Chapter 5: Changeling Hardware v. 2.0. Human-Changeling OS v. 1.0
Friday 9:54AM MST: Mike’s House, Regina, SK. You know what? We’re spending a lot of time in this house so just sit back and relax!
I blink my eyes as I look up, I’m beside the mirror and there’s light coming in the window. I push upright fast and check the mirror.
“Pinea!” I say, but the image is in sync perfectly with me. I try to do the proper noun thing, but there’s only one voice. It’s a “normal” reflection, but it’s not me anymore. I bury my head in the carpet. I…I failed him. I told him we were going to get through this together…. Damnit Mike you worthless….
“Mike?”
“Wait….”
“Mike?”
“Please please tell me I’m not developing some sort of multiple personality disorder here.”
“What the buck is multiple personality disorder?”
“Pinea?”
“Yes?”
I don’t know what the mental equivalent of a hug is but maybe a flood of endorphins directed at the voice in my head would work. I feel it rebound so I guess that it does.
“Did it work?” He asks
“I think so, kinda. I feel like me…well as much me as I can with what’s going on outside of my… I think it’s OUR head.”
“I feel like me too I guess.”
I get up again and look at the mirror. It’s extremely weird at first because it feels like the two of us are competing to move head and forelegs. I give up trying so that Pinea can move things as he’s probably more familiar with the ‘hardware’ He tests legs and flutters wings in front of the mirror. I just stare numbly at ‘me’. I can feel everything, yet I’m moving nothing, and the mental image I’ve built up of what is me over my whole life is nowhere to be seen.
Suddenly I feel things sort of ‘reconnect’ to me as I feel and intense wave of sorrow.
“What’s wrong? I know it’s not the best situation….”
“That’s it then. I probably don’t exist back home. My soul must have been trapped in there. A ghost…. The lightning. I must be dead there.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I doubt I could be in two places at the same time Mike. It was, what do you call… the thing where something exists in two states until forced?”
“Schrodinger’s cat? A cat in a box is both alive and dead until an observation is made at which point they collapse into one reality. How did you know that?”
“I can sort of feel a few things that I think you know. Try me.”
I try to think of the hive he had mentioned before. Suddenly there are memories of the layout, the way the halls looked in the past and now. Vivid memories of someplace I’ve never been.
“This is pretty weird.” I say.
“You’re telling me? But I guess we opened the box last night, and now there’s one me. Here.”
“That’s just a hypothetical thought exercise. Maybe it’s not like that. Maybe eventually we get thrown back to our normal lives. Until then though we need to work out a time-share agreement on the body.”
We settle easily enough on a control situation. I’ll learn how to be a changeling, but in emergencies Pinea can take control. The idea is to get to the point where it doesn’t really matter who is ‘driving’. The other can ‘backseat drive’ spending more time analyzing what’s going on or just sit back.
That does seem to be the one advantage to the situation that we quickly realize. Concentration isn’t shared. So, it’s quite possible for us to truly multi-task. Someone can be thinking of baking while the other is contemplating how to balance a chemistry equation. We are literally two minds stuffed into this weird little body. If we don’t go crazy in the first month, I think our chances to make this work might not be bad. I don’t know what this would be like if our personalities were a lot more different. Maybe I’ll find out more the longer we’re like this. Maybe all that ‘synched’ stuff also meant a level of synchronicity in personality too? That might now be so bad.
We quickly hit upon an idea, creating a small mindscape with each of us in it, ala The Matrix in the training space as a way to communicate. Nebulous feelings oddly didn’t always translate well with words but throwing in visual cues seemed to work better for us. Also, a lot less weird and unusual, which we’d both had a lot of lately. I of course make myself look like Neo-changeling with black glasses and a sort of pony-ized version of a black trench coat. Pinea accuses me of trying to ruin a movie he wants to watch and not just grab second-hand memories of. He assures me there’s a big difference between the two. Still, he does agree to the Morpheus look for now. We also put a couch in the space. Got to be comfortable when talking.
“OK, first lesson is walking. One side then the other. So right front, right back left front left back. Not complicated.”
“Sir yes sir!” I salute.
“Hehe. Okay, just do it smartass.”
I take one step and faceplant in the rug.
“Smooooth,” Pinea says.
“I wasn’t ready,” I protest, getting back on my/our hooves.
“Okay. You ready now?”
“Yup. Let’s do this,” I say with as much determination as I can.
I take one step, but pick the wrong leg for the second and faceplant again
“How are you doing WORSE than when you were rushing to get that book last night?” Pinea asks.
“I was crawling with my front half then so there was no more down to fall to.”
“I think you were sort of moving your front correct though. Think of doing that perhaps, minus the actual crawling? Whatever weird ape your ancestors were from must have used all four limbs at SOME point.”
I get back up. Try and put my mind into what I did last night and try again. I get about eight or nine steps in before falling over to the side.
“Better. Again,” He says, but his avatar is clearly smirking.
It’s perhaps an hour later before I can get a basic but shaky walk down, but Pinea is happy with that, feeling that if I’m up now things will just get better with practice.
We try to finish up the leftovers from last night. I have to give over control for that, as he levitates the dish down to our level. That’s lesson three apparently. Things even taste a bit different in this form, but at least the meat dishes aren’t too bad. I’d been wondering but had been assured changelings tended towards being omnivores. I do have a bit of a craving for sugar, but I always had that.
We take a break after lunch, though it consists of me walking around the living room while we watch The Matrix. I fall a couple times still, but by the end a lot of the balance problems seem to be OK.
“Okay, ready for lesson two?”
“I was born ready!”
Pinea smirks, “Not for this one you weren’t. Shapeshifting.”
“Oof, yeah, this is going to suck.”
“Maybe not. It’s our main magic ability. If you know what you’re doing you can do exact copies of ponies or probably people. Anything from rocks to, well the flying kind of rocs. Some shapes you just totally make up could work too with a little practice. You can even go quite a bit bigger or smaller in size as I showed you a while ago in the mirror when you were sure this was all in your head. Guess what, now it is and I am too.
I roll my metaphorical eyes. “How big are we talking about here?”
“I’ve gone as big as a grizzly bear myself. I did see someone manage a full-grown dragon for a few seconds. Think of it like running. The harder you run the quicker you tire out. The more difference in weight, the harder it is to hold. Something close to our size though is easy to keep up with very little effort. Human size should be about the same. You could probably go the whole day without breaking a sweat. But it’s easy to tire yourself out with a big change.”
“Do we sweat?” Now that I thought about it….
“Focus.”
“Sorry, so what do we try to look like?”
“Well, the most useful, and I’d think easiest would be you.”
“Me?”
“Mike shape.”
“Oooooh. Gotcha. So what do I have to do?”
“Get the shape very clear in your mind. This is why Mike is best.”
“I sure am.”
“Shush. Okay, so imagine the form, then imagine DOING something in that form that you can’t do now. So, maybe, reaching up to grab something with your hands.”
We faceplant in the rug as I lift my forehooves. I quickly get back up.
“Aaaand sometimes that happens,” Pinea says, “Okay, first time is always hardest Mike. No worries.”
“Please be gentle.”
“You can be cocky when you start getting this right. Okay, so ummm, try to imagine the reaching thing again while still imagining standing. Like if you were trying to reach with arms that weren’t there, but you were determined to put arms up. Kind of forcing your body to make a decision it can’t actually do currently.
“Do the impossible. Okay, I think I can do that.”
“Do it a few times and it’s like walking.”
“Lots of faceplants?”
“You’re already at one on that.”
There’s a flash and suddenly I’m back as me, dressed as I was in the lab when this craziness started. I nearly fall over but catch myself.
“YES!”
There’s another flash and I’m back to my changeling self again.
“No!”
“Control! Control! You must learn control!” He says in a good Yoda impression. “Remember, once you get it, you have to hold it.”
“How do I do that?”
“Just keep the idea of the shape in your head. It doesn’t require a lot of concentration, but you should feel, I don’t know how to describe it… a tension? Like you want to snap back, but you’re just going to hold this a little tight. That means of course when we sleep, or if we were to get knocked out, we’re changing back.”
“So we’re going to do the practice and movie thing again?”
“Hey, I want to see Iron Man. Besides, you have to learn to hold a shape with distractions.”
***
Friday 1:07PM MST: Riverbank, Regina, SK
U skims through the trees, a large wolf made of logs chasing close behind her running down a river jogging path. “That’s it big boy. Nice succulent pony meat just for the taking.” She jiggles her tail to bait it more. The wolf growls in return.
She turns and looks ahead down the path through the trees towards the riverbank. Damn, got a gawker on the path. Will have to clean that up on the way back. Damn joggers always messing up her recon estimates.
“Anytime Q.”
The park bench she flies by flashes, turning into a man with a chainsaw on his arm. He brings the chainsaw up into the neck of the timberwolf, burying the blade deep getting sprayed with woodchips. The glowing yellow eyes of the beast flicker and then go out, the body collapsing into a pile of wood around it’s assailant.
“Groovy.”
“Really Q? Did you bring a chainsaw here JUST for that?” the pegasus says, hoof to her face.
He nods, form flashing again to a park worker with a chainsaw.
“C’mon U. You have to ENJOY this stuff,” He says with a smile.
She shakes her head and turns to the human male still there gawking. She plasters a big smile on, trying to look cute as she waves and slowly flies over. “Hey there.”
“Wha..wha…”
“Yeah, path needed a little thinning. This is what happens when you just let the woods run wild.”
“But but you are.”
“Yeah, Pegasus. Mythic horse of the gods. Nice to meetcha!”
The jogger numbly takes her hoof and shakes it as the other hoof with the lock mechanism on it finds the item at her side.
“Anyhow, I’m sure you have a lot of questions and OH MY GOD ANOTHER ONE BEHIND YOU!”
When the jogger turns she clocks him on the head with the truncheon, one of the gems flashing on it as they drop.
“Little energetic with that weren’t you? You know you only need to tap.”
“Walkers get a tap, joggers get a smack G,” she says, looking over to her side. A small black cat is smiling at her, and beside it a tan unicorn with a black cape is checking a small device.
“Update?” the cat asks.
“Six left. Most on the outskirts of town.”
“I’m getting seven.” the unicorn says still examining and adjusting the device. “Sorry we’re late, I didn’t know you were out of traps. You should have waited on the timberwolf.”
“It’s a class two,” U groans. “We can determine trap or neutralize on them. As to the pings we swept that intermittent one. It seems to be a glitch. We can check it out when we wrap up.”
“Went with the chainsaw instead of the boomstick this time Q?” the cat says.
“It was a timberwolf. What else do you use on lumber G?”
***
Chapter 6: The Great and Powerful Mike
Friday 3:12PM MST: Mike’s House (see, we’re back here)
I keep looking like Mike for most of the movie. I do drop it once when Pinea does the equivalent of shouting in my mind out of nowhere to distract me. I get back on and manage to hold it through the second shout though. I drop it finally when the movie is done.
“Like the walking, it’ll get better with practice,” He says. “Ready for the third lesson?”
“Yeah, sure. We’re covering a lot today. How many of these lessons are there?”
“Four. The last one is the last one because it’s kind of dangerous.”
“Dangerous?”
“Flight.”
“Really? Cool!”
“Yeah, it is. It’s just when we get enough altitude it’s not like walking and a little faceplant if we screw up. It’s more we become a crater.”
“Yeah, I’m putting that in the bad things I don’t want to do column.”
“I can take over if things start looking bad, so I think it’ll be okay Mike.”
“Okay… so I don’t really know how to do this one,” Pinea concedes as we get ready for lesson three.
“Not that reassuring a start.”
Pinea tries to levitate a few things so I can experience what it feels like. I try, but for some reason I just can’t seem to trigger anything, both of us getting more frustrated at this.
“I don’t know what else to try here Mike. It’s hard to put in words. For a lot of grubs it’s triggered by something like an accident. Kind of an instinctual protection thing. I could throw something but you’ll just dodge …. OH!”
“What?”
His avatar smiles in a way that I think he’s about to grow a curly mustache just so he could twist it menacingly.
I find myself lose control as we start to trot off.
“What are you doing Pinea?”
“You’ll see Mike.” He says as we trot into my bedroom.
We’re going over to the night table and looking at the lower drawer.
“Pinea…. no.”
“Whatever could you be storing in here that you’ve walled it off in your mind?” he says, avatar grinning.
“I get the feeling you have an idea, so let’s just leave this….”
“I think I want to see….”
I try to wrest control but he’s more familiar with how things work than I am and is managing to fight my attempts back.
“You just have to push it closed with magic,” he says putting a hoof on the edge, finding enough to hook onto, yanking it hard to open. We’re fighting hard for control now and then he quickly gives control to me as I panic.
“NO! I yell, horn glowing as it feels like something connects with my mind and the drawer slams closed. Actually, what happens is the whole table slams against the wall, shattering. Most stuff stays where is is, but the drawer above releases it’s contents as well. Both of us are in shock at the damage, but I’ve got the extra mortification on top. It’s hard to hold your head up when something rubbery in a tube has fallen and stuck on your horn.
Pinea seems scared at the damage, “I’m sorry Mike, I needed you ‘motivated’ I promise I won’t do that again.
No, you won’t,” I say, grumbling.
We survey the remains of the table.
“Is it always that violent?”
“No…I mean. I don’t think I was ever able to generate that much force ever. Can you try again, picking up some pieces gently?”
First, I pull off the item attached to our horn with my hooves. I doubt that will help matters. Next, I look at the remains of the table, concentrating on one of the larger pieces. I try to remember the feeling I had before, but this time doing it gently instead of in panic. There’s a faint blue glow around the piece of wood as it floats up a little in the air, as I gently lay it on the bed.
“Once you do it, it’s actually pretty easy. It’s just getting that first time.”
“I still dislike your teaching method for this one.”
“Really, I’m sorry Mike. I mean I’m curious now about that thing that got stuck on us, but perhaps now that it’s out there in the open….”
“Still not ready to share that.”
“Okay. That’s the lesson anyhow. Though Mike, that was a LOT of force. I still don’t know how we generated that much. There’s been so many weird things the last few days it could be any of them, but maybe we should re-visit this? There are some other basic spells I’ve seen others use. Some of them stuff that most changelings can’t use. Maybe we could take a try at some, though I won’t really be much help.”
“Okay. I’m up for it. So, what about lesson four?”
“Tonight, when it gets darker. We could try taking the form of a bird, but I don’t think we need any more things complicating this.”
***
Chapter 7: You Tail the High Road and I’ll Drake the Low Road
Friday 11:32PM MST: Riverbank Park, near city limits
We’re walking to a nearby park after driving out a ways from the downtown area. It’s a nice clear night out, moon shining bright in the sky. I’m looking like Mike tonight and carrying on a conversation with myself in my head. We have a fair way to walk to our destination despite the drive.
“So, you were mentioning other magic spells?” I ask.
“Yeah, I had a book for a while on it. They talked about basic spells and how they all could derive from telekinesis. Just changing the flow but it got technical after that.”
“The flow? Hmmm, I mean I suppose somepony could alter the way the force was applied. Yeah! You saw Star Wars…. Wait…somepony?”
“Sorry Mike, that’s probably from me, I lived in an area with a rather big pony country there. Just look up Equestria in my memories.”
“Oh, I see what you mean. Wow, and I thought you were colorful. Name of the place is a little heavy handed I suppose, but if they like it who am I to criticize. Looks really pretty.”
“You were saying about Star Wars? Oh, wait, I see what you mean. Things like ‘force pushing’. That’s basically all telekinesis. Would take a lot of power though.”
In our little ‘room’ I’m nodding now, “Exactly! But if it’s just shaped kinetic force and you can use it like a hand, can it be shaped in other ways?”
Pinea ponders a second, eyes going wide. “Oooh, yes! There had been a shield spell in that book. I didn’t quite get how they described it. I had tried it once years later, but it didn’t really work. This makes more sense. Oh! Or, concentrate the force along a thin line…”
“…as an offensive shot.” I finish.
In our head Pinea is literally prancing around thinking about new ways to alter and shape the force. Another idea sort of occurs to me, but I need to keep us from running into someone or dropping our shape as I’m pretty sure he’s gone off in his own world for now. When this is over, we’ll have to dedicate time to this.
We finally get to the park. It connects with the river but is very wide open covering several football fields worth of land. It’s wooded in some parts and wide open in others. Friday is maybe not the BEST night for being out here, but it’s still early enough that people won’t be staggering out of bars to find a place to do privately do weird things with each other yet. We’re here doing our weird stuff first!
“Here we are Pinea. This should be enough space, yes?”
“What? Oh yes. This is perfect. We can walk towards the wooded area a bit more and get started.”
I look around a bit, seeing nobody I drop back to changeling form and gallop out. I’ve wanted to do this all day today, and I only fall twice in the process. Pinea is clearly enjoying it too. A lot of time indoors can be really stifling.
“Okay. Lesson four. Flight.”
“Bring it on!” I’m both a little scared and really thrilled for this one.
“Okay, most of it is like walking. It’s about balance. You’re just going to have to worry about wobbling up and down as well as left and right. So, first thing is unfold your wings.
I try and can’t seem to get anything to move, looking over my shoulder at my back.
“Okay, taking over,” Pinea says. “I’m going to move them and see if you can feel what to do when I do it.”
Immediately I see our hard outerwings raise, feeling something near my shoulders. It sort of feels like shrugging in a new direction. The lacy underwings fold out next. Those feel really odd. I don’t think I would have thought that’s how they felt to move. Like clenching your sides somehow.
Pinea puts our wings away. “Okay Mike give it another go.”
I think on this and slowly get the outers up, but it’s a couple tries before the underwings obey. I try to flex both, which takes a lot of effort.
“There you have it. I just realized you might have one advantage here. The underwings are the only ones that beat, so it’s more like dealing with just two legs than four.”
“That are strapped to my sides. This still feels so weird!”
“So, try to flex the tail… oh, you got that one right away. Good! That’s going to help with balance. Up and down is some wing angling and amount of power. I think some of it you just kind of have to feel it.”
“OK, so what’s next?”
“Now you flap hard. Try to hover.”
I try. Once I can isolate the muscles it’s not that bad. Not a massive amount of effort but they are moving pretty fast. I start to feel my hooves lifting off. I start wobbling as soon as they leave the ground and fall on my side.
“Well THIS part feels familiar,” I say to Pinea as he laughs
“So, tail, and you can give more or less power to each side. Leaning into a side can help.”
“Gotcha!”
Take off number two. Still shaky, but I’m making some adjustments and staying generally stable until I start pitching forward and faceplant.
“This is also familiar.”
“It’s less things to move but finer control,” Pinea offers. “Just have to keep trying.”
About twenty-five minutes go by with a lot of falls, but I can maintain it better each time. Pinea is very patient with me, offering suggestions each time.
“Okay, I think you got it. Now skim the ground.”
I’d been trying to move a little in each direction during hovering. It felt good to move in a direction with a little speed now. When I get asked to stop I reverse direction for a second and halt in space. Turns are harder, but after three crashes I get the idea of turning.
“Okay, so now all of that, but higher up. You ready for it Mike?”
I mentally gulp
“You don’t have to if you don’t want to. Remember, we’re doing this together. If you start to fall I can take over.”
“Got to do it sometime.”
“That’s the spirit. All on you for now then Mike. There may be more wind the higher you go. We dealt with a few gusts already. You can do this.”
I flap harder as we start to rise more. I resolve to do the “do not look at the ground” thing to start, but of course as I go up the horizon goes down, so now I’ve failed at that. I feel my heart rush.
“You’re doing good. Stay calm. I got you.”
Well, I’ve already looked down once, so I look straight down. About thirty feet up now. Don’t get freaked out, you’re equipped for this now.
“I am NOT going to fall with bucking wings! Wait, Bucking?”
“Sorry, ponyism again.”
“I actually like that one. I’m using that!” I think as I start to move forward. Okay, not bad. Try not to think about becoming street pizza or the world’s most colorful lawn dart. Little more speed. Good. Light turn. Good.
“See, you got this Mike! Try something a bit harder. Remember, I got you.”
I nod and build a bit more speed, doing a harder bank. It feels a little odd, but I stick it. I try another, trying to flap a little less and let the air take me, but we’re not as built for gliding, I think. I can feel Pinea starting to get a little excited at this too. It’s at this point I realize we’ve got rather high, like maybe a hundred feet. Now I’m starting to get a little worried again.
“So, umm, how about reducing altitude?”
“Cut your flapping a bit, and you can try to glide down some. Some of those steeper turns also work well. You can also angle your body down. That’ll get us down pretty fast, but just remember to give time to reduce speed before the ground reduces all the speed all at once.”
“Okay.” I start with a little less flap and more glide. I think it may be working.
“Good, you can try a bit more.”
I go for a corkscrew turn. I like that one a lot and I’m definitely a little lower.
“Want to try the dive?” Pinea asks, seeming more confident about me now.
“Oookay, sure.”
I angle down, and I start to drop fast. This is faster than I was expecting and I’m really getting that feeling in the stomach when you drop fast. I go to re-angle my wings but a gust hits and partly flips me. I’m trying several things now to right myself but I’m also shifting to panic mode. Hello lawn dart…
Pinea grabs control, flapping hard and pulling us out, swooping over the trees near the river, landing a bit hard, but still a four-hoof landing.
“I guess we’ll work on pulling out of dives next time. You OK Mike? You actually did really well up there.”
I’m still stressed out, but I’m sure he knows that. “Not so big on the end, but the early stuff was awesome! We need to come out here again.”
“I do like it out here. Lots of room. Good to stretch hooves and wings. I…I suppose this is home now.”
“Pinea?”
“Sorry, just thinking back to home. I guess here is where I am now.”
In our little ‘room’ I put a leg around him as we sit and look across the dark field and forest.
“This place isn’t so bad. It has its problems, but there’s so many places to go and see.”
“It’s pretty good company too.”
I nod, “Really good company. I guess we’re kind of stuck with one another.”
“I’ve no complaints so far.” Pinea says
“I have one that has to do with a certain drawer.”
Pinea falls over laughing and as he’s still at the wheel it must look like this one lone changeling has just spontaneously broken out into a laughing fit for no reason. Wait, maybe this was what was happening with cats that would randomly freak out.
We’re snapped out of it by an audible hiss and a human scream.
Pinea is on his feet in an instant as I scan around, ears flicking to try and center the sound. Another scream from the wooded area by the river.
“A lot of animals can follow the river into town,” I offer. “Cougars are a particular problem. What are you doing?”
“Going to help. Problem?”
“Nono. I’m not often the brave type so you got this. I don’t know a lot about hand to hoof combat.”
We gallop down. I feel useless right about now. There’s got to be something I can do here. Wait, the stuff we were talking about earlier about telekinesis. I ponder on how one of these may work…
***
Mike’s working on something so it’s on me. He mentioned a cougar, so I try shifting to that. Some stealth but big enough to not attract predators. I bound into the tree line then stalk. I do that for a second before realizing whatever is up ahead is putting out enough noise that it’s not trying to hide. I get through the trees to see what looks like two humans, one man one woman. He’s down on the ground holding his leg. She’s by him with a bag, trying to use it as a weapon against their attacker, a six-foot-long lizard, smoke coming from its mouth.
“Is that a DRAGON?”
It’s a drake Mike. They’re nasty but a dragon is way bigger, nastier and intelligent. You don’t have these?”
“No! I’m sure I’d remember that thing! What do you know about it?”
“Pretty tough armor. Territorial. Not that bright. I think I can lure it away, but they can be fast sometimes.”
“Okay, working on that offensive spell you talked about.”
“That was just an idea.”
“It’s a backup plan. I’m not going to be much help here otherwise.”
I hate to admit it but he’s right in this situation. He’s getting better but I have years of this as my body. Now to get its attention. I pounce and roar at it, raking claws across it. No damage, but I have its attention. I growl at it so its fixated on me. The man is trying to get up. They’ll need a couple minutes to get out of here.
It lunges at me, as I barely dodge, the claws getting a little fur, but no blood. I turn tail and run, looking behind to make sure. Yup, they were vicious but not bright. We’ve got some distance between the couple now, so I shift back, but they’ll still need time to get away. I could go to a bear or crocodile, but they were slower, and neither is going to get through that armor.
It strikes again. I didn’t pay attention and it latches onto my leg. The teeth aren’t through my exoskeleton yet, but I’m in trouble especially if it uses its fire. I shift to a mouse to break the hold, then immediately back to myself. It strikes again getting a hold on another leg.
“I think I have it! Give me control a second!”
I’m scared, and I don’t know Mike can handle it, but I need to trust him.
***
I’m in control again. I charge my horn. I imagine the hand compressed to the dimeter of a quarter, trying to impart as much force as in the bedroom or more. With this monster on my leg I certainly have the urgency. Shit, how do you aim a horn? Point and shoot? Give it a shot! I fire and then hand off to Pinea.
***
There’s a flash of light and the pressure around my leg loosens as I pull at it. I look down. The drake’s dead. A large divot in the ground where the back half should be.
“Ohmygod! I didn’t mean it to be THAT strong! I just wanted to hurt it a little, but I wanted to get through the armor,” Mike is yelling in my mind.
I back up as its jaws let go. No damage, but my leg does hurt a little. I can’t take my eyes off the hole in the ground. The divot is so big.
“WHAT WAS THAT?”
“I…I…I didn’t know it had that much power.”
“There…there’s no way we should be able to do that Mike. That kind of power is top-tier mage-level stuff.”
“Pinea, we should get out of here. Animal control will be around soon. We need to find a safe place, sit down and figure this out.” I hear Mike say. He’s clearly scared. We both are.
***
“Hey L, looks like we got beat to this one. Take a look,” G says, poking the body with a hoof.
The unicorn whistles low. “Owch! Local hunters perhaps? I don’t know a gun that does that much damage though. That’s really good penetration on a drake.”
“You mean half gone.”
“Yeah.”
“Local report in said a monster attacked a couple then a cougar got into a fight with it.”
“Cougar with a railgun maybe,” L says, kneeling casting a light spell to examine the hole, poking something in it, digging a bit.
G sighs, “I guess I’ll bag it then. Hey, one less problem.”
“Maybe not,” L says, standing up. “There’s no slug in the hole. This wasn’t a common gun. Heck I doubt a common gun does that much damage on a drake.”
“Anything else to go on?”
“No charring of the wound or dirt, more like it was punched out at a small diameter with massive force. I suppose someone could have shot it with something pretty big, but there’d not be much reason to dig the projectile out.”
“Telekinetic?”
“Could be. Maybe monster on monster violence. If whatever took it out is packing this though we should be careful.”
“I’ll let the others know. Whatever the case, sure helped those folks out and made things easier for us tonight. Last thing I need to do is try and infiltrate a hospital or morgue.”