, I forced the small diamond plates to have a curved shape so they would contour better to my body. Then after calling Spot over, I used flesh sorcery to take a small piece of bone armor off his knee and then began making it grow into various sizes as armor coverings. In the concave curve of the shell-like coverings, I input various slots where the crystals would go, and then used earth sorcery to carve runes of energy storage and stasis in the diamonds.

Fitting the ten new coverings on top of various armor parts, I then floundered about with my mind for a bit, managing to make a crude automated process that ran like a background program to direct the overflow of mana that I produced into the new storage containers placed around my body. Now, when I’m not doing anything or am going from place to place, my mind would automatically direct mana that I wasn’t using into the batteries, Svalinn, or Gungnir. With this, I could hold many times more mana than my own personal well of magic, and with the magical weapons at my disposal, I could concentrate power greater than what I could summon at any given time or tap into the ambient mana much more efficiently. Now I know why wizards or sorcerers went bonkers for magical weaponry, it’s a force multiplier. It’s like giving a guy a freaking machine gun when he’s used a small knife for self defense his entire life.

Magic batteries, check, epic named weapons, check. Taking another couple minutes, I took inventory of the flashbang light grenades I had in my pockets and then ran through all the runes silver and gold carved into my armor. With everything in working order, I crawled up Spot’s back using his bony protrusions and attached Gungnir to my back.

With his own brand of flesh sorcery modeled after my own, Spot didn’t need any words to know what I wanted. The big red lizard of a dog took off east like a bat outta hell, and the jolt of his excitement flooded through me. On a side note, I could feel that this mutated dog contained and produced enough mana to be an actual nuclear power plant. I could feel his joy as every living thing in the gigantic forest fled knowing that they were much lower on the food chain than Spot.The brown redwood sized trees blurred as the canine easily went over forty miles an hour, hopping over small inlets from the Rapphannock river, darting over fallen logs and underbrush. While my ride was horribly bumpy, I molded parts of bone sticking out of Spot’s spine to have handholds for me. Finally getting a legitimate grip, I reached out with my magical senses, trying to feel the life, the nature around me.

This wasn’t like being up in the air, where everything is in plain sight. Riding Spot to some unknown guy in an unknown situation for an unknown purpose for a chance at helping out my brother was the least of my worries. Falling was a serious concern, even with the handholds. Dying after falling was a more serious concern, but I had a lot of faith in my armor to prevent that. The situation itself, or the way it was phrased was cause for concern. I’m fucking powerful, and Merlin said that I would need this guy’s help, which meant that either what I’m going up against is ridiculous, or this guy is as ridiculous as me. I’m not sure I liked either of those scenarios. A third possibility did present itself, in that maybe Merlin just wanted me to rescue somebody for some reason I didn’t know yet. Maybe another distant relative descended from Merlin’s randier days. Who knows.

Spot’s sudden stop launched me into the back of his thick bony neck, where I bounced off with way too much momentum. Luckily, my magical armor engaged a force field preventing an unplanned broken nose, but it did slam my ass back down on Spot’s back. We’d been going at a good clip for a while now and my butt had gotten used to the cadence, enticing me into not paying attention. A low rumbling sound came from deep inside my four legged vehicle. “Come on now lassie, use your words. I know Sammy ain’t in no well,” I grumbled as I hopped off, pulling Gungnir off my back and morphing it into a spear. “Let’s see what’s got you all riled up.”

A huge roar coupled with many simultaneous smaller screams answered my good natured complaining, but the smell was so bad that it hit me before the visual input did. Many small piles of what could only be poo were everywhere. Through the haze of my screaming nose and watering eyes, I made out a giant ape wielding a stone axe surrounded by many smaller monkeys that were either really really angry, or really really happy. But I couldn’t really tell which. What I could tell, was that Kong was not happy to see us. The damn monkey that the Ripple set free was still here, but this time, the little bitch had an army.

Luckily for me, I had Spot. My faithful dragon-mutated giant dog crouched low growling deep in his throat, as if he were straight up ready to brawl but waiting for my word to go. While the bigger animals were glaring at each other waiting for the other to make the first move, I noticed that all of the other monkeys were focused elsewhere. Following their line of sight, a way less hairy monkey up on a thick tree branch holding a banana the size of a small suitcase while fighting off the much hairier monkeys. Quickly conjuring some water to clean out my eyes, I took another look and saw that the not-hairy monkey was actually a young man, probably around fifteen years old. Oh the balls on that kid. The weird grace he carried himself with spoke of either years of gymnastic training or something more magical at play. The hand not carrying the over-sized banana was wielding a thin staff that sparked when it came in contact with a monkey.

“That banana better be worth it dude!” I yelled up at the kid, “Cause these monkeys ain’t gonna stop!”

My poorly timed shout knocked the kid off his game causing him to misstep just enough for one monkey to yank his feet out from under him. “Fetch!” I screamed at Spot who understand all too well what I didn’t say. My dog bolted to where the kid was falling while I tossed a small flashbang pebble at Kong’s feet. I purposefully made it much less powerful as to not overly piss him off.

“Hey, remember me big guy?” I said to Kong, “Don’t want any trouble today, but I’m leaving with that kid and the banana.”

Kong’s howl said otherwise.

I grabbed Gungnir off my back and pointed it at Kong, light exploding menacingly from the crystal blades. “Hold on right there. I’ve made some mistakes in the past but I can sure as hell repeat them. Now what’s it gonna be big guy?”

Raising the arm rippling with enough muscle to tear out a mountain, Kong pointed his axe at me and roared.

“Fine, fuck you too dick. Let’s see how you like this!” A tiny bit of fear mixed with the adrenaline coursing through me. Flexing my versatile earth sorcery, I used the gravity aspect to greatly increase the weight of the stone axe so much that it just slipped right out of Kong’s hand. Three bounds later I put my hand on the axe and banished it. The look on his almost human face was worth it. “Yes, I gave you that axe, and at the risk of sounding like a suburban mom, I could take it away.”

Pointing Gungnir at Kong again, pulsing lights and all, I let just a teensy bit of anger reach my eyes. “Anything else you want me to remove fatty?”

Kong took a step back and looked at his screeching army. With another roar and a shaking finger, he pointed at me. “Shit, shit, shit,” I freaked, turning and sprinting to Spot, who was proudly holding his catch of the day. “Some help here mutt?” I yelled frantically, “And drop the kid!”

A wet splat heralded the sad looking boy as he desperately tried to defend his fruit. I reached Spot’s side and pivoted as he stood at full height over the kid. “What’s your name kid?” I asked hurriedly, “Chop chop let’s go. Spot’s scary for about three minutes before people realize his weakness.”

“My name’s Johnny,” the messy splatter said, “And what’s his weakness?”

“Belly rubs, duh? Never met a dog before?”

Wisely forsaking an answer, Johnny simply pointed at the oncoming tide of raging monkeys. “Shut your eyes, trust me,” I said as I grabbed a handful of my flashbang pebbles and threw them, overloading them with extra mana just before they left my hand. As the cacophony of fun went off about twenty feet away, I turned and pulled Spot’s head down and used he and I to cover Johnny just for a second a two, then turned back around. All of the monkeys were on the ground, clawing at their eyes and ears. Even Kong was leaning on a tree howling in pain, big crocodile tears leaking out between his fingers.

Spot started a high pitched keening sound which cut off after ten seconds. I felt his flesh sorcery healing up his eardrums and retinas. While was going on, a couple well placed flexes of my earth sorcery later and all of the monkeys were buried in the earth up to their necks. Kong was too big to quickly bury, but I knew for a fact he knew who the top dog was. The smaller apes, man, I was actually more afraid of them. The bajillion piles of rancid poo didn’t come from Kong.

I grabbed Johnny and sent a pulse of healing magic into him just before hurling him up on top of Spot where I joined him. “All right boy, hush now,” I cooed to Spot as his healed eyes focused on the crowd of helpless prey. “Now is not the time.” Spot harrumphed to show what he thought of that, but did quickly pad past the dazed troop.

Ten minutes of silent riding later, Spot shook us off and jumped in the nearby creek, lapping it up with his surfboard sized tongue.

“This shit really happening?” Johnny asked me.

Finally getting a good look at him, I noticed that he wasn’t white, but Oriental of one flavor or another. Probably got some Japanese in him, not that it really matters, not that it really ever did. Humanity has much bigger issues to worry about than our old divisions. How petty and small we must seem to other races, which makes me wonder what stupid things they discriminate about. Can’t believe that my mind can wander around like this, but really, wait. Wander . . . thinking . . . holy shit. My thought process is way faster than usual, I can see it, or visualize it. Hohohoho, hell yeah! Right about now, Johnny actually finished asking the phrase that I saw him asking, like right now, his lips just closed. Sweet. If this is something I can get a serious handle on, maybe I might just live past a year. Somehow, probably related to my consciousness sorcery, my brain is thinking at a higher rpm, giving me precious seconds to think and decide and plan, and I use it to wonder about alien discrimination. Can’t fix stupid huh?

“Yes this shit is happening, no it will not stop, yes we need to go, and I’ll tell you more later.” My rapid fire answers shut him up for a second, which he used to take a deep breath.

“Yes that’s my dog, no that’s not my monkey but it used to be, I’m a sorcerer. What are you?”

“Cultivator!” he answered quickly.

“Haha!” I exclaimed, “My wife taught me that trick. Get people nodding or agreeing with you with rapid fire questions and answer and then hit them with one. Works half the time!”

A little bit of red colored his cheeks. “Don’t worry, whatever the hell you have is probably cool too,” I said, laughing at his discomfort. “But trust me, magic is better.”