Lineage

For the seventh time that minute, the sodden dale’s edge gave away beneath my foot, this time packing it down with mud from above the initial depression, covering my boot in weight and making me unable to pull it back to steady myself. This caused me to not only fall onto my knee, but slam my forehead into the mud, nearly blinding myself on the small pebbles hiding away in the mud as well as making a mess of my face.

“I fucking swear,” I growled furiously, punching the mud in some childish tantrum, trying to relieve the anger building up in me before I fell to the floor kicking and screaming in rage. “If I fall over one more time on this cunting hill...”

Luckily, I managed to avoid engaging in a blood feud with the earth itself, and made it to the top of the Drowned Dales, a large expanse of hills, permanently soaked by the never-ending rain that poured down all over the seventeen mile area.

Oh, did I mention the rain?

Because the fucking rain.

I love the rain I would sit in it for hours on end with nothing but a shirt and some pants on, and would rather trade the annoying, hot sun for some lovely, cool, atmospheric rain. But I’ll be fucked if this wasn’t the worst kind of rain.

I love thunderstorms, the booming thunder that would send an excited chill through my bones when I heard it, even as a *ahem* mature adult. The sight of the lightning streaking across the sky always brought a smile to my face and made me want to out and splash around in the puddles for hours. Thunderstorms bring heavy rain, ploughing down like ice cold knives from the high heavens. The ones that raised goosebumps on your skin and brought a nearly orgasmic feeling to me whenever I heard it on armour, tops of tents, and metal rooms, shivers and smiles all around.

This became such a problem my mother used to lie with me in bed until I fell asleep as a child to stop me going out and playing in the downpour. Even, stroking my head and rubbing my back in an attempt to lull me to sleep to make sure that I wasn’t just faking sleep and waiting for her to leave.

But the Dales had the worst kind of rain: the soft, weak, and dreary rain. The clouds that weren’t thick enough to block out the sunlight, so the area was still warm, making the rain warm and just uncomfortable. The tiny, barely there raindrops barely made a ping upon impact with anything metal, and instead of the sound of them piercing the wet mud and slamming into puddles, they just made a depressing, plop sound effect and just barely broke the surface.

All in all, I hated this place because of the shit rain and because it was an awful training ground, filled to the brim with Bloated, pond rats, and the occasional fox, if it was a good day. By far though, the worst part about this place was the wet ground, making it impossible to perform hard steps without sinking through the mud, strafe without risking a slip and going face first into the shite, a la myself not a moment ago, and roll away from an attack without either the hilt of your sword getting stuck in the ground or you just flopping down and getting covered in shit.

As I peeked over the hilltop, I spotted Aunt Luna sitting cross legged on a blanket she’d brought with her, eating something in front of a fire with two fur bedspreads set up in a small, ramshackle tent with a horse hitched next to the tent.

Two bedspreads meant that we were staying here for the night, which not only put us at risk of Bloated mauling us to death, but also the crows that picked apart dead bodies and the shit weather. With a sad sigh, I skidded down to the small divot in the dales she’s made camp in, obviously having noticed me but neglecting to acknowledge me at that moment.

Without an exchange of greeting, I sat down next to her, her eyes dragging over to me, examining my clothing, weapon choice, and face, raising an eyebrow at the mud-caked appearance I was sporting.

“I’m trying out a new look,” I said, trying to start a conversation with the icy woman. “Does it make me look fierce?”

With no movement of her eyes, body, or face she retorted in her usual bitchy way:

“Fiercely incompetent,” she scoffed, finishing whatever she was eating and standing up to her full height, placing her hand on the hilt of her steel sword that rested on her hip, gesturing for me to stand up. I obeyed and stood next to the taller woman, her height once again making me look like a child, the blue-haired woman standing at six-five and using every inch to seem as intimidating as possible.

Much like I do in bed.

*giggles*

“You’ve chosen an awful position for your swords,” she said, gesturing to the two, simple hilts that protruded over my right shoulder. “Not that I expected you to know how to wield one properly, but I at least expected you to know where to keep one.”

“What’re you talking about?” I asked, looking up at the hilts with a cocked eyebrow. “This isn’t a bad place at all, I don’t think.”

“Exactly right, you don’t think,” she said, stepping away from me and holding her arms down by her sides. “Stand a distance away and get ready to draw your weapon on my command.”

Not knowing where she was going with this, I obeyed the order, stepping about a foot back and holding my arms down by my sides as she had done.

“Ready?” she asked, rolling her neck and cracking it. “Draw!”

The order was clear. I responded and realized what she was talking about. Before I’d even closed my hand around the hilt of one of my swords and slid it out of its sheath, she’d already drawn hers from her hip and pressed it into my throat, the point of the sword about a half pascal away from piercing my flesh, something she did to make sure I’d learned the lesson.

With a slight push forward, I felt the pain of the steel tip breaking my skin and the blood trickling down onto the blade. She withdrew the sword and I pressed a hand to the small cut, thankful that it was nothing more serious than a cut I’d receive whilst shaving. However, much like a shaving cut, it stung like a bastard.

“See that?” she asked, sheathing her own sword with a disappointed shake of her head. “You would’ve been dead before you’d even drawn. Before we continue, you’re going to switch your scabbard placement to your hips and make sure you never keep them in such a stupid location.”

“Would lodged in your stomach be a stupid location?” I spat angrily under my breath, only to remember a certain fact about my blue-haired tutor:

Super. Human. Hearing.

Her cold gaze settled on me, a fingerless-gloved hand closing around the straps my swords used to stay on my back and pulling me towards her, her vicious snarl doing nothing to detract from her beauty.

“I’d like to see you try,” she hissed.

I, not being the most intelligent man on the planet, jokingly blew a kiss at her, and for my token of affection, I received a brutal headbutt, my nose cracking loudly before she shoved me to the ground. The pain was slightly delayed in my now broken nose, it arriving about as soon as the pouring blood did, the red hot liquid gushing down my face and dripping down my mouth and chin.

I screwed my eyes shut and tried to ignore the pain, swearing and cursing my Aunt Luna under my breath, which, once again, she heard and reacted violently, launching her boot upwards my face. Seeing that one coming, I crossed my forearms in an X-shape and caught her foot, pushing it back down before launching forward at her, placing my hands flat on her stomach and attempting to shove her back.

My footing went as the mud reduced my friction, reducing the once powerful shove to nothing more than a light grope upon impact. Luna grabbed my shoulders and pulled me forward, slamming her knee into my chest, cracking something for sure, before pivoting on her heel and throwing me as she turned, swiping my standing foot out from underneath me and sending me headfirst into the mud.

At this point, blind rage took over and made me make one of the biggest mistakes I’d made in a long time: I reached for the hilt of my sword after I’d recovered. Her eyes lashed up to my hand, a vicious scowl appearing on her face as she spoke her warning.

“If you’re willing to draw with that hand, then you’d better be willing to lose it,” she growled. “Now you can accept your loss, stand up, and apologize for your behaviour and allow us to continue or we can take this further than it needs to go. It’s your choice, Richter.”

Gritting my teeth through the pain and allowing my rational thought to return, I decided that she was indeed right, that there was no need to spill blood, especially when it would only be mine. Releasing my hand from my sword, I stood up, feeling slightly ashamed of how I’d acted and acknowledged that I was in the wrong.

“I’m… sorry,” I muttered, my nose, ribs, and pride hurting badly. “I shouldn’t have done that.”

Luna was silent for a moment, crossing her arms and looking at me sideways, her expression showing me that she thought I was lying. Moments ticked by before she waved a hand, dismissing the issue.

“I accept your apology,” she said. “Now, if I remember correctly, you were due for a mutagen overview, were you not?”

At the mere thought of the process, a shudder ran down my spine. I haven’t really explained the mutagen thing much, have I? I haven’t studied it in too much depth myself, but from what I know the process of creating and using mutagens is like this:

A cell sample is extracted from an animal (we’ll use Grael’s hearing in this example as he’s the one they extracted it from in the first place), be it a blood, tissue or marrow sample, the bone marrow being the place where blood cells are created, thus containing a large DNA sample that is much fresher than blood but instead lacks the immunities and defences the antibody-laced blood cells would have.

Once the cell sample is collected from an area, the specific trait requested is then identified through select means, looking at the dominant and recessive genes to discover which carries the required trait, with Grael’s hearing being tied down to extra muscles in his ear to pick up the air vibrations, as well as being much more sensitive to those vibrations. Once discovered, the trait is then extracted and mixed with a sample of the person’s blood who wishes to undergo the mutations.

Once mixed, a magic user is usually enlisted to help revert the subject’s cells back to their specialised form the stage cells would be at during embryonic growth. This is one of the most dangerous parts of the entire procedure; as if the process is done incorrectly or takes too long, the subject could die, in the case, of larger lungs or heart, veins, or organs. If they are reverted back to their specialised forms and not kept stable, they are at risk of collapsing in on themselves or failing to restart.

Once the cells have been reverted, mixture of cells are injected back into the subject’s body, usually through the base of the spine or the middle of the neck, before both the scientist performing the procedure and the mage keeping the organ stable kickstart the cell’s growth cycle, developing and molding them into the required shape and function, this also being helped by the new cells in the subject’s body, until the mutation has taken effect and the desired trait functions properly.

I did mention that we needed to be older to do it, remember? That was because there comes a lot of risks of infections and diseases from wild animals that we do not yet know of. Some disabilities could be discovered during the process that could be catastrophic if they were to develop. The older one of my family gets the higher and higher the chance of their immune systems being more developed against diseases that might be similar to ones we’ve already suffered from, thus having the antibodies necessary to defend against them. This is why the only species to perform this kind of procedure is my own species, for not only do we have a naturally higher immune system, but also have a very strange allele that makes our genes unable to malfunction or fail during embryonic growth.

We consider ourselves lucky that the mutations aren’t instantly cured by our bodies and that we’re able to keep their effects, but Aunt Celestia described that as the fusion of body cells and the reversion to specialised cells means that our bodies recognise the cells as our own and keep them from deforming. However our immune systems aren’t perfect and can be overwhelmed by the sheer number of different species’ cells we’re injected with, and as a result, we’re limited to one, maybe two, mutagens being used a year.

Got all that? I know it sounds like a crock of shit, but just go with it for now.

Like I was saying though, a mutagen overview is pretty much just you sitting in a chair and having someone collect blood, tissue, and marrow samples from you to see if you’re handling the new changes well. I know this might not seem so bad, but I’d like you to remember where your marrow is: in the centre of your bones.

The blood and tissue samples are easy, just get a needle jabbed in your arm and watch the blood flow into a glass bottle and let someone slice a little bit of skin off your back. But the marrow sample is the worst. In order to make sure they get as much as they need, the doctor will slice your arm open, down to the fucking bone and, using an agonising tool, split the humerus in half and scrape the sample directly from your open, bleeding arm.

And you have to be awake for this procedure to make sure that you don’t lose the use of your arm. Because your hand and arm bones are different things, remember? The doctors keep asking you to wriggle your fingers as they cut deeper and deeper into your arm to make sure they haven’t sliced a nerve and paralysed your entire arm.

There is nothing more disgusting than watching a doctor drag a spoon-like object over the inside of your bone, something no human was ever meant to see naturally, while his assistant asks you to make gestures with your hand, often seeing the blood soaked fingers move as if nothing was wrong, thanks to the nerves and muscle still being there.

I was seven the first time this happened. They split my arm open after practically nailing me to the chair to make sure I couldn’t move away from them while they did it. It didn’t matter that the pain had been numbed for me, something they did less and less the older you got, by the way, but the shock of seeing my arm like that at such a young age was what caused most of the panic.

I was traumatised by it for months, never moving from my mother or father’s side and demanding that I slept in their bed, the two agreeing so they could comfort me after I woke up screaming from the nightmares. My mother nearly came to blows with Luna after she saw what they’d done to me. I’d never seen her that angry before in my life and I’d never since. It was terrifying hearing her scream like that, watching grown men cower in fear at the sight of her pure, hellish rage.

But, as she often did when I was upset, she broke down into tears the second she laid eyes on me, promising that everything was going to be okay and that she’d never let anything like that happen to me again, swearing she’d make it up to me however I wanted for the next year.

Nowadays, it was less of a hellish nightmare and more of a morbid fascination to witness it, the thought of it giving me the shivers.

“There’s no chance in hell I’m getting my arm split open in the Pisspool Praries,” I said with a shake of my head, using the local’s term for the Drowned Dales. “My arm would probably rot off from infection before you even fused the bone back together.”

“Mhm, don’t you just love it when a child tries to lecture and adult on subjects they already know about?” Luna asked, placing a hand on her hip and shaking her head. “I find it adorable.”

Don’t say anything. Don’t say anything.

“I’m not going to give you an overview while we’re out here,” Luna said coldly. “While we’re here, I’m going to grade you on your footwork on uneven ground… though, looking at your nose and grading the push you gave me earlier, I’m willing to wager it’s not the best it could be.”

Ha.

Funny.