Chapter 12

Michael stood atop the desk, blood dripping down onto Hearthgrieve and his lunch.

Well, this is awkward.

"Uh, I can explain. Just wait a moment."

Michael quickly hopped down and tossed Tommy's head in a corner before he began to strip Tommy's corpse of anything usable. He needed to do this quick. They both shared the same dimension hopping ability and he didn't want to be holding on to it if it got shifted back to its dimension.

Hearthgrieve stared at Michael, clearly disturbed. He probably wasn't expecting someone holding onto a headless corpse to suddenly appear on his desk.

"What in the hell Michael, is that Tommy?."

Michael ignored him, focusing on looting the corpse.

He finished it up quickly, only taking a moment, and afterwards he was quite happy with his haul from the encounter.

He'd managed to get a silver ring, it was etched with the depiction of a man with his arms held wide as a wave of arrows fell upon him. This is probably what protected Tommy from projectiles. Michael put the ring on, waiting a moment, but not really feeling any different.

He moved onto the mace, a very useful melee weapon that displayed quite a bit of stopping power during the shift, and then onto the crystal Tommy had pulled out of the Night Druid corpse, the one he'd said would increase resistance to fire. Not that Michael knew how to use it.

After growing progressively more tired of being ignored, Hearthgrieve put his hand on Michael's shoulder.

"Michael, we need to talk. Why are you rummaging through the pockets of your own corpse?"

"What do you think? I'm obviously looking for useful shit."

"I was more asking why you have Tommy's corpse is here in the first place."

Michael opened his mouth to respond, but something next to him caught his attention.

Tommy's disembodied head had begun twitching, before it's mouth slowly formed an uncomfortably wide smile, as black bile began to form on its skin. After a moment, it began to speak.

"Oh, it seems you've won, soul thief. Maybe I should congratulate you, not that you really deserve commendation for this. You take from me just like everyone else after all."

Michael was pretty sure he knew who this was, but decided to ask anyways.

"Who are you exactly?"

"Oh don't play the fool. I am Order, I am everything."

"And why are you here?"

"I'm here to simply check up on a growing crop. Quite a promising one at that. Perhaps I should give you some special attention?"

It chuckles and it's smile widened considerably, growing to even more unnatural lengths.

"I honestly was betting on the other one to survive, but then again, I don't know all that much about you, now do I? You're simply the product of an ancient gods foolishness."

"Regardless, I can't stay here long, this bodies not exactly in great shape, but I do want to leave you with one piece of advice if you want to survive."

Its face turned serious.

"Don't disappoint me like they always do."

With that the head dissolved into a pile of black bile.

Michael stared down towards the puddle, before the sound of guards rushing over could be heard.

Looking around, Michael could see that Hearthgrieve was long gone. Smart man.

Guards rushed into the room, rifles pointed towards the corpse and towards Michael.

Michael simply waved towards them, "Hey guys, I'm back. I'm guessing y'all missed me?"

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Over the course of the following week, Michael was put through many, many experiments. Nothing too crazy, they mainly spent their time examining the crown and his body.

They brought in a girl who claimed they were able to see all the energies of the world, hoping to gain some insight into the crown anomalous traits.

Apparently a white energy was constantly drifting from the crown into his body and into the mace at his side. That's probably why the mace was so much more effective in his hands than in Tommy's. It's probably what was helping improve his physique as well. His body did show up as oddly durable during the experiments.

During one test, they killed a lab rat next to Michael while the girl watched. Apparently when it died, a white light would be sucked out from its body and into the crown.

Similar tests continued on for quite a while with the same result.

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As per Michaels agreement with the foundation, he was allowed to keep everything he found in other dimensions, so long as it wasn't hazardous to the foundation.

Although he did need to know more about the items he'd found, so he lent the silver ring and mace to the foundation for testing. Something they were happy to do.

They discovered that the ring protects against most forms of projectiles, except for any paranormal kinds, which would still hit their target. They didn't go into detail with that part, but it's something to keep in mind.

Apparently nobody else was able to bring out the same amount of power using the mace though. Most people could barely get it to show any anomalous effects, let alone having the same explosive power it had when Michael used it.

He also spent some time thinking over his last dimensional shift. It helped him come up with some new items to request.

Poisonous Gas

Someone to instruct me in how to use a mace.

Since he was immune to all poison, there's no reason he shouldn't implement it in his battle strategy. It worked wonders against Tommy, he might as well keep using that strategy.

On another note, Michael had grown cautious around the foundation staff. They were starting to be wary around him. Anytime he was escorted somewhere, there would be more guards than necessary and they'd be using extremely powerful firearms. Apparently he'd come back one to many times holding onto a corpse. The anomalous items he carried also probably didn't help. No matter how friendly Michael was, they would still raise some eyebrows. He'd been lucky that Hearthgrieve left the room before Order started talking all cryptically to him. The last thing he needed was more suspicion being pointed his way.

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Just like that two weeks passed. Michael received replacements for all the items he'd lost during the last shift, as well as the items he'd requested.

He'd been given a couple of grenades that they promised contained extremely poisonous gas. They also had an expert in close combat come to tutor Michael on how to properly use his mace. Learning the basics helped quite a bit, at least now he wasn't just swinging it thoughtlessly.

Several days passed by peacefully, until weightlessness began to overtake him as space warped and folded, pulling Michael into the unknown.

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When shift had finished, Michael stood up and scanned his surroundings, his shotgun held at the ready.

It looked like he was standing in the middle of a child's room. It was run down, dirt and dust covering much of the area.

Off in one corner of the room, Michael spotted a tea set sat atop a small table, with a little girl poking her face out from underneath it.

Michael shined his light towards her and she stared absently towards him.

Michael cautiously approached the child.

"Hi there, my name's Michael. I'm not gonna hurt ya. What's your name?"

The child didn't respond, simply poking her head further out from underneath the table. Her neck became visible, as it came out farther and farther.

Wait a minute.

It's neck gradually became longer, normal skin giving way to a fleshy exterior as it snaked its way out from under the table, its neck was several meters long.

It began to snake through the air towards Michael, it's jaw unhinging.

Yeah, fuck that.

Michael, backed away before firing a shot towards its head.

It dodged with surprising speed, before shooting towards Michael.

Michael ducked and the head shot over his shoulder, burying itself into the drywall behind him.

Michael aimed towards the table the creature's body was hiding under before firing several shots.

The neck went limp.

Michael slowly moved towards the table.

Looking underneath the table Michael could see a small pile of flesh that somewhat resembled a body. Although it didn't have hands or legs and seemed to be rooted into the ground and wall. Both of which were covered in a fleshy substance.

This could be a problem.

Michael moved towards the door, listening for any movement in the hall. After a moment of hearing nothing but silence, Michael moved over to the bed and sat down.

He pulled out his laptop and began to look and see if there was any mention of something like this in the database they'd given him.

Several minutes of searching later and he'd found something that seemed to match what he'd encountered.

SCP 610, The Flesh That Hates.

After a few minutes of light reading, he'd learned everything he could about it.

Michael closed the laptop.

"Fuck."