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Pain was its world. It had ALWAYS been its world. Every limping step the vulpimancer took was a fresh jolt of fire radiating from the deep gash Mike's sword had carved into its hind leg. The lesser cuts and bruises left by the smaller, faster two-legged creature burned like a constellation of branded stars across its flanks and muzzle.
Its sonic sense was a blurred, screaming hellscape. The vibrations of the forest were no longer crisp, defining shapes and distances, but a nauseating smear of overlapping noise. The chatter of squirrels was a percussive assault; the rustle of leaves in the wind was a sandpaper drag against its brain. It was blind and deaf in the only way that mattered, navigating by a primal, desperate homing instinct.
Food-source. Den. Safety.
The words weren't thoughts, but base, cellular imperatives. It had fed there, at the place of the young, loud two-legs. The meat had been abundant, cold, and satisfying. It had found a high, shadowed place there, a perch where it could watch the blobs of heat and vibration below without being seen. It was the only place in this terrifying, open world that approximated a territory.
For hours, it avoided the hard, vibrating paths the two-legs used, sticking to the soft earth of the forests and the forgotten drainage ditches in wall Rose's territory. Its five remaining eyes swiveled constantly, the malevolent blue light within them dimmed by pain and exhaustion.
A day had passed since it reached the familiar grounds of the Cadet Corps training grounds. It had settled itself not in the main barracks, but around the secluded, wooded area near the old latrine; the place where it had first been disturbed by the fragile, screaming two-leg. For a whole day it didn't bother to move aside from taking the meat it had hidden beneath an old tree.
A low, pathetic whine escaped the vulpimancer's throat. It twisted its head, a clumsy, agonizing motion, and began to lick at the clotted wound on its leg. Its rough tongue, designed for stripping flesh from bone, was a poor tool for grooming. Each pass over the torn flesh sent fresh waves of pain through its system, but the instinct to clean, to soothe, was overwhelming. The coppery taste of its own strange blood filled its mouth.
Blasted two-legged creatures, the sentiment echoed in its primal consciousness, a roiling ball of fury and fear. They were everywhere. They were relentless. They hurt it.
As it lay there, panting, something deep within its chest began to change.
It started as a warmth, a subtle heat emanating from its core, directly behind its sternum. At first, it was almost welcome, a counter to the chill of shock and blood loss. But the warmth quickly intensified, morphing into a searing, internal fire. The Vulpimancer lifted its head, a confused growl rumbling in its chest. This was not right. This was not its own biology.
The heat grew, becoming a furnace. The creature's breathing hitched, turning into ragged, panicked gasps. It scratched at its own chest with a forepaw, as if it could dig out the source of the agony. The V-shaped patterns along its spine and legs, which usually glowed with a steady, deep blue, suddenly flared. They didn't just brighten; they strobed erratically, flashing from a dim pulse to a violent, blinding white-blue and back again, out of sync with its frantic heartbeat.
The parasite in its chest, it was working.
The alien symbiont, forcibly grafted into its DNA by the Cerebrocrustacean; Psychobos; was not a passive rider. It was a living engine, a biological computer programmed for survival and dominance at any cost. The host was critically damaged. The host was failing. The parasite would not allow it.
The Vulpimancer's body began to convulse. It thrashed on the ground, its powerful limbs kicking up clods of earth and decaying leaves. A silent, open-mouthed scream locked in its throat as the internal inferno reached a crescendo. The searing heat concentrated on its wounds, not as a gentle healing, but as a brutal, cellular cauterization.
The deep gash on its leg began to steam. The flesh around it blackened and sizzled, the edges curling inwards as the wound was violently sealed shut under the intense, localized heat. The myriad of smaller cuts and slashes across its body met the same fate; scorched shut in seconds, leaving behind shiny, blackened scars that stood out starkly against its purple fur. It was a horrifyingly efficient process, but it was anything but gentle. It was like being branded from the inside out.
The cost was immense. The energy required for such a rapid, violent regeneration was siphoned directly from the creature's life force. The gnawing hunger it had felt before was a gentle reminder compared to the ravenous, screaming void that opened within it now. Its muscles, already depleted, felt like hollow, twitching cords. Its vision, already distorted, flickered with black spots.
As the convulsions subsided, the creature lay heaving in the dirt, spent. The scorched wounds were sealed, but the pain was different now; a deep, bone-deep ache of catastrophic energy debt. The erratic strobing of its stripes slowed, but they now pulsed with a frantic, unstable rhythm, like a panicked heart.
And then, for a fleeting second, as its chest heaved, the flesh and fur over its ribcage became semi-transparent, bleached by the intense internal energy. For that single, horrifying moment, the source of its power was visible.
There, nestled within its ribcage, coiled around its spine and vital organs, was a pulsating, worm-like shape of pure, phosphorescent white energy. It was long and segmented, with a multitude of tiny, leg-like filaments that seemed to tap directly into the creature's nervous system. Its shape was unmistakably, unnervingly akin to a centipede, but rendered in pure, alien light.
The vision lasted only a moment before the flesh solidified again, but the image was burned into the air. The Xerxathi was not just a parasite; it was a reactor, a monstrous, living battery that had just been pushed to its limit.
The Vulpimancer pushed itself to its feet. It was healed, but it was… less. The intelligent, calculating gleam of survival in its five eyes was gone, replaced by a feral, mindless desperation. Its body vibrated with a raw, overstimulated power it could not control, the aftermath of the parasitic energy surge. Every sense was raw, every nerve ending exposed. The world was not just a screaming hellscape; it was a torment.
The hunger was all that was left. A biological imperative so absolute it overrode all thought, all pain, all memory.
ENERGY. FUEL. NOW.
Its head snapped up, its sonic senses, still blurred, locking onto the strongest, closest source of life and heat; the training grounds near the main cadet barracks.
With a guttural snarl that was more vibration than sound, the Vulpimancer's form dissolved. It didn't just phase; it erupted into a cloud of shimmering distortion and vanished from the spot.
Where it had lain, the damp earth and the fallen leaves were scorched black and smoldering, a permanent, circular brand left by the terrifying crucible of its transformation.
___________________
Eren sat on his pallet, his back against the wall, knees drawn to his chest. He wasn't seeing the room, or his mother meticulously darning a sock by the window, or Mikasa silently sharpening her knife with a stone, the rhythmic scrape… scrape… scrape the only sound besides their breathing. His world had shrunk to the bandage on his wrist and the storm in his head.
The rumors had solidified throughout today far more than yesterday, passed from trader to scavenger, from soldier's whisper to refugee's fearful mutter. A demon. A ghost-beast. Scaled Wall Sina. Phased through solid matter. Phased. The word was a key, turning a lock of dread deep in his soul. It wasn't Zs'Skayr, but it was cut from the same blasphemous cloth, and far too uncannily similar. Another piece of the cosmos had broken loose in their world.
His fingers traced the outline of the Omnitrix dial beneath the grimy cloth. It was cold, unyielding, a cage and a key all at once. Every time he closed his eyes, he didn't see the beast, but the consequences of inaction. He saw Scouts; real Scouts, like the ones from Shiganshina; being torn apart by something they couldn't comprehend. He saw garrison soldiers facing a nightmare with nothing but standard-issue steel. He saw the Military Police, in their arrogance, walking into a slaughterhouse.
And he saw himself, sitting here, safe in the dust, while people died.
"It's real," he said, his voice a low, rough sound that shattered the fragile silence.
Carla's needle stilled while Mikasa's scraping halted mid-stroke.
Eren lifted his head, his green eyes burning with a frantic, trapped light. "The rumors. They're all saying the same thing. It's not just a story. It's another one. Out there. Right now."
"Eren," Carla began, her voice soft but layered with a warning as firm as steel. "We've had this discussion. It is not your burden."
"But it is!" he insisted, his voice rising, cracking with the strain of holding it all in. He uncoiled from his pallet, standing up with a restless energy that made the small shack feel even smaller. "Don't you get it? They can't stop it! The Garrison? The MPs? They'll just get themselves killed! They don't have this!" He slammed his hand against his wrist, the impact making a dull thud.
"Which is exactly why you will stay here!" Carla's voice sharpened, losing its softness. She set her mending aside, her hands gripping the arms of her wheelchair. Her face, usually a mask of gentle endurance, was now etched with a mother's raw, primal fear.
"That… that thing on your arm has brought you nothing but pain and danger. It nearly got you killed! It let a monster wear your skin! I will not let you chase after another one because of some… some misplaced guilt!"
"It's not misplaced!" Eren shouted, his frustration boiling over. He gestured wildly towards the wall, towards the unseen world beyond. "People are going to die, Mom! Maybe a lot of them! And I can do something about it! What's the point of having this power if I just hide while people get torn apart?!"
"The point is that you are my son!" Carla's voice broke, tears welling in her eyes, but she did not let them fall. Her love was a fortress, and right now, it was a prison. "You are ten years old! Let the adults handle this! Let the soldiers handle it!"
"What soldiers?!" Eren roared, taking a step towards her. "The ones who cower behind the walls? The ones who let Shiganshina fall? The ones who think this is just a big dog?!" He was trembling now, his small fists clenched so tight his knuckles were white.
"They don't understand! They'll go in with swords and guns and it will just phase through them! I'm the only one who does understand! I know what it's like in there!" He tapped the Omnitrix again, desperately. "I know what these things can do!"
The air was thick enough to choke on. Mikasa had risen silently to her feet, a sentinel poised between them, her grey eyes wide and pained, torn between her unwavering loyalty to Eren and her deep-seated desire to obey and protect Carla.
Eren's breath hitched, the fire in his eyes guttering into something quieter, more desperate, more devastating. His voice dropped to a raw, pained whisper.
"Dad… Dad was a doctor. He spent his whole life trying to save people, to fix things. You said I take after him. That I want to carry the weight of the world." He looked at his mother, his expression open and vulnerable, all the anger burned away to reveal the scared, determined boy underneath.
"How can I call myself his son if I have the power to help… and I do nothing? How is that any better than the cowards who stood by and did nothing when the Titans came?"
The words landed in the room with the force of a physical blow. Carla flinched as if struck. The reference to Grisha, to the core of the man she loved, was a lever Eren had never used before, and it pried open a chink in her defensive armor. She saw Grisha's burning sense of purpose reflected in her son's eyes, and it terrified her.
A long, heavy silence stretched out, filled only by the ragged sound of their breathing. The copper light had faded, and the shack was plunged into deep twilight.
Finally, Carla spoke, her voice so quiet it was almost a whisper, yet it carried a finality that froze them both.
"You truly believe you are the only one who can make a difference?"
Eren didn't hesitate. He met her gaze, his own filled with a terrifying, adult certainty. "Yes."
Carla closed her eyes, a single tear finally escaping and tracing a path through the grime on her cheek. She took a slow, deep breath, gathering the shattered pieces of her composure. When she opened her eyes, the grief was still there, but it had been forged into something harder, something resigned and fiercely protective.
"Then you will listen to me, Eren Yeager. And you will not argue." Her voice was low and stern, the voice of a mother laying down an unbreakable law. "You will not leave this shack. Not tonight. Not on some foolish, half-cooked idea based on rumors. If… if this danger is confirmed, if we hear from a reliable source that the military is truly, utterly outmatched… then, and only then, will we… discuss… what can be done."
She held up a hand, silencing the protest that was already forming on his lips. Her gaze swept from Eren to Mikasa, including them both in her command.
"But understand this," she said, her voice dropping to a deadly serious tone. "You will not go alone. You will not go without a plan. And you will not go looking for a fight. Your goal would be to find, to observe, and to lead the real authorities to it. Not to be a hero. Is that understood?"
It was a monumental concession, wrapped in chains of conditions. It was not permission, but it was no longer an outright refusal. It was a crack of light in the door.
Eren, his body still thrumming with adrenaline, gave a stiff, jerky nod. "Understood."
Mikasa, her relief a subtle loosening of her shoulders, echoed him. "Understood."
"Good." Carla picked up her mending again, her movements slow and deliberate, a signal that the conversation was over. The storm had passed, leaving a fragile, exhausted calm in its wake.
"Now, we wait. And we pray that the rumors are just that."
But as Eren sat back down, his heart still pounding, he knew. He could feel it in his bones.
There won't be any time to wait before it is too late.
Elsewhere…
Armin found his grandfather sitting at the small table, a disassembled component from what looked like a very advanced compass spread the furniture he sometimes tinkered with when he thought Armin was often asleep. The old man didn't look up as Armin entered, but his shoulders tightened almost imperceptibly.
"The rumors are picking up steam," Armin began, not as an accusation, but as a strategist stating a fact. He pulled out the chair opposite and sat. "They're consistent. A canine form. Phasing abilities and on the loose."
Grandpa Arlet's hands, gnarled and steady, continued their work, placing a tiny crystal into a copper housing. "Rumors are like kindling, Armin. They need only a single spark of truth to become a wildfire."
"This feels like more than a spark," Armin pressed, his voice low and intent. "Eren is… agitated. He believes it. And if it is true, if it is a Vulpimancer as you suspect… what are we facing? Truly?"
With a soft, definitive click, the old man slotted the final piece into place. He set the now-complete device down and finally lifted his gaze to meet his grandson's. The weariness in his eyes was profound, but so was the resolve.
"A Vulpimancer from Vulpin while known mostly to be aggressive; is a pack hunter," he explained, his voice taking on the cadence of a lecturer. "They are powerful, loyal to their kin, and navigate their lightless world through a sophisticated sonic sense. They are dangerous, but predictable in their social structure."
He leaned forward, the lamplight carving deep shadows into his face. "What is described… is not that. The glowing patterns? The reported warping? That is the work of an outside force. Tampering."
Armin's blood ran cold. "Tampering? Like… the Omnitrix?"
"You could say that, but more like…without its safeguards," Grandpa Arlet confirmed grimly. "Forced evolution. Biological grafting. Someone, somewhere, took a Vulpimancer and… improved it. Made it a weapon."
He stood and walked to the window, looking out at the sunlit camp. "To answer your question, Armin… what the military faces is not just a beast. It is a biological weapon. A creature driven by instincts it may not even understand, and likely carries an instability that makes it wildly unpredictable. Swords and bullets will be largely useless. Their formations will be meaningless against an enemy that can simply step through them."
He turned back, his expression grave. "You are correct. If they engage it head-on, the casualties will be severe. It will not be a battle. It will be a massacre."
Armin absorbed this, his brilliant mind racing through the implications, the tactical nightmares. "Then Eren is right. They can't stop it."
"Not with the tools and knowledge they currently possess," his grandfather said softly. "No."
The confirmation hung in the air between them, heavy and terrifying. The theoretical had just become terrifyingly real. The military wasn't just outmatched; they were walking blindfolded into a fight with a monster from the stars. Mrs Yeager most definitely want any of them involved in the rumors given how yesterday's conversation with his grandpa ended.
But if they don't do something, just how long would it take before they could actually find a way to neutralize the threat?
Chapter 25-31 are already available on Patreon.com/Weeb Fanthom.