Chapter Forty
The conversations around the room faded out to faint squawking as Harmony focused her attention on Alex's soul. She'd given her instructions and had to trust Adric to manage the people he brought in. They should be used to following his orders by now.
Using her blood sickle pierced just above Alex's heart, focusing on entering not only his flesh but his soul container through that extension of herself, and with soul sight being a sense that didn't primarily use her eyes, she used that to get a vision and feel of what she'd be working with. Even with the instructions to let her in, the young man's automatic defenses churned into action.
"Too much violence." As useful as the sickle was, its nature was an irritant. It screamed– "I'm going to murder you!" –Because its very existence was built around violent intent.
Removing the tool, she placed her finger in the incision with a small pulse of [Renew Spirit] mixed with [Cold Touch] to calm the irritation. Eventually, there would be a battle, but whatever groundwork she could lay down now should make it easier when it happened.
Adric might be worried, but he'd spent weeks as a prisoner while she trained with Pappi Viner in the Ascendant Games on how to do soul surgeries in preparation for Princess Rosaline and Maxwell. Sure, she had no idea exactly how to solve the problem, but the astral spirit had left her with a good foundation to start, even if focused on battle trauma and foreign energy. Figuring out where internal defense would come from, in that way, the sickle had shown where attacks would come when the time came. It was still important to map out and plan a defense for when she needed to cut deep.
Massaging Alex's soul, she could feel the bear under the surface, pervasive to everything. She'd seen him transform, how everything would twist, the bear rising to the surface while Alex would be stuffed down. She'd chosen to start at the heart because while all the other skills had bear-like forms, his remained the same, so the equilibrium of man-bear was greatest there as it directed stamina in his body.
Harmony observed more than prodded. Where she wanted a closer look, a burst of [Renew Spirit] attuned to a frequency of energy radiated out, allowing her to map out Alex's system. There were no outside influences, and besides the quirk of the boy's unusual body type hampering his confidence and school projects, he was healthy and might grow out of the problem over time.
There was no good reason to do this, other than that Alex was being foolish and deluding himself. A boy of no brain at all, like most boys. Maybe that would make the difficult aspect of this job easier? She'd have to go in and interact with his mind, more than simply erasing recent events as she did with Osmark or ripping through like she had to with Princess Rose. Foolish as he was, he said yes, and she wanted to see what she could accomplish.
“Hold him down. I'm going in. “ Authority punctuated the warning, and all that prep work went into play.
With her free hand, she took her sickle and made the tip sink into the top of Alex's skull. The hand already with one finger in his chest phased with [Claim the Remains of Power] to grasp his heart skill. Without him being dead, all it did was allow some minor purchase inside him.
Mind, body, soul. A delicate operation like this required sacrifice. [Stride Before The Fall] brought out an echo of herself. Her soul and mind without a body, a projection real enough to have skills, though every layer of reality but the physical. A creation unstable to the point that it wouldn't be the version of her who lived. Maxwell’s copies were similarly doomed to die when he summoned her. She’d learned from that and from when she'd first stumbled into this trick accidentally back when He changed his [Knight’s Oath] at the whorehouse in Naewauld, nearly costing her life.
The echo entered Alex's mind while she fought to bring out enough of the bear to make this work. It was a lot of physically pulling on the man’s soul.
As an echo, Harmony expected to tackle recent memories, confused thoughts, and childhood trauma, either as images, emotions, or scenes she would be forced into. What she hadn’t seen coming was the feeling of physically standing naked in sparse woods with sunlight filtering through the trees, birds chirping, and an owl hooting in the distance.
“My family’s ancestral woods. We’d spend every summer here. I earned my body type. But now IT is in the woods with me.” The child who appeared was clearly a young Alex, pre-choice.
A roar in the distance brought a leaf-shaking wind, causing the child to hide behind Harmony. She could physically feel him press up behind her, using her as a shield between her and the beast.
“And how did the bear come to you?” Harmony asked as she separated and stared down at the boy. Alex never spoke of how he gained his body type, just that it was a family thing.
“As realities ended and stories died, the god that brought my family here to these woods had friends, animals, fragments, and figments that run through those born of his line. One was a tiger. My uncle had a touch of that.” Alex chuckled fondly. “I guess that’s why I like Tony so much. My aunt earned an owl. None as great or infrequent as the bear.”
Alex's clothes shifted as his body grew older; gone was the shirt, replaced with pictograms of animals playing in the woods. “Our family ritual is that those new to their choice take storied markings on their skin and drink vermillion-spotted mushroom tea, so that for three days we roam these woods with our souls open. The tea twists your mind so memories are patchy." The woods blurred into a rainbow swirl of color before refocusing as those memories were lost. ”I came back muddy, afraid, the bear now inside me. It’s no great story like you defeating a dungeon. He'd roar in my chest as I climbed every level, howling to get out.” Alex aged further as his words exited his mouth.
The teen who finished was nearly Harmony’s height and made her wish her spirit form had clothes. There was Night, but would Alex remember? Secrets over modesty. “Then the bear is a force of good in your family?”
Outside of Alex’s mind, Harmony urged the bear into the fullness of his soul, not trying for a full transformation, but a spiritual density on par with the monster-man mix around his heart. The changes in his container and body were mostly to accommodate the transformation to the bear and back. The biggest hindrance was how long that took. If the density issue is resolved, that might help there, too. When he evolved, the process must not have gone right, as most of Alex’s soul felt too much like someone without even a half-step body type. But because he hasn't quickened yet, she could bend some rules with her stat of connections and use [Claim] merged with her previous usage of [Shadowed Graves] to lure it like she was a sweet bit of honey.
The whole process started to stir up a lot of warning signs in Alex’s soul. “You asked me to do this.” She reminded him from inside his soul space, her voice echoing outside as she spoke there as well. It’s not like he was sick and dying. All of her skills worked better on those who were dying. This healthy patient magic was rotting bullshit when it was better when they were at the edge of death, or you beat some sense into them a bit first.
When the aggressive surge came in his soul. Harmony held on, but her senses were knocked out of him briefly.
The room was a mess, as the metal table he was on was dented where his back had been pounded into it. Tasha went flying, thrown off by the arm she was holding down. His now free limb lashed about.
“I told you not to let go.” Adric barked.
“He was in pain!” Tasha yelled back
Harmony grunted as she took the wild punch. Adric needed to handle this mess and ordered as much through their primal bond as she dove back into his soul. There, she knocked out two offensive skills with [Final Silence] before he could activate them. She reminded the other part of her in Alex’s mind to work faster.
In the woods, Alex screamed, “He’s a terror! You think my family ever managed to train one? That’s why they had me go on The Academy route.” Trees crashed in the distance as the roar brought a stronger wind. “Why are you making IT come closer?!” Alex continued, panicked, looking his age once more.
“You asked me to do this.” Harmony reminded him with a punch of authority in his mental space.
“NO–I–NEVER!” Alex attacked his face, contorted with pain and confusion.
The surprise was that he snaked forward with skill and talent he’d failed to display in practice. A burst of speed, he lunged palm open towards Harmony’s chest.
“No feeling me up.” She joked, trying to break him away from his panicked intent.
No response but a snapping kick towards her neck.
Harmony found herself dancing away, taking blows without returning them. The goal was not to mentally cripple the boy. Causing any damage to this mental construct might have that kind of potential. This was enough of unknown territory; there was no risking it. But the hits he was making destabilized her presence, and only when she edged in one direction did he hesitate. Every time she stepped deeper towards his monster.
“You’re no longer that muddy, afraid child. You’re a man in these woods, and behind me is the bear. You’re sharing the same place, and I don’t care how far away you try to keep him. You need to make this right, but right now you’re not the reasonable one. I have a better shot with that wild thing that frightens you. You said you wanted to work on this. But I’m going with the bear.”
“You Can’t! It’s not safe!” Alex yelled as Harmony turned away, his voice getting younger.
Harmony darted deeper into the woods towards the increasing sounds of the beast. A quick glance back showed Alex back to being that young boy, before the trees obscured him.
The roars, the closer she got, the less they were cries to frighten and more cries built on a deep hollow fear and loneliness.”
It was only because the soul was close to equilibrium that she was able to face the bear. Everyone sweated and struggled to hold Alex in place to allow for this chance event. Adric wasn’t wrong that this needed to be a team effort. And behind a cluster of trees, but for his sobbing howls, she nearly missed him.
For all his oversized cries and monstrous size and shape in the practice arena, the bear in the woods was but knee high, small, golden, and taken to wearing that red shirt they’d fitted him for practicing in combat training and classes. Even Alex was a child in this mental landscape, and this bear barely had any more experiences or memories than those granted during its brief time in the world after transformation. Who wouldn’t be angry and confused when born with no memories or connections? Fear-based ball training might have been a bit harsh for the furry being.
The unexpected sight had Harmony searching for her words. “Aren’t you a silly little lonely bear?” His fears had been quite clear in the testing, being stuck and alone, just the way he was living now. “You just want some friends? I know we’ve played well together, busting up those golems. How about I pick you up and take you to a little boy who is also lost in these woods? Then you two can get to know each other."
When the bear reached for uppies, Harmony swung the creature into her arms, which produced a bout of giggles. It was time to reintroduce Alex to his Monster, and boy, wouldn’t he be surprised.