104 103 There Are Books Other Than The Art of War?

Columbus, Georgia. April 8th, 05:30.

It didn't actually take me that long to get to Siberian, but after following her around as she chases her candidate down, I ended up getting bored pretty quickly with just watching.

Thus, I asked her to herd him towards me when her test was coming to an end, or to come fetch me if he passes away, and then I just found a roof and fell asleep.

Yet, that sleep was just disturbed.

Opening my eyes, I'm greeted with the pleasant sight of a sexy naked woman standing above me, giving me quite the view, with some dude off to the side on his hands and knees, panting and swaying as if he's delirious, but I much rather focus on the aforementioned woman.

"Mornin' Sweetness, how you doi- hey!" I interrupt my flirtatious greeting with a shout as she just gave me a sexy, sexy smirk before turning around and leaving.

"Didn't even let me finish." I grumble to myself as I stand.

You know, I was going to ask her to let the others know about Carrot's Second Trigger, but I guess that's not happening then.

Ah well, the only one who would really be in danger would be Mannequin, probably, and he's no fun anyway. Dude can't even speak.

Like, I know we all have issues, but Mannequin is a whole new level of broken.

Yet another reason to stay the ever living fuck away from the Simurgh at any and all times.

Shaking my head to clear it of thoughts about scary angel women, I turn my attention to the man next to me who seems to be one step away from dying.

Gah!

I recoil at the realisation that Sibby leaving has consequences far more important than Mannequin's death.

With her gone she won't be able to see me give my test!

It was going to be a whole thing! She'd be like, wait, she doesn't say anything...

Well, she'd stare expectantly at me, and I'd give her a sly little smile and then announce my test and she'd swoon with joy and we'd start making out then and there!

But now she's gone and the opportunity is lost.

Haaah, this sucks.

In my sulking, I kick a rock, only to be surprised by a thud and a grunt following my action.

Looking up, I see that I accidentally kicked the rock into Sibby's candidate.

Oops.

...It would be pretty funny to just say, 'Congratulations! You passed my test!'.

I spend a solid minute considering it, but after thinking about it for so long it stops being as funny, as the spontaneous, 'shock factor' rapidly depletes.

Ah well, plan A it is. I can always tell Sib about it later.

The dude himself, I can't remember his name, is super edgy looking.

If you sat me down with no prior knowledge of this guy and asked me to draw the edgiest person possible, this guy is probably what you would have got.

He's wearing a high collared, black trench coat over a skin-tight, armoured shirt and pants, with tall, laced up black combat boots on his feet that rise almost to his knees.

His mask consists of a hood that rises out of the trench coat and a lower face mask that depicts a smiling skull.

Oh, and he's got a katana for some reason.

I don't remember his name, but I'm pretty sure his power was something wolf related, probably a transformation of some sort. That was why Sib picked him after all, she's a dog person.

"Oi, get up." I say to him while giving him a soft kick to the side that knocks him over.

He is panting so fast that it's as if he's afraid someone is going to steal his air if he doesn't get it all now and his eyes are drooping closed, only to snap halfway open and start drooping again.

Clearly, he is completely exhausted from the three constant days of being hunted, and a quick glance shows that he is down to three fingers and one third, as Sibby was biting them off at the joints instead of all in one.

After all, nobody would survive her tests if they only got ten extra lives.

By the time he actually manages to stumble his way to his feet, I already know that he's going to die in my test, but you've got to do things properly, so I'll at least give him a fighting chance.

Who knows? He might surprise me.

Then again, maybe I'm letting my recent experience with Carrot cloud my judgement, because that is an incredibly rare event and expecting to see it again so soon is unrealistic.

"So, my name's Tear.~ What's yours?~" I ask, wanting to at least know the name of the dude I'm about to kill.

Test. The dude I'm about to test.

"Thotslayer." His voice is so damn tired that he whispers the word out with his breath, and even with my incredible hearing, I still barely manage to catch it.

Still, Thotslayer? What a retarded name. Seriously, what kind of retard calls themselves Thotslayer?

If it was ironic it would at least be funny, but going by his choice of attire he is either 𝘴𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘰𝘶𝘴𝘭𝘺 devoted to this irony bit, or he just genuinely thought that it was a cool name to go by.

Man, what a loser. I almost feel like I'm doing him a favour by killing him, because at least as food for me he'll serve some purpose.

"Right," my voice is completely dry as I respond to him, only to change back to excited as I announce, "well! I shall now give you my test!~ It is to do Siberian's test again!~ But with me hunting you this time!~ Yaaay!~" I finish while clapping my hands in front of me.

But Thotslayer, I'm not going to call him that. But T doesn't seem to notice my clapping, as his eyes slowly start widening in shock and horror at the idea of having to keep going for 𝘢𝘯𝘰𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳 three days.

"...Well don't just stand there.~ Run!~" I shout at him after he doesn't move for a while.

He flinches back into the real world and without saying anything, his body transforms, turning into a werewolf, with three long claws and matted black fur.

Neat.

As I watch him drunkenly scurry away, I wonder to myself how long it will take before I get bored of this and just kill him.

...Probably not that long to be honest.

Maybe an hour or two. I'm sure I can make it fun for a bit at least.

Plus, I can always just do something else for a while. Let him stew in fear, constantly looking around, waiting for me to jump out at him.

I'd have to show myself a couple times first. To properly implant the idea of me being anywhere in his mind, then I can just leave for a bit.

Oh, and I guess I can use the time to let everyone know about Carrot, 𝘢𝘧𝘵𝘦𝘳 finding Sibby and telling her about my test.

Welp! There goes my Friday morning.

I have no idea if it's Friday or not, but that hardly matters.

Two hours later and I am back at base, feeling drained and bored.

Is this what it's like for people who work nine to fives? They really must have no soul to be willing to live like that.

Entering the lounge, I glance around to see that only Shatterbird is present, sitting quietly and reading a book.

"Yo.~ How're you doing?" I greet her with a smile, and though she doesn't give one in return, her features soften enough for me to assume the smile is implied.

"I am doing well, and you?" As always, she somehow manages to sound ever so slightly condescending even in casual conversation, but I know that's just a quirk of her character and choose to ignore it.

"Oh you know, nothing too special. Though I don't think Sibby's candidate is going to pass, so I'll probably kill him later. What about you? I assume the others are out testing, how come you're not?"

She gives me a disapproving look that genuinely confuses me until I hear her following words.

"You don't have to kill everyone that fails your test. You're just supposed to punish them, take an arm of something, so they can keep trying. And you're right about the other's being out testing. I am waiting for Hatchet Face to get back from testing your candidate so that I can test them too."

Oh yeah. I guess I was being a little gung-ho about killing him. I can't help it though, he's just so 𝘭𝘢𝘮𝘦.

"In my defence, I really doubt his ability to pass any other tests, unless we give him a day or so to recover I guess...." I trail off as I feel Shatter's eyes boring a hole into my head, "𝘧𝘪𝘯𝘦~ I won't kill him. Tch, spoilsport."

Still, this means that Mannequin is already out, possibly after Carrot.

I'll talk to Bonesaw, she might have some kind of Tinker gadget thing that can contact him. Actually, Shatter might have something like that anyway.

However, more importantly than Mannequin's life, my eye catches note of the cover of Shatterbird's book.

"The Metamorphosis? Is this your first time or are you re-reading it?" I ask and Shatter raises an eyebrow at the change of conversation.

"I have read it before. I just saw the book the other day and decided to go through it again. I assume you have read it also?" Once again, I manage to notice the barely present happiness in her voice about the possibility of intellectual conversation.

"It 𝘪𝘴 a classic, one that has become even more prominent with the rise of parahumans, especially the monster capes. I imagine it matches their experiences pretty well. What do you think about it? What do you take away from the story?"

I am actually pretty curious about her answer, because The Metamorphosis is an incredibly fitting story for parahumans, since it is all about going through a sudden, dramatic and irreversible change and how it affects you and those around you.

The books pretty depressing for the most part, but like with most things, that also depends on how you look at it.

"Hmm, it's a good book. I think Gregor is just a coward. He should have simply left his family behind, maybe even killed them for looking down on him, and then just lived his own life, free of everything that used to bind him when he was a human. He could have been happy if he just embraced what he became, rather than trying to cling onto the past."

Damn. That was actually a pretty good take on the story. It also tells me a lot about Shatterbird.

I get the feeling that her Triggering wasn't a very positive event for her family. But it's clear that she believes that parahumans should throw away their human lives and embrace their powers instead.

Can't say I disagree, but it's certainly not what came to mind when I read it.

"You know, that's not exactly what I took away from reading it, but I can't really disagree with it either. See, the 'moral' I got from it was that suffering was constant and unavoidable, and we can either choose to allow everyone to suffer, or we can push all of our suffering onto one person, leave them with all of the pain so that everyone else can be happy. Basically, someone has to suffer for others to be happy. That's the lesson I learnt from it."

Shatterbird is visibly surprised at me giving a proper answer, which I find slightly insulting because we have had nice conversations before.

She doesn't immediately respond, taking a minute to think over my answer, nodding her head a few times in the ensuing silence before she eventually turns and gives me an actual, genuine smile.

Wow.

I am shocked to silence at the sight. I mean, I was half convinced that she just didn't have the muscles in the face required to smile, or that Bonesaw did some work to make such a thing impossible.

Guess she's just not a very happy person then.

"You know Tear, I like that way of seeing the story." Her admittance brings about a smile from me.

"D'aww, that was almost a compliment.~" I coo at her, ruining the mood and causing her face to turn deadpan as she stares at me.

"Was there anything else?" She says, clearly done with me.

"Hmm, was there anything else?" I pretend to ponder to myself for a second before snaping my fingers, "aha! There was something else! Carrot Second Triggered!~"

In response to my exclamation, Shatterbird's dry, unamused voice sounds out a singe word.

"What."

"Yeah, her Striker power turned into a Shaker one with the same effect, maybe some extras too, I don't know, never seen something like this before, but it's pretty strong.~"

In stark contrast to my childish voice, hers is only growing increasingly dry.

"...What."

"Yeah, Mannequin will prolly die if he's out to test her with no warning,~ everyone else should be fine though, the range doesn't seem to be 𝘵𝘰𝘰 big.~"

We spend a moment in silence as she just stares at me blankly.

"...You don't think this should have been something to start with?" She asks, and I tut at her for asking such a silly question.

"Of course not, there were much more important things to be talked about than a boring mute.~" My callous words actually manage to get an exhale of amusement out of her.

Not quite a snort, she's far too prim and proper for that, but it was close enough to show humour.

Guess she doesn't feel too strongly about him either.

Ah well, I have delivered the message, so now I gotta go talk with Sibby.

"'Kay, byeee!~" I exclaim as I hop to my feet and start making my way to Bonesaw's lab, assuming that Sibby will be there with her.

"You are incredibly irritating!" I hear from behind me as I pass through the door and without even looking back, I shout out my thanks for the compliment before closing the door behind me with a smile.

She's fun.

=================

A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!

Just a little bit of character interaction for this chap. I'm kinda hoping for this columbus bit to hurry along though, but I ain't gonna just skip ahead or rush anything, so I'll have to be patient.

Also, metamorphosis fits Perfectly into the Worm-verse. I don't think it was ever mentioned, but Taylor was a book nerd so there is no way she didn't read it and note the similarities it has to her own life.

(5+)Advanced chapters with the links below!

pat/reon.com/user?u=41732867 (get rid of the first slash or check the description)

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