Chapter Twenty One - Part One: An Acceptable Form

"Lords above…" Simon breathed as he beheld the weapon before them, restored once more to its former glory.

Leta's glowing eyes roamed over the wave-like patterns and symbols etched into the metal. An odd familiarity wrapped around her, like being a teenager and finding the stuffed teddy bear that used to get you through your nightmares.

Iminus hummed with what felt like satisfaction, the vibrations like a tuning fork that made the molars in the back of Simon's mouth ache with their frequency. It was a pattern that was unintelligible to all, except for Leta.

~'I AM YOURS, MY MASTER.'~

[IMPRINT COMPLETE. WEAPON DESIGNATED 'IMINUS' HAS BEEN FULLY ATTUNED.]

[HOST NOW HAS ACCESS TO MEMORY FILES. COMPLETE MEMORY FILES AVAILABLE: ANAK, GAMESHA, YOTOW, GAZIM, DAGUS, NATUN, SHEPTSU, LAKS, NOKAMI, RUBAKAL, AND GETS.]

[SKILLS AVAILABLE FOR DOWNLOAD FROM MEMORY FILES: 58

COMPLETE SKILL CURRENTLY AVAILABLE FOR IMMEDIATE DOWNLOAD:

BEGINNER ONE HANDED SWORDSMANSHIP

BEGINNER TWO HANDED SWORDSMANSHIP

BEGINNER HAND TO HAND COMBAT

BEGINNER BEGINNER ARCHERY

BEGINNER LANCE

BEGINNER MACE

BEGINNER JAVELIN

BEGINNER DUAL WIELD SWORDSMANSHIP

BEGINNER SHIELD WORK

BEGINNER DAGGERS

BEGINNER WAR HAMMER

ALCHEMY (LEVEL ONE)

POISON MAKER (LEVEL ONE)

INFILTRATION (LEVEL ONE)

INTERROGATION (LEVEL ONE)

[WARNING! SOME SKILLS REQUIRE AN INCREASE IN STATISTICS IN ORDER TO BE UTILIZED. ]

[ WARNING! RECORDS INDICATE THE PRESENCE OF INCOMPLETE MEMORY FILES. SOME SKILLS MAY BE MISSING MINOR KEYNOTES IN ORDER TO RUN EFFICIENTLY.]

[WARNING! THE NUMBER OF AVAILABLE SKILL SOFTWARE EXCEEDS THE HOST'S CURRENT DOWNLOAD BANDWIDTH. ATTEMPTING TO DOWNLOAD ALL AVAILABLE SKILLS MAY RESULT IN SERIOUS INJURY OR DEATH. IT IS RECOMMENDED THAT THE HOST DOWNLOAD ONE SKILL EVERY ONE TO TWO WEEKS IN ORDER TO ALLOW THE HOST'S FORM TO ACCLIMATE TO THE REQUIRED STAT CHANGES FOR THE SKILL.]

[WOULD YOU LIKE TO DOWNLOAD A SKILL NOW?]

"Leta, are you okay?" Simon asked, concern filling his voice as he watched her glowing eyes stare unblinkingly at the weapon as if in a trance.

"Uh, yeah I think so. Just… holy *. Simon, there's more than one!"

"Huh?"

"Remember I mentioned that I was getting impressions of the previous owner? Now that I've imprinted on the sword, I can get access to the impression of all the previous owners."

Simon blinked. His expression was the human equivalent of a computer rebooting after being overloaded.

"All of them?"

"All of them!"

He licked his lips, swallowing in shock at the ramifications. "How many are there?"

"A lot. I think about ten or eleven."

"Lords." He breathed, then burst into excitement, laughing and shaking his fists in the air. "This is incredible! Eleven?"

"Yes!" His joy was infectious and Leta found herself grinning from ear to ear, the pair of them acting more like teenage girls excited to be asked to prom.

All that history. All that stored knowledge of the Atlantians was in their grasp.

Simon did one more controlled hoot of giddiness before doing his best to compose himself.

"Alright. Fabulous news. Most fabulous. Now, how do we go about accessing this?"

"Uh… I'm not sure yet." Leta admitted, "I think it's going to be visions like what I was getting earlier before I imprinted on it, but I'm pretty sure I'll be able to select which memories to see. I think I'll need to… I don't know, 'commune' with it to really iron out the details."

He nodded, then looked over the weapon that was still in her hands. "It's going to be hard to come up with an excuse for this." He sighed.

"Maybe. Or… maybe it doesn't have to look like this." She muttered, then looked back to Simon, "It's bound to my will, including what form it takes. Can you give me, like, two seconds that 'commune' with it?"

Simon raised an eyebrow then put his hands up and took a few steps back. "I'll, uh… just be over here cataloging the rest of the artifacts…" He trailed off as Iminus shuddered with another satisfied vibration. It was as if the weapon was a needy cat, happy to have her attention focused on itself.

Leta focused her thoughts on the weapon similar to how she spoke with her nanites. 'Inimus?'

~YES, MASTER?~

'Part of your vow was to take whatever form I wanted. What forms is that?'

~I CAN ASSUME WHATEVER METAL-BASED FORM YOU DESIRE. BEFORE TAKING THIS FORM, I HAVE BEEN A KOPESH, A WAR HAMMAR, AND BOW. OTHER THAN WEAPON-BASED FORMS, I HAVE ALSO BEEN A BREASTPLATE, VANGUARDS, HELMET, AND SHIELD.~

Leta chewed her bottom lip. None of those options were very under the radar for today's society.

'Do you have to be in one piece or can you be in multiple pieces?'

~I CAN BE IN MULTIPLE PIECES. HOWEVER, THE MORE PIECES THERE ARE, THE LONGER IT WILL TAKE TO ASSEMBLE INTO A MORE LETHAL FORM FOR DEFENSE.~

Leta nodded. 'That's fair, I guess. Okay. Do you have to look like metal? Does your texture change?'

~UNFORTUNATELY, I CANNOT CHANGE MY OUTWARD TEXTURE. I CAN REORDER MYSELF TO BE A DIFFERENT COLOR THAN WHAT I AM CURRENTLY.~

'Dang. Alright. I need you to not attract attention and to be as inconspicuous as possible. Can you do that?'

Leta felt an odd tickle in the back of her mouth before a sharp stabbing pain in her head had her eyes squeezed shut and her jaw locked. A second later the pain was gone and she was breathing heavily as if she'd just run up a flight of stairs.

~SCAN OF THE MASTER'S MEMORIES COMPLETE. REFORMING NOW.~

She nearly jumped out of her skin as Inimus seemed to turn into goop, the rigidness of its sword form becoming as pliable as Play-Doh.

Simon, who had been watching her out of the corner of his eye, gave a surprised shout as he jumped from his seat. "Lords, what's happening?"

Leta didn't answer as she focused on how Inimus broke into two pieces and flowed up her arms like a living silver blob as it crawled over her shoulders and under her t-shirt. The sensation was cold and left goosebumps in its wake as the putty-like Inimus split chilly tendrils that connected to two halves on either side of her body.

The metal seemed to adjust itself as it settled on her before blessedly warming to her own body temperature.

~REFORMATION COMPLETE. IS THIS ACCEPTABLE?~

Over her hands were two fingerless gauntlets, their color a mate black and almost seamless in their structure. They were adorned with small black caps on each knuckle and would be easily mistaken for fingerless gloves. She flexed her fingers and was happy to see that they were as malleable as linen and light enough not to impede her movements.

She pulled her shirt collar down slightly to see that the other part had formed into two pauldrons that braided around her shoulders and connected together over her chest, shoulder blades, and against her ribs with silver straps. Just as with the gauntlets, everything was flexible and comfortable, feeling more like an additional layer of clothing than armor.

~WITH REGARD TO MY FORM, YOU ONLY HAVE TO THINK YOUR INTENTIONS, AND I WILL EXECUTE.~

Leta focused on the gloves and the knuckle caps became spikes.

She flipped her arms over so her wrists were facing up, and two wrist blades popped forward as Inimus reformed himself to her memories of one of her favorite games.

The gloves melted in her hands, only to reform a second later as two punch daggers.

"Yes," She breathed, turning the daggers this way and that as she examined their deadly edge, "I think this is more than acceptable."