246: A Plague of Phantoms: Another Kind of Transcendence

"GADGEEEEEEEEET!" I bellowed as I chased the pint-sized trouble maker around King's glaive secondary engine car.

The hellion managed to snatch one of my enchanted rings off my fingers while I was sleeping, a newly recreated Draco-lance ring. If it hadn't been for Bone-lasher waking me up I never would have known that he'd taken it until I needed it and found it gone.

"Gadget you give me back that ring or I'm feeding you to the Gloom Hallows!" I barked as he dashed around the navigation case and headed straight for the door back to the door that lead to the next car. That car being living quarters on the King's glaive.

The door opened for Gadget as he ran towards it, King's glaive recognizing him for a member of the crew for some reason. I dove to try and catch him but ended up short. Gadget dashing between my fingers before they could grasp him. Growling through gritted teeth I jumped to my feet and followed Gadget further into the train.

King's glaive's set up was really simple, the foster two cars were the engine card, followed by the conductor car which was my living quarters. The fourth car was the kitchen/slash gallery where everyone cooked and ate their meals. Car five was Sin and Indy's quartets, car six: Chad, Damon, and Alberto's, car seven: Astrid And Iris's, car eight: the Kestrel's, car nine: the Gents, car ten was Haws and Grandpa's quarters, and car eleven we Jane's and Madilyn's quarters. From there the rest of the train cars were utility and storage.

There were two ways into any of the living quarters cars. The main door which lead straight into living area of the car, and the side door which lead into a hallway that skirted around the living quarters; the living quarters cars were wider than all of the others because of this. Only the people that were assigned to that car and me could use the main door. However for some reason the main door opened for Gadget as well.

So instead of me chasing Gadget through the hallways the both of us came barreling through the doors to the living quarters. We charged through Sin and Indy's room with Gadget jumping off of Indy's head and dashing around Sin's feet. We charged through Chad, Alberto, and Damon's room like a tornado; Gadget using any and every piece of furniture to duck and dodge me; we interrupted what looked like a poker game between the guys and Iris and nudging by the fact all the guys were in their underwear Iris was winning. We finished our Devastation of the room with Gadget landing on the table they were using for poker and shattering all the cards.

Astrid wasn't in her shared quarters with Iris, which was a godsend, considering the fact I froze half of it trying to get the little bastard to stop. When we reached the Kestrel's car we found that Nate and Jade were in it having a relaxing afternoon…until Gadget came and junked on Jade's head and jumped off her onto Nate's face to spring up onto the bookshelf.

"GADGET! YOUR ASS IS GRASS!" I bellowed as chased him all over the room before he made his way into the Geshoulder.

Louie was nowhere to be seen but Angie was there with KC and Bo, the three of them sitting on the couch. Bo trying to help Angie teach KC some new words. The moment Gadget saw Bo it made a beeline straight for him, knocking over lamps and anything on the coffee table before jumping onto Bo's shoulder. I skidded to a stop when I saw him there and panted savagely.

"Gadget! Chase! What's going on?" Angie demanded as she junked up from her seat. I pointed at Gadget and curled my lip up.

"That little shit just stole my new enchanted ring!" I growled.

"Hey! He's not a little shit!" Bo grumbled as he reached up and petted Gadget.

"Bo, tell Gadget to give me back my ring or I will literally feed it to Grimm-Guard!" I snapped.

Bo frowned and looked at his evo. It was obvious that Gadget had my ring, his cheeks were bulging put like that chipmunk that was part of his base. He held his hand out in front of Gadget and looked at the evo expectantly.

"Spit it out." Bo said. Gadget shook his head and covered his mouth with his paws. Bo frowned and grabbed Gadget by his feet and started shaking him up and down in front of the coffee table. "I SAID SPIT IT OUT!"

Bo shook Gadget with Increasing violence until the little thief opened his mouth and threw up. Though what he threw up wasn't my enchanted ring, it was a mana-lock. Chad's mana-lock to be exact, which went missing yesterday, mysteriously. What shocked me the most was how it came spewing out of Gadget's mouth. A black hole formed in front of Gadget's tongue and expanded until Gadget's jaw unhinged and the frame of the weapon shot out of the portal and bounced off the coffee table and clanked on the floor.

Bo stopped shaking Gadget for a brief second to see what the little Restskill threw back up. Seeing that it wasn't the aforementioned ring Bo started shaking Gadget again, a little harder this time. I was about to say something about the gun bigger than Gadgets body, spewing from the pint sized evo when one of Jade's tool boxes shot out of its mouth and landed on the coffee table. This time breaking the table.

I blinked a few times and looked at Angie. She looked just as stunned as me. A swathe of other objects came pouring out of Gadget's mouth. A enchanted dagger, dozens of coins, silverware, some of Jane's jewelry, multiple suitcases, a random can of soup, several brochures of evos, a whole crate of my enchanted items, and lastly my enchanted ring.

Seeing the ring come flying out of his evos mouth Bo stopped shaking his evo and tjen reached down and picked up the ring. He wiped it off on hos shirt and then held it up to me.

"Here you go. Sorry about that." Bo said. I looked at him incredulously then looked over at the literal pile of stolen object that just spewed from the mouth of his evo, which was no bigger than my foot, And then took a deep breath.

"ARE YOU FUCKING SERIOUS!?" I bellowed and pointed at the pile.

At that exact moment the door to the car opened up and Iris, Alberto, Damon, Chad, Jade and Nate came charging in looking beyond pissed at me in particular. The all stopped when they saw the pile of pilfered loot that had spilled out of Gadget's miraculous expanding maw then looked at me.

"What the hell is all that?" Iris demanded. I pointed at the culprit and frowned.

"Ask the little thief! He stole all of that and had it in its mouth!" I replied. Chad frowned and looked at the pile again.

"Umm…boss that evo is really tiny. How would it fit all that in its mouth?" Chasd asked.

"But it did!" Angie exclaimed as she stood from the couch with KC in her arms. "Bo shook him and all the stuff just came pouring out of him."

Everyone looked skeptical until a still upside-down Gadget hiccupped and a enchanted Greatswords that went missing a week ago came clanking out of his mouth and embedded into the floor. Everyone stood there with their mouths open and stared at Bo and Gadget.

"Bo Kestrel…" Jade said in an oddly calm voice as she walked over to her son. Bo, noticing the eerie chill of her tone, started to take a step back only to have his mother snatched the collar of his shirt and snatched Gadget from him.

"Ow! Mom!" Bo complained.

"Oh quiet!" She ordered then held the squirming Gadget to the light.

Now that I had a closer look at Gadget I noticed that he didn't quite look right. He was a little bigger, at least by a fee inches and a few pounds. His physique, which at one point leaned more towards the capuchin monkey and raccoon part of his base, was now mostly chipmunk and raccoon. His face was mostly raccoon in features which was normal however he now had more chipmunk features, mainly puffy cheeks and brown stripes under his eyes.

"Bo why does Gadget look different?" I asked. Bo froze and looked at me like a guilty child that had just been caught with his hand in a cookie jar.

"I don't know what you mean…" He replied feigning ignorance. Jade frowned and looked at Gadget closely then widened her eyes.

"He does look different." Jade breathed. Nate walked over and looked at the tiny evo who was still trying to get free and frowned.

"Yeah he does…" Nate confirmed then turned to look at his son.

"You're all just imagining things…" Bo said. Nate suddenly frowned and cocked his head to the side. He reached out and grabbed Bo's tongue and pulled it put of his mouth, exposing his farm crystal.

I gasped as I saw that his farm crystal looked damaged, there was a large chunk of it missing in the center. It was rounded and caved in almost like someone had taken a ice cream scooper and scooped a chunk out of it.

"Bo, what did you do…?" I breathed. Bo snatched his head away from his father and took a few steps back, refusing to look at me.

"Bo, answer him! What did you do?" Nate snapped. Bo scrunched his face into a indescribable expression then reached up and snatched Bo out of his mother's hands and held the little evo to his chest.

"None of your business!" Bo snapped. Jade grabbed her son by his ear and yanked him to her side.

"DO NOT TEST ME BO!" Jade barked in a vicious tone. "There is a piece of your farm crystal missing! That is not something to be evasive about! So tell me what did you do!"

"I PUT IT IN GADGET!" Bo bellowed and jerked away from his mother. Everyone froze as his words hung in the air.

I rushed over and grabbed Gadget and channeled mana into him. My mana immediately started scanning his genetic structure and I immediately noticed the farm crystal hiding behind Gadget's heart. The farm crystal fragment had been warped and altered using some sort of magic that I recognized as being similar to the splicing spells. Bo jerked Gadget away and glared at me.

"Don't you touch him! He's fine! I'm fine!" Bo yelled. I frowned but couldn't refute what he said about Gadget. His lysdale script showed that his genetic structure was stable and in fact had very few differences to my shaped evos. Nonetheless the looked him in the eye.

"What. Did. You. Do. Bo?" I demanded, enunciating every word. Bo gritted his teeth and tried to look defiant but he buckled and looked down at the ground.

"I tried to create a new splicing spell but it didn't work." Bo said softly. I arched a brow at him.

"Tried to create a new splicing spell? Like a ritual spell?" I asked. Bo nodded and looked away.

"I wanted to try body modification the way you do but without the mana manipulation tattoo spell." Bo explained. "I used my own blood as a catalyst thinking I could create a new mana crystal for Gadget but all it did was take a chunk out of my crystal!"

"ARE YOU FUCKING INSANE!" I bellowed, I grabbed Bo by his collar and lifted him off the ground as a wildlife of emotions took over me. "DO YOU HAVE ANY FUCKING IDEA HOW BAD THAT COULD'VE ENDED! YOU CAN'T READ THE RUNIC LANGUAGE! YOU COULD HAVE DIED! ENDED UP TWISTED MUTATED HUSK…!"

"CHASE!" Nate bellowed and shoved me away, dropping Bo in the process. I tripped over one of the items that spewed from Gadget's mouth and fell flat on my butt. "THAT'S EN…"

Nate's words caught in his mouth as he looked at me. His expression turning from rage to confusion and then worry. Jase rushed over and checked on Bo, seeing he was okay she turned to look at me and I saw the same expressions on her face. Iris stepped around Everyoje and knelt down next to me.

"Chase…?" Iris muttered softly as touched my arm. "…it's okay Bo's okay…he's okay…"

I wandered why she was talking to me like that when she suddenly reached out and wiped away a tears that I didn't know I was crying. I suddenly was away of the emotion that was the most abundant in my inferno of emotions: fear. I didn't know what losing or damaging your farm crystal did to a splicer but it couldn't have been good.

"Why…why are you the only one allowed to get stronger!" Bo yelled as he glared at me, still holding Gadget. "Why are you the only one allowed to take risks in order to learn?!"

"What are you talking about?!" I snapped back. He frowned and stood to his feet.

"The only one around here that makes any strides or learns anything new is you! You learned how to craft spells and read the runic language, you create enchanted items, you created shaping, you learn the spell that fuses splicers and evos! You keep getting strong while everyone else just picks after your leftovers!" Bo snapped. "You do stupid things and learn new things but nobody says a thing. But I do something trying to get stronger and you jump down my throat."

"You could have been killed!" I yelled back.

"And how many times have you nearly been killed?!" Bo demanded.

"I'm not ten!" I snapped back and jumped to my feet. "Besides its not like I go out of my way to find danger unlike some! Every time I almost died it happened because I was trying to save someone else!"

"YOU SAY THAT LIKE ITS BETTER!" Bo barked and stomped his foot. "WE ALL WATCH YOU GET HURT OVER AND OVER AGAIN GETTING HURT IN PLACE OF US! BECAUSE WE'RE TOO WEAK TO HELP! ALL I CAN DO IS FUCKING HIDE WHILE JANE, IRIS AND YOU ARE GETTING SHOT, KIDNAPPED AND NEARLY KILLED!!"

I froze as did everyone else as tears started streaming down Bo's face. He clenching his fists so tightly his whole body shook as he looked at me. His own emotions laid bare for all to see. Iris stood and walked over to Bo and pulled him into a tight hug.

"There was nothing you could have done Bo. We're all just glad you're safe." Iris said. Bo shoved Iris away and glared at her.

"That's the point! There's never anything I can do! I'm always just supposed to hide!" Bo barked. "I want to be useful and be someone everyone can rely on! That's why I did it. That's why I attempted to create my own body modification spell to power up Gadget! And it worked! Gadget's a transcended stage evo now!"

"But Bo, he only evolved because a fragment of your farm crystal is inside his body. Who knows how this could affect him and you?" Jade said, kneeling down beside her son.

"Regardless it worked! He's been like this for almost two weeks and nothing has happened to him or me!" Bo argued.

"Yet!" I exclaimed suddenly. "Nothing has happened to him or you yet."

"The same could be said for you and your shaped evos and modified ones!" Bo griped. I paused, I couldn't refute what he said.

"You're right…I don't know. I know next to nothing about my evos…in retrospect I have no right to judge or even criticize you…but that doesn't mean I have to let you continue down the same path I have all for the sake of being like me." I said. Bo gritted his teeth and glared at me. The farm crystal on his tongue glowing brightly as his emotions.

"I don't want to be like you! I want to be better than you!" Bo exclaimed.

Suddenly Gadget started glowing in a pale purple light. Gadget floated into the air above Bo and his body started growing. Becoming longer and lankier, and leaning more into the capuchin and chipmunk bases. It kept growing until it was about three feet tall and then the bright light that enveloped its body disappeared, revealing Gadget's new form. The main difference being that it was larger and had two rows of crystal-like spikes sticking out of its back from the base of its neck all the way down its tail.

Gadget slowly levitated back down to the ground in front of Bo where it opened its eyes and blinked a few times. Looking down at its paws, it flexed the digits a few times then cocked it's head to the side and looked up at Bo.

"Big brother…I evolved again…"