181: A Company of Fools: Grand Opening IV

"…Well the first thing you should know about this Moldworks is that it is designed with safety in mind…" I said as the girls and I led our guests towards the main offices.

However, no sooner had the words left my mouth did a thundering explosion echo through the warehouse from the direction of the maturation tanks. I looked towards that direction and saw arcs of lightning shooting everywhere.

"BO! YOU DAMN BRAT!" Haws vicious bellow came from the same direction. Iris and Jane groaned and looked at me.

"Fuck a duck, really?" I muttered under my breath. I looked back to Dean Baxter and the Ascred Brothers, and the dean had an amused smirk on his face.

"Safety huh?" He said teasingly.

"Ha-ha…" I said in a deadpan tone and then started towards the disaster. "…Give me a second.

I channeled volt attribute mana and raced over to the maturation tanks. At first I thought that one of the tanks had shattered and the lightning was coming from an exposed conduit but as I got closer I saw that was not the case.

I had a few evos maturing in some of the tanks. Three to be exact, all experiments to see how far I could push the limits of Shaping. Unfortunately, one of those evos was now the cause of the current disaster.

Magi series: Glipsphere, child of Gleipnir. A huge transport type evo that I based off of Odin's six legged horse. Possessing horse, cheetah, bison, and gazelle DNA. It stood at over eight feet tall, had four front legs and two hind legs. Was covered in short black fur with a long flowing black mane with blue streaks and highlights. Sticking out between its eyes were two spiraling black horns that were about a foot and a half long each.

It was a rare tier four evo…technically. I wasn't completely sure if the tier system still applied with shaped evos since it was a lot easier to add more bases with Shaping than with splicing and techno-splicing.

I was sure that the massive evo was the cause of the explosion. It stood in front of the shattered remains of a medium sized maturation tank. Its four ruby red eyes glowing in the subtle light of the surrounding tanks as lightning jumped from its horns and tail. I jumped on top of one of the small sized maturation tanks and used the tops of the tanks to get closer and Haws carrying Bo on his shoulder and running through the rows of tanks towards the lab at the back of the building.

'Well they're safe at least…' I thought then turned my attention to the Glipsphere. I held my right hand out and channeled mana into it, sending it out like chins to restrain the evo. It had been a while since I'd done that, so my mana didn't want to switch to control right away. When it did and the mana chains wrapped around the Glipsphere's head and dug in the Glipsphere resisted, trying to cancel out my control with its own mana while bucking and kicking at whatever was near. I quickly shut that down by flooding the connection with my mana. It's eye's glassed over and it settled down instantly.

I jumped down from the top of the tank and stood in front of the Glipsphere. I reached up and petted the side of its neck and murmured softly to help calm it down further.

"Haws! Bo! I calmed it down!" I called out a few moments later. Haws was halfway to the laboratory when I called out, he skidded to a stop and turned around to see me walking towards him with the Glipsphere following close to my side.

"Chase! Thank the gods." He breathed. I stopped in front of him and glanced over at Bo.

"What happened?" I asked in a slightly annoyed tone. A vein bulged on Haws forehead as he picked Bo off his shoulder and dangled him in front of me.

"This little chaotic shit was messing with the tank!" Haws snapped.

"Bo…" I growled through gritted teeth and then slapped him on the back of the head. "…You idiot! You could have been electrocuted!"

"Ow! Fuck that hurt!" He exclaimed and rubbed his head. I slapped him a second time.

"Stop cursing!" I griped. Bo muttered under his breath while trying to squirm out of Haw's grip.

"Can you put me down now!" Bo exclaimed.

"No." Haws said, looking at him with his lip turned into a snarl.

Despite the anger I saw on his face I saw a glint of fear and worry in his eyes when he looked at Bo. Since coming to work for me Haws has taken up the mantle of keeping Bo in check or at least trying to. While Nate normally did a good job keeping his son in line he couldn't be everywhere at once and normally if Haws was somewhere Bo wasn't too far behind. The kid seemed to love jumping between bugging his dad and pissing off Haws.

"You had to choose today of all days to pull something like this…we have guests in Moldworks!" I grumbled

"Oops…" Bo muttered.

"What's done is done. Just go get the orkands and have them clean up the mess." I groaned then shook my head.

"Okay…" Bo muttered. Haws let him go and Bo landed in front of me.

"I'm also cutting your access to the lab for this, you're locked out for a week." I said.

"…WHAT? OH COME ON!" Bo yelled.

"Keep it up and it'll be two weeks." Haws warned. Big gritted hid teeth and stomped off towards the entrance.

The orkands when not working stayed in one of the apartment on the ground floor of the apartment building I owned, except for the ones that Jade and Bo kept as their personal evos. This was because of Nate. In the last month he'd taken up the mantle of being in charge of renovation and up keep of all my properties. To do this Nate was put in charge of a small squad of orkands that affectionately call themselves the skinny bones tribe. Because of Nate's thin frame.

"That boy is going to be a terror when he gets older…a little like a certain splicer I know…" Haws said giving me a knowing looking. I rolled my eyes.

"Please I'd never have the balls to do have the shit he does, I would have been killed." I said.

"You still managed to raise a lot of hell. You were just better at hiding it was you." He said then chuckled. He looked up at the Glipsphere and whistled. "It didn't look that big in the gene delver simulator."

"That seems to be the going trend for evos. I think the mana crystal helps speed up their growth." I said. Haws nodded and walked around the glipsphere doing a assessment as he did.

"Looks strong, healthy, and fully formed." He said.

I placed my hand on its chest and channeled mana into it. My mana sought out the glipsphere's mana crystal. I found that if I channeled mana into a shaped evos crystal I could sense what attributes they had and what attributes the first of a type had every evo of that type had. Like how both Jiggles and Pogs had blast attribute.

"Looks like…Volt and Dissipate attributes." I said, then took my hand off him and frowned. "Dissipate? Never seen that one before."

"If you never seen it how do you know what it is?" Haws asked.

"When I sense attributes I can sort of feel what the attributes does and what element it is under. Seems dissipate lessens strain or effort." I said. Haws scratched his head.

"Wait so can it made whatever its carrying lighter?" Haws asked.

"I think so…we'll have to so some tests…" I said then looked up at the Glipsphere. Haws and I heard the sound of running footsteps approaching and turned towards their direction. I saw Iris rushing through the rows of maturation tanks towards us.

"Chase! There you are!" Iris exclaimed then looked up at the Glipsphere. "This what caused that explosion earlier?"

"Yeah, Bo was messing around with the tank when I caught him. Don't know what the hell he was doing but he woke it up and broke out. Chase luckily was here to calm it down." Haws explained. Iris groaned and rubbed her forehead.

"That boy!" She growled. "Whatever. Jane wants you to head back as soon as possible. She's already shown everyone the offices but doesn't want to head this way until she knows it's safe."

"We'll head back now…in fact…" I grabbed Iris and Haws and channeled float attribute mana and jumped up above the Glipsphere's head. The three of us landed on its back with me closest to its front. "…we'll take this guy over there."

"Ra's breath! How many times do I have to tell you to give me a warning before you do that!" Iris snapped and slapped me on the shoulder.

"Yeah, yeah. I'll remember next time." I said then urged the Glipsphere on.

"There better not be a next time!" Iris shouted.

The glipsphere broke out into a light trot and made his way around the edge of the maturation tank area and over to the offices. We found Jane and our guests standing outside the offices with Louie, who looked to be in the middle of explaining something. Hearing us approach, everyone looked our way and gasped when they saw the Glipsphere.

"That thing is massive!" Louie exclaimed and rushed over to get a better look.

"You're telling me! All three of us can ride him and have plenty of room." I said and had the Glipsphere stop about ten feet from everyone.

"So Majestic…" Caspian breathed as he approached.

The glipsphere eyed Caspian as he moved to its side. I was no longer actively controlling it like I did when I calmed it down earlier, but the glipsphere seemed to have a calm disposition naturally and allowed Caspian to approach and touch him.

"The Ascred family was responsible for bringing Steeds to Europe over four hundred years ago. I spent my entire life around horses, cheetahs, and steeds. I've always thought they were one of the most noble looking evos…this evo blows every steed I've ever seen out of the water." Caspian said.

The glipsphere nuzzle his head against Caspian's and whinnied. I arched a brow at the gesture and had a thought. I had to bite my lip to keep from letting my devious smirk come through. I looked to Jane and motioned at Caspian.

"Would you like one?" Jane asked, then gestured to the glipsphere. Caspian looked surprised at the question.

"Wait, you'd let me have one?" He asked.

"Provided you follow the provisions I laid out before. I'll even let you have this one, too." I said. Iris and Haws jumped off. I followed suit and motioned to the glipsphere. "Touch his head and give him a name…"

Caspian did as I instructed without question or listening to all I had to say. The glipsphere's ruby eyes glowed a bright blue as lightning started sparking around its twin horns. I started to move and push him out of the way when Caspian muttered a single word.

"Charlemagne…" He breathed. The Glipsphere's horns stopped sparking, and a crystalline structure formed around him before flying into Caspian's farm crystal. Caspian let out an audible gasp as Charlemagne entered his crystal and grabbed his head suddenly. "…I can hear a voice in my head…it's Charlemagne."

"Yeah, I should have mentioned that shaped evos have a higher level of intelligence. While not all of them can talk, they all can communicate with their splicer telepathically." I said.

"Amazing! Truly amazing! I feel as though Charlemagne's own mana is flowing through me!" Caspian exclaimed.

"It is, actually." Iris spoke up. "Shaped evos can cycle their mana through their splicer. This increases how fast your mana recovers when you expend it."

"These evos…" Caspian muttered to himself.

"Are you sure it's wise to give away something so…versatile. Evos, capable of doing what you say, would be considered world-class treasures. No, an evo with mana by itself is already a world-class treasure. These shaped evos…" Hideyoshi shook his head and looked at his brother then back to me. "…countries would be willing to sell the very souls of their people to get just one…it feels almost criminal to ask you for one."

"Don't worry about it. If you want an evo, I'll give you an evo, or if you'd rather have the enchanted item, I'll give you that. I kinda owe you for earlier." I said.

"No, you don't understand …" Hideyoshi started. I held a hand up to stop him and shook my head.

"I understand what you were getting at Hideyoshi. Because my evos are so valuable, countries might be willing to do me harm in order to get them. I might be a little dense at times, but I figured that out. It's not too hard when you have a munch of noisy classmates constantly screaming it in your ear…" I said, then gave Iris and Jane a sideways look.

"As long as you understand…your time as a free splicer might soon be coming to an end, Chase. With a discovery like this, I can see every country in the world offering you a sponsorship as their Paragon…you can definitely expect one Japan." Hideyoshi said.

"And England as well." Caspian added. Hideyoshi frowned at his brother.

"England already has a Paragon!" He exclaimed.

"Yes, and our dear cousin has done a remarkable job, but once the King hears about these evos, do you honestly expect Magni to keep his title?" Caspian asked. Hideyoshi narrowed his eyes at his brother and shook his head.

During the brother entire exchange, both Iris and Jane looked like they were about to freak out. Even Dean Baxter looked impressed. However, I didn't like the way that Caspian phrased that.

"Well, your cousin won't have to worry about me taking his spot. Becoming a Paragon isn't what I'm exactly looking to do right now." I said politely.

That response seemed to shock everyone, except for Haws and Louie, who looked more surprised at everyone else's reaction. Not wanting to get dragged into what I was assuming would be a loud argument with Iris and Jane, I quickly changed the subject.

"I do see us heading over to the back lab and finishing our tour." I quickly said.

"Well, if you're heading to that back lab, then we might want to stop at the maturation tanks first. That special evo that you put in tank sml-02 is ready to come out." Louie said. Both Iris and I looked to him with genuine interest.

"Are you serious?" I asked. Louie nodded. Whole Haws groaned and smacked his forehead.

"Oh, right! That's what I was supposed to be doing! Getting things ready to get that svo put of the tank!" Haws groaned. "I got distracted by Bo's latest mess and forgot. I'll get that all set in a minute!"

Haws turned and ran off towards the maturation tank area. Iris and I shared a knowing smirk, and I turned to address everyone else.

"Well, we're taking a detour. You all won't want to miss this!" I said.

"Wait, Chase, what evo is in the tank?" Jane asked. I smiled and turned to head towards the maturation tank area.

"You'll see when it gets out. Jane and Iris are with me. Louie shows everyone else over to the control center." I said over my shoulder.