Modifications

After reading Kai's last post and learning about this so called "Fear of vermin", I became curious, and sought out the scene of that incident. Had to search the banks of the Neosho river for a while before discovering a patch of bloody brown fur emitting an unfamiliar eldritch aura. Perfect.

I bottled it up and teleported to my current base, where My Extractor was waiting for me. As the title of this post may imply, I've been doing a bit of work on it. The Extraction I performed in my own mind inspired me to try implementing some actual coding into the machine. It had taken me a while, but I was finally confident enough in the modifications to test it out.

I placed the sample of Vermin-Fear into the machine. You know what? I'm just gonna call it Timothy. I put my Timothy sample into the Extractor, and opened up a laptop I had hooked up to it via a USB cable. I opened up a file on the desktop labeled Extraction, which opened up a text system that had taken me a whole week to program.

I started inputting several codes into the system, and the Extractor started up. A few more codes later, and the energy was being Extracted from the sample and amplified. For a few moments, the lights inside the Extractor flickered, which had me worried, but I managed to solve that issue without anything blowing up. Still some kinks I need to work out...

I placed a Cell into the Extractor and put some more codes in. The energy was compressed into the Cell with no problems other that a bit more flickering lights.

So what do you think you'll be able to do with this power? the Shard asked me.

"Dunno," I said. "Let's find out."

I retrieved my Vambrace and inserted the Cell, absorbing some of the power into my body. I focused on activating that power, and I felt a very strange sensation in my tailbone.

"I have a tail now, don't I?" I asked.

Yep.

"Well, that's neat, I guess?" I said. "Prehensile?"

Maybe?

I turned around to see the long rat tail that was now protruding from my backside. As an experiment, I tried wrapping the end of the tail around the door handle of my mini fridge. It actually worked perfect, and the tail had enough strength to pull the door open.

How strong do you think this thing is?

"Give me a second."

I quickly whipped the tail against a folding chair I had set up nearby. It was completely split in half upon impact.

"Damn!" I said. "That's actually pretty impressive."

Dude...

"Fuck you, I'll use whatever language I want," I said. "Now hold on. There's something I wanna try."

I used the tail to grab a 16 oz beer can from the still open fridge and bring it to my hand. I then stabbed the tip of the tail into the can, causing beer to spray out from it. I quickly shotgunned the entire can before it could make a huge mess.

Good, you have the super power to get drunk easier.

"Up yours," I said.

So, now that we know your new tech works, are you finally gonna Extract from that Brute sample?

"Are you kidding?" I said. "I just shotgunned a pint. I need to sober up before I do any more coding. Especially with something as volatile as the Brute's power.

Fair enough.

So with that, I went and took a quick power nap, in which I had another of those dreams.

I was back in that room with the little girl, and my eyes felt very uncomfortable, and my vision was kind of... how do I describe it? It's like I had no peripheral vision at all, and everything straight ahead of me was obnoxiously well focused.

"Wow!" The girl said. "That really is scary!"

"Yeah," I said. "But it's also impractical and unpleasant."

The feeling n my eyes went away, and my vision returned to normal.

"Can you change other things about yourself?" the girl asked.

"To some extent, yes," I replied. "It takes effort though, and the changes don't make much of a difference or serve any kind of practical purpose."

I then heard a woman's voice calling out the name Emily from upstairs, and the girl bolted up.

"Oh!" she said. "That's mommy! I'd better go now..."

"Whatever," I said. "Just keep quiet about me. I don't need anyone knowing I'm down here."

"Okay!" The girl said, offering me her pinky. "Pinky swear!"

"Yeah, I'm not doing that."

The girl gave me a pout, and I begrudgingly offered her my own pinky. Then her mom called out to her again. She quickly shook my pinky before scooping up her picture.

"Let me sign this before I go," she said.

She hurriedly scrawled her name in all capital letters at the bottom of the picture.

"Did your mum not teach you any lowercase?" I asked.

"She did," I girl said, handing me the picture. "I just like the big letters better."

She then left me alone. I sighed with relief, finally having some peace and quiet. I glanced down at the picture. it still looked awful, but the girl did have a point. The uppercase letters were much more noticeable and impactful than any normal signature.

Then I woke up.

"Hey shard?" I  asked.

what?

"I there anything you wanna talk about?"

The shard remained quiet for a few moments before giving me a simple no.

I shrugged, and got up to Extract the energy from the Brute's scale. I was a lot more stressful, as the flickering lights continued, and the energy was significantly more erratic and actually cracked the glass of the Cell slightly. But I managed to pull it off and gain that power as well.

"Good," I said, storing the Vambrace away. "The SMSC can have what's left. Speaking of, do you know what our next assignment is?"

No clue, the Shard said. We'll have to wait for them to contact us.

"Terrific," I said. "I guess I'll get some training done in the meantime. I've got two new powers, after all."