The Mimic in Monsterland

I looked over the suit of white cloth a dozen times, removing one from the hanger and holding it. I was transported back to the days when I wore this same type of clothing to class. Back when I was an undergrad. Chemistry was and still is by far my favorite of the hard sciences, so every science elective I took was one based on Chemistry. I liked most of the sciences, except Biology. I’d slept through more Bio lectures than I could count.

There was something about discovering the smallest secrets of our universe, the atoms and molecules that made up reality and how they interacted just so perfectly. Sure, Physics and Astronomy were interesting in their own way. But at the highest level, those turned to the sky and stars and space. I liked how grounded Chem was; you got to actually see the results in front of your eyes. There was no experience like watching a normal sweet little gummy bear light up like fireworks and frying to death in a test tube filled with potassium chlorate.

And the cloth in my hands reminded me of those days. Upon closer inspection however, these were not quite the same; these coats felt pretty rough and worn and were clearly not made from the same polyester blends we had back on Earth; I’m not certain what they are made of. I even found a hole in the shoulder of the one I was fondling. They seemed really old, and yet too modern for the setting at the same time.

I studied the room, taking in the other clothes hanging about. An assortment of leather and cloth armors. One wall had two suits of metal armor on a stand. All pretty standard for a fantasy world like Kniyas. But the lab coats. It just looked off.

“Do they have science here? Like real science.”

“IDK, but I feel like there are bigger concerns at the moment.” Tutor said, responding to my mostly rhetorical musing.

“Maybe alchemy. That’d be fun.” I said while imagining what the taste of a health potion would be. I hope those exist, that would be awesome. For some reason, I always thought they would taste like fizzy cough syrup.

Before I could think about it more, I heard some stomping on the other side of the door. The alarm hadn’t ceased and was still clanging on, reminding me that I was, in fact, on the run. The very reason for the alarm.

I looked at the different clothes in the room again. All varying sizes. What’s this room for? There weren’t any sinks or wash basins, not that it would make sense for those to be 10 stories up a tree. Maybe just a storage room. I found some clothes that looked like they might be my size, some basic leather armor. No dyes on it or anything like the armor the scary plant lady wore. Just brown, inconspicuous armor that had a slight smell to it.

My eyes wandered down to my own clothes. They were pretty tattered and filled with a plethora of claw marks, tusk marks, bite marks… pretty much any kind of mark a monster could leave on me. Thinking on it, I definitely had a very barbaric and overall dingy look to me. Feral wouldn’t be the worst descriptor for my current disheveled style. I shrugged and took the leather armor off the wall. I had formed a plan, a dumb one, but a plan nonetheless.

Upon walking out the door, the pants of the armor chaffed the inside of my thighs. The outfit was a size too small. I could move well enough, but the leather pants felt wrong. I shifted awkwardly in them. Wasn’t a fan of tight pants in the last life, not a fan in this one. It didn’t help that I had a tail poking out of the top of them.

Disguising myself in Apis form seemed like the smart move. One thing people don’t realize is that most aren’t that observant. A good disguise can come in just the form of a different hairstyle or new facial hair. Especially in a world with no cameras. Wow, these powers would probably make crime easy as hell. But before that thought could take root, I imagined what would happen if a Len level threat caught me. I shivered and vowed right then to stay on the straight and narrow.

Besides, three of my other forms were still on cooldown. Tigris might have been the more powerful form, but it didn’t change my look enough. Apis put hair on my face and gave me a freaking tail, and no one aside from Len has seen me in this form. If things did get dicey, it was really good at running through trees. I was banking on that talent working for the inside of one too.

My tail rubbed the base of my back, irritating it. I desperately wanted to make a hole in the pants for my tail, but I didn’t have anything sharp to do it with. And I wasn’t about to waste a Tigris form cooldown just to poke a hole in some pants.

The room was connected to a big nondescript hallway. Some candles lined the wooden walls and a rough carpet strewn across the floor. The hall was in the middle of the tree where no natural light could get it. The guards had just come by before I exited the room, so I thought it was safe. Problem was, I had no clue where to go.

“Ugh, this sucks. Where are the stairs?”

Tutor's reply came in the form of a bunch of giggling.

“What?” I whispered.

“Nothing, nothing, you definitely don’t look like an 80s hair metal singer right now.”

A new fresh feeling of embarrassment and self consciousness flared up. “Shut up.” Before I could craft a better comeback, I heard some heavy footsteps come from the far end of the corridor. Nervousness grew in my stomach. Time to see how convincing this is.

A large human man walked through the hall; once he noticed my presence, he headed straight for me. The man was big, not much taller than me, but definitely had a dozen extra pounds of muscle on his body. He had short brown combed hair, along with some rather hairy arms, and blunt looking claws at the end of his hands.

Is he…an ursa? Some of the anxiety softened. I knew the thought patterns of the Ursa. Maybe I could get through this without trouble. The large man stopped in front of me; his eyes scanned my body for a moment before speaking.

“Any sign of the feral prisoner?” He said, in a surprisingly lax tone.

“N-nope! Just checked the room over there.” I pointed, a little shakily, at the door I just came out of. “Nothing but clothes.”

Bear man snorted in response. “Let's keep checking. Please join me. I was tasked with searching the upper floors.”

No no no. I have to go down, not up.

“Sorry, no can do. I was told to check each floor, working my way to the bottom.”

The man’s large black eyes glanced over me once again. He grabbed his chin and thought for a moment. My fingers twitched. I hope he doesn’t get suspicious.

He nodded and spoke. “If those are your orders, sir. Let me join you. Two heads are better than one.” He did the little shoulder grab salute and smiled.

“Yes, let's do just that.” I said, doing my best to hide my growing panic. Of course, OF COURSE I had to pick the officer’s armor. It looked inconspicuous enough when I grabbed it. Whatever. Might as well make the most of it.

“Alright, lead the way to the stairs…what’s your name?”

“Ballo Stikes, Beruang Gene. Just joined the ranks last week, Sir.” He turned around and moved back down the hall where he came from.

I followed him. We made a left at the end of the hallway and then another right. We arrived in front of a door at the end of the hall. A woman with scales on her face and short shaved hair carrying a spear stood in front of it. Yeah, that makes sense. They would put a guard on the stairs. She looked at my companion and tilted her head in confusion. “Nothing on this floor.” She nodded at his words. She glanced over at me, her eyes dropped and she saluted me. Without saying a word, she opened the door. Okay, maybe the officer’s uniform isn’t so bad. Until I run into another officer at least.

It led to a giant room filled with an unbelievably large spiral staircase. It was wooden and looked like it had been carved out of the insides of the tree. And not only the stairs, but the hand railing itself had ornate designs whittled into it. More windows were cut into the side of the tree, letting the sun’s rays pour into the room. I walked up to the hand rail, and stared up and then down. I couldn’t perceive the top or bottom of the stairs. Just a dizzying spiral of wooden steps. It had to be one of the most amazing sights I’d ever seen. And apparently, my face showed it.

“It is an impressive marvel. But sir, at your rank, you must have seen this hundreds of times.” The man said with an inquisitive look on his face.

I brought my hand to my face and coughed for a second. “Yes, of course I have. I was…just looking for signs of that escapee. He may have gotten by one of the guards.” God, I suck at lying. I tried to be an honest person but I swear I wasn’t ever this bad at lying.

“Understood.” My pathetic attempt at deceit paid off somehow. I walked down the stairs. I couldn’t help but look over the side of the railing. Some Apis fun-time instincts popped up in my head, telling me how fun and faster it would be to jump from railing to railing. Maybe even try to grind down the railing. I shook my head. Not the time. But I looked once more, longingly this time. Maybe one day. If I can clear my name.

We walked down the stairs in silence. We came upon the next door on the stairs. I walked past it.

“Um, sir?”

“Yes Baloo, what is it?”

“It’s Ballo sir, and weren’t you supposed to check each floor?”

Crap, I did say that.

“You are correct, I was lost in thought. Damn feral bastard and his ilk.” I said.

He nodded and went to open the door to the next floor. I looked down the staircase once more. I really need to find a way to lose this guy before we end up checking every floor of this tree.

 

“Another clear floor, boss.” Ballo said as we entered the staircase for the umpteenth time today. “That’s fine, on to the next one.” I replied in an obviously bored fashion. I did not find a way to lose the giant bear man. We had been searching for about an hour or two by now. “What’s on the next floor, Ballo?”

“Should be more storage.”

At some point during the search, I started asking Ballo what was on each floor of the tree. In the guise of testing his knowledge. He was new after all. He didn’t seem to put much thought into what I said anyhow. Much like how I get in Ursa form.

Ballo was a pretty cool guy, all things considered. I started asking him different questions about his life. Half getting to know the guy and half attempting to learn about the city. He was pretty laid back; he answered all the questions without complaint.

Family lived in the Residential District for as long back as their records went. The family records sounded like it was a fancy family tree that kept track of the genes in the family. I had to stop myself from prying too much. But I was extremely interested in how the genes worked. Are they passed down from the parents, are they random? I asked about other genes in his family, he told me he had an uncle in the Crafter’s Guild who came out with a Serpantis gene.

Hearing about a Guild excited me also. I wanted to know more, but that line of questioning would probably cause even the carefree Ballo to raise an eyebrow. We walked by another guard on the staircase. He saluted me, and I nodded at him with the best authoritative look I could muster.

There were guards posted all throughout the staircase and at every door leading to it. And they each seemed to be grunts. Which meant they didn’t ask what an officer was doing here. They just saluted as I passed by. The armor change ended up being a boon thus far, but I was sure my luck would run out eventually.

I still wasn’t sure why they mistook me for an officer. My stolen armor didn’t look like it had any markings on it. I looked for the markings while Ballo was searching through different rooms. Maybe some weird hoodoo was cast on the armor itself. I shrugged and meandered in another storage room. Not like I actually needed to search. This room had jars laid about. Each one sealed with wax.

Something was nagging me about the tree, and walking through this room helped me finally put my finger on it. It felt incredibly empty. A skyscraper back on earth this size probably had hundreds of people moving in and around it. But this tree looked like it was running on barely a skeleton crew. Most of the hallways and rooms we searched were devoid of people. I assumed it had something to do with the recent raid. I asked Ballo about the raid and he said it was one of the roughest Laurel had seen in many moons. He defended a second tier medic station during the raid, whatever the hell that meant, and that they weren’t hit too hard. It was why he was put on guard duty in the Capitol Building, what the giant tree was called. Funny name for a tree.

We ran into a mess hall along the way and I took the opportunity to scarf down a huge plate of food. No clue what it was or what it tasted like. It was meat. That’s all I needed to know. Ballo just laughed as he watched me eat. Saying things like “You sure you didn’t grow up in a Beruang household?” He wolfed down food much like I did. My stomach had growled once while we were investigating, but Ballo just laughed it off.

After the quick meal, we made our way through the floor and then back to the stairs once again. I looked down and realized I could actually make out the bottom. We had maybe six floors left. My nervousness resurfaced. I noticed the security was getting tighter as we descended the final floors. More guards were posted on the doors and staircase.

I was going to have to come up with something soon. But my brain kept coming up blank. It is not too far to the ground now. Maybe I could climb down from here. Squirrel form is off cooldown now. I looked out a window. More people were gathered around the base of the tree. A lot of people actually, like a hundred. There was no way I was going to be able to stay out of sight.

Maybe hiding and waiting till night time? I could stay in log form or stone form and escape in the dark. I didn’t love that plan. A random rock or log sitting in the wrong room might raise suspicion. Maybe I could find a table or chair to mimic. That’d be less conspicuous.

“Have you tried walking out the front door?” Tutor’s voice scared me for a moment.

“There is no way that will work.” I whispered, my head swiveling around, making sure no one heard me.

“IDK, why not just tell bare necessities over there to do some solo searching and you head out? I’m sure if you keep your head down and mouth shut, no one will ask questions. They seem to think you’re a big shot.”

“And how the hell are you sure about that?”

“What was that, sir?” Ballo walked over to the window.

“Just try it.” Tutor said.

“Nothing, I just…saw some movement that looked strange outside of the tree. Ballo search the remaining floors on your own. I’m going to search outside the tree.”

Ballo saluted and made his way out of the room.

“Huh.”

I made my way down the rest of the stairs. And entered what I assumed was the main entrance to the tree building. It was a massive room filled to the brim with people. Sounds of hustle and bustle filled the room. Roots hung down from the ceiling and grew through the giant space. Benches, tables, chairs, desks were placed around the area. A large rotunda was situated right in the middle of the room. There were people inside the rotunda and lines of others formed to talk with them.

It looked like a giant bank. Like, the people behind the rotunda were tellers and clerks. I couldn’t help but think how awfully mundane it seemed.

There was a lot of chaos caused by the gaggle of different races all complaining about the lines and such. Why are they all here?

Thanks to the queues, finding the entrance was simple. The lines went out the door. I walked toward the entrance, keeping my head down, trying my best to not attract any attention. My palms sweat as I hurried through the masses.

I bumped into someone in line by accident. He was short, and I hadn’t noticed him. “Sorry.” I muttered. I looked at who it was and saw a pair of familiar golden dog ears. Of all the people here, he’s who I bump into.

“It's alright.” He looked up at me, but I turned before he could get a good look and continued on. “Wait a second.” He said, moving after me. I picked up my pace and headed to the doors. If he was going to confront me, I’d rather it be outside. Hopefully, I’ll lose him in the crowd.

After weaving through even more people, I got to the entrance and felt the sun hit my face. Freedom at last.

As I took the first step, I heard a loud shout from behind.

“HALT!”