What Am I? (2)

"I'm ready." Alek told Novah with confidence.

The people in the house were all outside to see what Alek was. They were concentrated and nervous. Since they didn't know how Alek's animal would react, they needed to be prepared for anything to happen. The venom shifters couldn't just use their venom because that could aggravate the animal or severely hurt Alek in return.

"Okay." Novah sighed before staring at Alek intently.

Alek looked back at the Yayoi but, she felt nothing. Her mind was focused on imagining what her animal would be instead of letting it be blank so that Novah could invade it.

"Do you feel anything?" Panacea asked her daughter. Her eyes were constantly shifting from the anxiety.

"Nope." She told her mother without looking back.

"It's difficult." Novah spoke.

"Why? You had no problem doing that on me." Junto asked. About a year ago, he trained to become the head and, he had to be able to shift smoothly even when it was forceful.

"It's her first shift. When the member of a leading clan first shifts, it's usually the modern form that happens and not the ancient form. The ancient form comes to protect its owner from the modern form and that's how the first shift is done." Novah told him and everyone else.

"Is that the reason why Alek's powers are not activated? Because she doesn't have a modern form to trigger, the ancient form wouldn't be able to come out?" Jin asked.

"Most likely." Novah told them.

"Can you do more?" Kai asked.

"Yes. But from this point on, it's dangerous." Novah hadn't used her full potential and, maybe that was part of the reason why Alek was not shifted yet. It took some time to forcefully shift a member of the leading clan. But for Alek, it was much harder.

"Do it." Alek told her. No one came to stop her. They knew they had no chance of stopping Alek.

"This is going to hurt." Novah told her and, she shifted her eyes to use her full power. The white parts of the eyes became black and, the brown eyes became white like half of her hair apart from the pupils. The pupils were black as the other parts of the eyes.

"Wow." As soon as Alek said that, she felt pain in every part of her body. She groaned in pain and fell to the ground.

"Alek!" Panacea, Bia and Kai called out her name and tried to come closer to her, but Robin, Jin and Rin stopped them. Alek asked for it. She knew this was coming.

"Ahhh!" Alek screamed on the ground as she felt like she was on fire. The fire was chewing on her skin and melting her bones, but she didn't ask Novah to stop. She still had a sane mind not to. She has been told that it's dangerous but not painful. But she didn't want to go back to her words, so she continued with the torture.

After full twenty minutes of agony, parts of Alek's body began to change. Her eyes were constantly shifting between golden yellow and her usual brown. Also, the pupils were the eyes were split vertically like Kai's when he was a crocodile.

Alek looked at her family with tears in her eyes. She didn't know how much time had passed. She lost track of time along with her sane mind.

She then felt the pain reducing from the tip of her fingers. But before she could sigh in relief, another wave of pain crashed upon her from the fingertips. This time it was more painful. She didn't know how this pain could be worse than what she was experiencing a moment ago.

Alek was once again groaning and whimpering in pain on the ground.

"That's enough." Panacea told Novah with a shaky voice. Tears were filling her eyes. She could not take it anymore. She couldn't bear to see her child screaming in pain.

"Oka-."

"Don't." Robin told Novah. "Look." He then pointed at Alek's hands.

Panacea and everyone there became silent apart from Alek. They saw shadows of scales on Alek's hands and arms. The shadows were gradually becoming darker as the nails on Alek also became the same colour as her eyes and elongated. Alek screamed more in pain as the scales finally appeared wholly on her skin and changed her skin colour. The scales on her became golden yellow and, it covered her skin as if she was a snake. But they knew she was a snake because the nails she had was far sharper and bigger compared to Jin and Bia's. They looked like giant animals' claws.

When Alek sat up and looked at everyone, they saw her eyes were no longer the same as before. There were no white parts in the eyes. It was golden yellow apart from the split pupils in the black middle. Her face also had a few scales here and there but, the most eye-catching part was that she had horns!

Alektrona Seika Minazuki had horns!

The horns on her head were like the ones for a reindeer but edgier and weren't growing sideways. It was growing to the top and was light yellow, almost white, in colour. They were long and thick. It was the size of Alek's arms.

Alek sighed deeply and looked at them dangerously with a wicked smile. Her family were shocked. They have never seen Alek smiling like that. And her sigh sounded more like a growl. She then stood up like a drunk person and looked at people around her like she decided to eat which one to eat.

She smiled widely before she came in a flash next to her father and clawed him. Thankfully he had a good reflex and shifted in a millisecond before she clawed him and sent him down the stairs. But even with that, his exoskeleton where his daughter had clawed him was broken and bleeding. No one has been able to do that in his lifetime and, her speed... It was faster than him or his father or Mikoto.

"ROBIN!!" Panacea called out her husband name and went to rush down the stairs before her way was blocked by her half-shifted daughter. "Alek..."

"You knew..." Alek told her mother in a deep husky voice that didn't belong to her. She didn't give her mother a chance before she swung her arms to claw her.

"Ugh..." Alek sighed as her sister and brother stepped in between her and Panacea. Their hands and arms were shifted and were stopping Alek's arms from reaching their mother. "Move."

They were stunned by Alek's behaviour but didn't respond. Even with the power of two strong members of leading clans, it was hard to stop Alek's arms. She was easily overpowering them with one arm.

"Irritating." Alek mumbled before she pushed the three that was standing in front of her.

Panacea was thrown down the stairs with force while the two children were thrown badly onto the ground.

Alek didn't even blink when she saw her siblings bleeding. She turned away from them to face the stairs where her parents were at. She jumped, more like float-flew to down the stairs where they were. There her aunt and uncle were already there, but that didn't matter. "Move." She told them.

"No. Can't do." Lake answered and shifted half. Astraea was sitting close to her sister and her brother-in-law with a big shell on her back. It was harder than Robin's exoskeleton and, she knew she needn't worry about getting clawed.

Alek's smile faded when she heard that. But before Alek could attack her uncle, she saw five shadows flying down the stairs. The shadows landed with a loud bang and, dust flew everywhere.

"Stop getting in my way." She told her siblings and cousins as the dust settled. They were eighty per cent shifted into their modern form and were standing in a circle around her.

"Alek, stop." Castor told his cousin, but she just looked at him like he wasn't talking to her.

"You look familiar." Alek told him.

"Of course I am. I am your cousin." Jin replied.

"Also you..." She then looked at Rin standing a little far from Jin. "There was also another one..." Alek mumbled and snapped her head towards where her parents were.

Her parents and aunt and, uncle had already moved far from the circle and were behind Bia.

"You knew..." Alek mumbled the same words to her parents far away from her.

"Knew what?" Bia asked her sister.

"Aether..." Alek mumbled absentmindedly and looked at her sister with blank eyes. "Aether..."

"Aether?" Bia didn't understand how their brother was connected to this.

"You knew..." Alek once again stared past Bia and told her parents.

"I don't think she is Alek." Iris told everyone.

"What do you mean?" Pollux asked his sister.

"Whatever creature that was inside her has taken control. It may have memories of Alek but, that's not her." Kai answered the question for them.

While they were talking, Alek kept on murmuring 'you knew...' without doing anything.

[Sting her.] Jin told his cousin with telepathy.

[I can't do that to my sister!] Bia replied. [Besides, we don't know if it will have any effect!]

[Now is our chance, Bia! We don't know when Alek would start attacking like before. She is faster and stronger than us and, you know it! It would be better if we used our modern form to immobilise Alek now than use our ancient form which could go berserk.] Jin told her firmly. He knew it was hard for her to sting her sister with her deadly venom. But now, she was closest to the out-of-control Alek.