229: A Plague of Phantoms XIII

[Boss, I can see something ahead…the tunnel opens up to a cavern.] Bone-lasher informed me and then showed me what he meant with his electromagnetic vision.

At the edge of his vision but rapidly approaching I saw a large cavern that was at least three times the size of the tunnel that Grimm-Guard dug. From what I could see the cavern was naturally occurring, with a very odd looking ceiling.

"My lord! Commander Grimm-Guard it feels like he's getting closer!" Empress informed me. It was true, the closer we got to the cavern the stronger I felt our connection.

"He must be in the cavern that Bone-lasher saw up ahead." I commented.

"Good, my legs were starting to get a little tired." Grandpa Seamus commented.

It still took a few minutes for all of us to reach the mouth of the cavern but when we did grandpa and I both skidded to a stop while Empress stopped channeling burn attribute mana and gracefully landed a few feet ahead of us.

I took a moment to look around at our surroundings as we stepped into the cavern. As far as both I and Bone-lasher could see there was a vast open space with high ceilings that were at least three miles high. The rock beneath our feet was black and glassy, almost like obsidian but it also had qualities similar to diamond. Looking back at the rock in the tunnel and the rock that made up the cavern floor there was striking difference.

"Well it look like we lucked out Starlight. Yer evo dug himself into a manacite deposit." Grandpa Seamus said then knelt down and ran his hand on the rock then smiled deviously. I arched a brow and crossed my arms at him.

"Manacite? I've never heard of that kind of rock or crystal." I said.

"Well of course ya wouldn't, the deepest that countries mine is two miles below ground. Manacite can only be found below ten miles." Grandpa replied.

"Progenitor MacClery, what is this manacite?" Empress asked. Grandpa stood and turned to look at Empress and I.

"Ta put it simply…it's solidified mana that's been compacted by pressure and heat until it becomes crystal." Grandpa said then shook his head. "Should have figured we were near a deposit, it's too cold for us being so far down."

"This is too cold!" I exclaimed. Even with the spell I casted while grandpa and I were still falling I was sweating a little bit and that wasn't because I just ran more than twelve miles.

"Of course it's too damn cold Starlight! Given how deep we are the temp should be more than three hundred degrees!" Grandpa exclaimed. Empress cocked her head to the side as if she was thinking about something.

"Now that I think about it the temperature is probably closer to one hundred and fifty." Empress commented.

'Well if anyone would know about temperature it'd be the evo that spew flames.' I thought.

"Manacite draw in heat from magma and the rock around them and use it ta create more manacite." Grandpa added.

"Well that's fine and all but how are we lucky that Grimm-Guard dug into the cavern?" I asked.

"Cause manacite is stronger than diamond. Yer evo can't dig through, so it's trapped inside here with us." Grandpa replied. He threw his head back and laughed loudly for several seconds before stopping suddenly and freezing.

"Grandpa?" I said tentatively. His head turned slowly to look at me and I saw a look of abject terror on his face.

"S-s-starlight…this evo of yers isn't part c-c-c-centipede is it?" He a stuttered as he asked.

"Ye…" I started then my eyes widened as I remembered something extremely important. Grandpa was terrified of centipedes the same way I was terrified of arachnids.

I looked up and saw two enormous insectoid compound eyes staring down at Grandpa, Empress and I. I suddenly felt a wave of embarrassment and nervousness wash over me from my connection with Grimm-Guard as I looked up at the eyes that had terrified my grandpa.

"Commander Grimm-Guard!" Empress exclaimed as she looked up as well. I ignored Grimm-Guard for a brief moment and rushed over to my Grandpa, in that exact moment he snapped out of being frozen in terror and let out a blood curdling scream.

With speed that defied his seventy odd years Grandpa turned and ran blindly further into the cavern still screaming as hos fear of centipedes took over.

"GRANDPA!" I yelled and started after him, looking over my shoulder to address ny evos. "Empress stay with Grimm! Grimm if you move I will be pissed!"

"Yes my lord!" Empress replied.

"Yes Star Boss…" Grimm-Guard replied meekly.

I turned my attention back to my Grandpa. Luckily I deactivated the spell that boosted his speed and endurance or I would have lost him instantly. He ran blindly further into the cavern and it was taking everything I had to keep up with him. He eventually made it to a garden of manacite stalagmites and started weaving around and between them.

Instead of following after him and channeled float and gravity attribute mana throughout my body and flew high over the stalagmites. I quickly flew past my grandpa who was still running blindly through the stalagmites and landed a in a area ahead of him that was free of the stalagmites. When he reached the area I quickly grabbed him and made him stop.

"Grandpa it's okay! Grimm-Guard isn't going to hurt you! He's more dragonfly than centipede!" I exclaimed. Grandpa started trying to break away from me but I held onto him tightly. "GRANDPA! ACT YOUR AGE!"

"FUCK THAT! IT'S FUCKING MASSIVE!" Grandpa yelled.

"It's my evo! He's not going to hurt you!" I snapped. Grandpa elbowed me in the face trying to get free and in that moment I contemplated knocking him out with a electric shock but decided against it fearing he'd hold it against me later.

A voice called out from seemingly nowhere. A haunting voice that sounded so familiar it made both me and Grandpa Seamus freeze in our tracks.

"Lulu'nala?" Grandpa whispered, his eyes darting everywhere trying to pinpoint where the voice came from. I let go of Grandpa and looked around too. The voice sounded too close to be coming from the darkness at the edge of my light spell.

"Did I just…imagine it…?" I asked myself. Grandpa looked back towards me and shook his head. He had a embarrassed look on hos face.

"I don't think ya did Starlight. In Sullivardic village many believe that the Star farm crystal bearer attracts the spirits of the dead. That could have been yer Grandma telling me ta stop being a scary shite." Grandpa Seamus said softly.

I paused and looked at the cavern around us. I was about to say something to grandpa when I felt a something brush my cheek. A memory of Grandma Lulu wiping some dirt off my cheek flashed into my mind. I had just arrived at my grandparents house and had tripped on my way through the woods. She looked at me with a sweet smile as she shook her head and ushered me inside. That memory was from two months before she died.

"Let's get out of here Grandpa. I'll recall Grimm-Guard until we get outside, okay?" I told him. Grandpa Seamus nodded and rubbed the back of his neck in embarrassment.

"Thank you Starlight. Sorry fer freaking out." He said. I shook my head.

"I should have remembered you were scared of centipedes…" I sighed then looked back in the direction that Grimm-Guard and Empress were.

'I hope Grimm-Guard doesn't take that personally….'

***

"FUUUUUUUUCK! That took too long!" I groaned loudly as we finally made it out of the massive hole that Grimm-Guard had dug.

 Instead of recasting that flying spell that I had used earlier on me and Grandpa, I summoned Alpa'nagia and had him carry us back up topside, while recalling Grimm-Guard and Empress. But not before taking a sample of manacite with me, and by sample I meant a couple stalagmites of manacite. Alpa'nagia deposited Grandpa and I at the edge of the hole, the entire laboratory was still filled with guardsmen who was wondering around the area documenting the damage.

"Kingston!" Dean Baxter called out to me the moment Alpa'nagia let me go. I turned and saw him walking towards me with two of the guardsmen that possessed Ogarai flanking him.

"Dean Baxter…." I replied sheepishly as he approached. Dean Baxter stopped in front of me and regarded Grandpa Seamus with a nod before looking around at the damage.

"So…your evo Empress gave me a basic explanation of what happened here and has lead me to believe that Grimm-Guard is responsible." Dean Baxter said. I sighed and shook my head.

"He is…but only partly. He underwent a evolution which I unknowingly triggered. He started rapidly growing in size and in order to keep from destroying the building itself he burrowed down…as you can see in the hole behind me." I explained. Dean Baxter nodded then scratched his chin.

"I see…this is moat distressing. While the laboratory was being given to you Chase it is still college property. Especially the gene delve simulator." Dean Baxter said.

"I'll replace everything…don't really have much of a choice since I needed the lab to shape evos…" I said. Dean Baxter looked over to the vault, which remained untouched and fully intact. "…At least the vault survived."

"True. The knowledge you have stored in there is priceless and still on loan." Dean Baxter said.

"At least no one got hurt!" Grandpa spoke up and walked over to Dean Baxter. "It's the lad's birthday, surely talk about repairs and the like can wait until tomorrow."

"Yes…you're right…" Dean Baxter said, carefully choosing his words. "I've heard rumors that you are having a party. Or rather you're being forced to attend a party for you."

"Oh yeah…I forgot about that…" I groaned. Grandpa's eyes widened and he quickly looked to Dean Baxter.

"Speaking of birthday's and parties…where's Starlight's present?" Grandpa asked.

"Awaiting me back at my office. Once I heard the alarm I made sure that their safety was assured before I came here." Dean Baxter replied. I narrowed my eyes at the two of them.

"There you go with the present stuff again…Grandpa who did you bring with you?" I asked. Grandpa Seamus shushed me with a finger and patted me on the shoulder.

"At the party laddie! You'll see at the party….speaking of the party it's probably a good idea ta head back to the apartments. At least for me." Grandpa Seamus said. He patted his chest and let put a loud sigh. "I think I've had enough excitement fer one day. Might be best I head back and help with yer party."

"What?!" I exclaimed only once again to be silence with a flick of my Grandpa's fingers.

"It's getting late Starlight and you need ta have a talk with yer evo…knowing what it is ya know I can't be there. Let me go where I can be useful." Grandpa said. I let put a huff and crossed my arms.

"Fine. I can have Alpa take you back to the apartments." I said.

"And leave Colossus in yer mana train? By himself?!" Grandpa exclaimed. He shook his head adamantly then pointed towards the door. "I can walk to the train and take it back to ta the apartments. The dean here can come with of yer feeling like I'm too frail and dainty."

I rolled my eyes at my grandpa, already able to see through his ploy. He wanted to take the dean with him so he can head back to hos office and collect whoever it was that he bought with him so they'd stay a surprise for my party.

"Go ahead. I do need to talk to Grimm-Guard. And given how big he's gotten it's probably best to do so outside of the city." I said. Grandpa looked relieved that I wasn't pressing the issue and smiled at me.

"You're not gonna bugger off somewhere and hide from the party are ya? It'd really disappoint me of ya did." Grandpa said wriggling a finger at me.

"Well how can I with that threat hanging over me? I'll come to the apartments after I sort out Grimm-Guard. I'll be there no later than eight." I said. The very idea of grandpa being disappointed in me made me feel depressed.

"Good! See ya layer Starlight!"

With that Grandpa turned and headed towards the entrance to the laboratory. Dean Baxter eyed me with a look of amusement at how easily I caved into my Grandpa's demands but didn't say anything. Instead he turned and snapped his fingers. All of the guardsmen that were loitering around the remains of the laboratory all hurried to hos side and followed him and my Grandpa out of the building. In a matter of moments I was alone in the ruins of my lab with Alpa'nagia.

"This day just keeps getting better…"

***

"GRIMM-GUARD!" I bellowed as I summoned his crystalline structure.

  I was a few mile outside the city limits of the bronze city, surrounded by nothing but desert. Since having Grimm-Guard inside my crystal I had a much more accurate idea of exactly how much he's grown. Which terrified me.

As Grimm-Guard's crystalline structure shattered in mid-air I felt a burst of wind and mana flood out from the remains as Grimm-Guard materialized in front of me. Grimm-Guard threw his head back and chittered loudly letting hos body stretch for the first time since his transcendence.

To say Grimm-Guard grew was a understatement. His body was now fifteen feet wide and thirteen feet tall. His body which had been a mile and a half long before his evolution was now three and a half miles long. He was so long that from where I was standing I couldn't see the end of his body.

His size wasn't the only change. His entire appearance had changed as well. While despite all the modifications I made to his genetic sequences, Grimm-Guard for the most part looked like a centipede with wings and massive pincers, or rather he used to. The carapace around Grimm-Guard's head now resembled a large human skull and was blood red in color. His compound eyes fit perfectly in the eye holes of said skull and his pincers; which were now bulkier and jagged looking; sat where the skulls jaw would have been on a human.

The rest of Grimm-Guard's body looked heavily armored, leaning more into the bullet ant aspect of his base than the centipede. The carapace taking on dual colors, a dark black that seemed to draw in the light around it and a deep red to match the color of the fake skull. The parts of his carapace that were red resembled parts of a human spine and ribs. The spine sections went straight down the middle of his back and the 'ribs' were his legs. About every ten segments or so were enormous wing covers, similar to what you'd see on a beetle.

Grimm-Guard's wings were long and thin, resembling a dragonflies wings still except they looked to me made out of a crystalline like substance now. They shimmered and hummed under their wing covers with a ominous light.

"Star Boss…" Grimm-Guard chittered in a sad tone. He had hos head and the forest three body segments behind that standing off the ground and looking down at me. Despite the terrifying new face he had, Grimm-Guard still managed to somehow look like a chastised puppy.

"Grimm-Guard…." I replied then let out a sigh. "…I'm not mad at you so you can stop looking at me like I'm gonna hit you."

"But I destroyed your domain…your laboratory. The one duty you gave me was to protect it and I couldn't even do that…" Grimm-Guard replied solemnly and hung his head.

"The only reason you evolved was because of my thoughtlessness so as far as I am concerned the destruction of the laboratory is my fault. As for the giant hole…that actually helped me." I said.

Grimm-Guard cocked his head to the side in confusion. I channeled mana into my void pocket enchanted ring and pulled a shard of manacite out from inside. While grandpa was right about the stuff being harder than diamond a couple of seconds cha belong shatter attribute mana into them and the stalagmites broke apart like glass. I held the manacite shard up so Grimm-Guard and Alpa'nagia could see.

"I wouldn't have known that this stuff existed unless you hadn't tried to minimize the damage to the laboratory building by burrowing." I said.

"I still caused problems for you Star Boss…you're going to have to fix the building I broke…." Grimm-Guard whimpered.

"ENOUGH!" Alpa'nagia bellowed, his voice reverberated with the crack of thunder as lightning struck the ground behind him. Grimm-Guard flinched and watched Alpa'nagia cautiously. "The Star Shaper has determined there is nothing to forgive you for, he has ruled that there is no reason for you to feel sorry for he is to blame! Are you so ungrateful that you'd spit in the Star Shaper's face and forsake his judgement!"

'Wait…what?' I thought then looked back at Alpa'nagia.

"No! Never!" Grimm-Guard exclaimed quickly and then lowered his head so it was touching the sand. "I understand…I am sorry for my prior conduct Star Boss. I'll be better. I promise."

"Thank you for the apology Grimm…even though it isn't necessary…although I was serious about you helping me by digging that hole and if anything I learned that I need to research more into all you guy's evolutions. Is this something only evos that have my DNA modified into them can do or are all my shaped evos going to go through a evolution?" I said and then scratched my chin. "It's a huge part of all of you guys lives and yet I know next to nothing about it other than the few fancy titles I gave your new forms…we'll have to change that."

"You don't need to go out of your way for us Star Shaper." Alpa'nagia said. I frowned and crossed my arms.

"It's not going out of my way. I'm the one that did all that modification on all of you so I am responsible for your care. And I can't take care of all of you if I don't learn more about evolution and transcendence. Plus both you and Bone-lasher has gone through a true transcendence evolution today so obviously it's something that's going to happen with everyone else." I said then sighed and looked back to Grimm-Guard.

The massive evo seemed to have calmed down mentally, I no longer felt any embarrassment or grief coming from him which was a relief. My earlier comment also seemed to have a calming effect on all my evos, I could feel the relief and happiness flowing through my connection to everyone who'd tuned in via my senses and mental connection to all of them.

"Well now…obviously we can't have you guard the laboratory anymore because you're so big now." I said then looked Grimm-Guard up and down then a devious smile creeper on my face as I remembered the assassins that were after Sin and Indy. "So that just means I have to make what you guard bigger…like the entirety of the silver city…"

"THE SILVER CITY!" Grimm-Guard bellowed. A flurry of worried and confused chitters proceeded to stream from his mandibles.

"Are you sure Star Shaper?" Alpa'nagia asked. I looked over my shoulder at him and arched a brow. Alpa'nagia shrieked a little and scooted back a bit.

"Yes. You were a good guardian for the laboratory, regardless of its current state. There are possible threats to employees at my company. I've already taken some steps to protect them but I think having a massive evo patrolling the city regularly would be a good deterrent." I said.

"But the whole silver city…." Grimm-Guard chittered.

"I'm not giving you this assignment Grimm for my own amusement…" I said taking a serious tone.

I focused on my farm crystal for a moment and tugged at the invisible threats that connected me to all my evos, both in my farm crystal and out of it. I needed their full attention, and I needed them to know how serious what I was about to say was.

"…in one months time Sho'lajah Artifact Company will be embarking on it's largest and most dangerous undertaking to date. We'll be purposefully antagonizing one of the most influential and powerful techno-splicing companies in the world. There is a contract out for lives of myself and several people at Sho'lajah, I need to know I can trust you…all of you to help me protect everyone that I hold dear. I'm not just giving you this assignment because I know you can do it, I'm also giving it to you because I need you to learn how to protect with your presence. To be the monster behind the villain that makes everyone too scared to act."

There was a brief moment of silence followed as Grimm-Guard and Alpa'nagia both looked at me, understanding burning in their eyes. I could feel that same understanding radiating in every one of my evos through my connection to them.

"I understand Star Boss…I will be the guardian beast that protects the Silver city and all of your domains! I will strike fear into the hearts of any who would mean harm to your employees and you!" Grimm-Guard exclaimed proudly raising his head to the sky and chittering loudly, letting his massive mandibles snap repeatedly.

"We will all be your monsters Star Shaper…" Alpa'nagia said.

[We will be whatever you need Savior.]

[Whatever it takes to protect you and yours Boss!]