The Mimic in Monsterland

I sat down on the chair behind Len’s desk in the guild office, exhausted and kind of sore. In no way, shape or form did I want to be here. Not when Mrs. Warbler’s delectable evening meal waited for me back at the shop. My head rolled back and leaned on the top edge of the chair as my imagination ran wild with the possible food combinations that awaited me, yearning for their home in my stomach. A yawn escaped from my lungs. My eyelids grew heavy for a moment, my head fell to the side chair. A jolt of pain shot through my shoulder, waking me back up.

While stretching my shoulder around trying to work the tightness out, my mind thought back on the training day.

“Welp. That was less than ideal.” I voiced into the empty room.

“Some might even say a wild waste of time.” Tutor chimed in, humor in her tone.

“Yep. Hell, I heard some say that it was overwhelmingly worthless.” I responded, deciding to play along.

“A squandering of resources.”

“A blatant lack of mirthful effort.”

“Ooh, how about an imprudent, uh, umm… nah, I lost it.” She said disappointed in herself.

“Imprudent…no not the right adjective. How about an excessive amount of pointless drudgery.”

Tutor paused. “That’s not a word.”

“Yes, it is.”

“Drudgery. Really. Nah, It can’t be. It sounds too dumb.”

“Look it up on whatever computer screen you're watching my life on. You…creepy stalker.”

“Sick burn, dork.”

“Oh, shut it.”

She giggled to herself for a moment, before speaking up again. “Little crabby about today, huh?”

I sat up in the chair, then fidgeted with some of the weird pens that sat on the desk in front of me. “Can you blame me? First day of squad training and what do I do? Pick a fight with some racist dipshit, barely win it.”

“Sounds pretty badass to me.” Tutor cuts in.

“Okay, yeah. That part kind of ruled. But then when I go on to meet the other frontliners, they hardly even look my way the whole time.” I recalled what happened after I woke up from my fight-induced slumber.

When Fennel brought me back to our squad's training yard, everyone was already in full swing. Each of my new squad mates were grouped up in their respective roles. The three archers were knocking back arrows, the young sibling mages fired off a variety of lightning and water based powers as Daila watched them, and the two other frontliners swung at an assortment of mannequins. A mixture of boar, bear, and wolf shaped ones.

I had been pretty pumped from the victory, and was eager to join them. But Fennel told me I needed to give them a run-down on my abilities first. He called the two over and introduced them. Sadly, he went so fast that I hadn’t caught their names. Which is going to make tomorrow just that much more fun.

He turned it over to me and I told them my gene, which of course made both of their heads tilt in confusion. Their bewilderment only grew when I explained my abilities. After I finished my explanation, Fennel looked up at the sky and said it was best to get back to training. That the other team members could talk with me after we trained or in the morning.

Fennel wanted to run partner drills. Having me get a feel for all the others’ powers no doubt. A good plan, if they had only followed along. Fennel was the only one who took the drills seriously. We demolished the boar mannequin in a matter of seconds. I used Ursa form; didn’t want any issues from Tigris. Fennel blocked the charge from the mannequin, leaving its flank wide open for my claws.

The other two just pretty much fought the mannequins on their own, giving me no ground or opening to get in on the action with them. One of them, a human guy with strange rough looking gray skin, whose name I think started with an R, actually shoved me to the ground, wherein I received the shoulder injury. I tried to not let it bother me, but after being knocked away, cut off, and pushed around for a few hours, I started getting heated. Being in Ursa form probably didn’t help.

Daila walked over during one of our rests. She must have been watching while she trained the half elves, and probably noticed me getting close to my boiling point. She whispered something into Fennel’s ear. Fennel’s face twisted, clearly not loving whatever command she had given. He then announced that training was to end early today, with a poor excuse about stamina problems or something.

While everyone packed up their weapons and such, Daila strode over to me and told me to head to the guild hall. I asked and she responded with, "Len," and continued on her way back to the sibling mages; who were giving me the strangest look. Not an aggressive one or anything, but odd all the same. I was too annoyed and tired to figure it out so I just waved at them and left.

I resumed my talk with Tutor. “And the dumbest part is I don’t even know if they avoided me because of my weird gene, or because I beat up their buddy, or if it was some more stupid prejudice about Ferals. It all just chaps my hide.”

“Who the heck says chaps my hide aside from geriatric men?” Tutor replied, ignoring the entirety of my complaint.

“Whatever.” I said, dropping my cheek into my hand, staring out of the window in the office. The setting sun sat on top of the city walls.

Doubts crept into my mind. Why am I joining this squad? Or the Legion for that matter. I mean, why am I even trying to make a life here in the first place? From the looks of it, the majority of Laurelhaven doesn’t want me around. I mean, I’m going to battle with that lot, and they won’t even try to work with me. People will die if we don’t shape up. I may die. I made a hefty sigh.

“Small bronze coin for your thoughts?” Tutor asked.

“What?”

“I don’t think they call them pennies here.”

I snorted softly. “It's just some concerns I’m having about this whole Legion thing. The Explorers Guild sounded awesome, still does. But Len said joining the Legion was a must for that to happen. And now that I’m doing it. I don’t know. I don’t get why I’m bothering. Nobody except for Len’s crew accept me. Everyone else has avoided me or shunned me. And yet I’m expected to fight and risk my life for people that are just going to ostracize me when I get back.“ I sighed. “It's starting to wear on me, I guess.”

“I told you to put more thought in…”

I cut her off. “Yeah, Yeah. Can we skip I-told-you-so's? They don’t help you or me.”

“They make me feel better.”

I shook my head. My stomach growled monstrously, making me jump. Damn, haven’t had one of those in a while. My mimic belly got used to the routine and knew it was past dinner time. I’d been sitting in the office for the past thirty minutes according to my Ursa timer. “Screw it, they can find me tomorrow if it's that important.” I made my way to the door, the thoughts about Mrs. Warbler’s dinner returning to my head.

My stomach roared again. A thump came from the other side of the door, like something fell on the floor in the hallway. “Hmm.”

I opened it and looked down the hall, just barely catching the end of someone’s cloak or cape slip into one of the doors further down. Was someone spying on me? Curiosity lodged itself firmly in my head. I walked over to the door as quietly as I could. I slowly pushed it open, peering inside.

It was empty. A square room with nothing but wooden walls, an open window at the back, and one of Len’s little flames in the corner of the room. Multiple of these flames were placed all around the guild; they were similar to the one he had above my cave in the Forest. A magical security system or something along those lines. I walked in and looked through the window. Whoever it was probably hopped out. I didn’t see anything, just the guild backyard covered in mannequins. I shrugged. Len’s more than likely aware of it but I’ll let him or somebody else know. It's not like it's a big deal anyhow. It just looked like I was talking to myself. Which is strange, especially a full blown conversation like that one. But everybody already thinks I’m weird so who cares.

I turned around and froze. A person wearing a dark cloak stood menacingly in front of me. When did they get there? I didn’t hear anything. The cloak shrouded the person’s face. Hairs on the back of my neck stood up. The stranger was a good bit smaller than I, only a few inches above five feet and from the slender shoulders, I was pretty sure it was a woman. But I could have been wrong. They didn’t move, not even an inch, while I examined them. I couldn’t even tell if they were breathing.

After a minute of the staredown, nervousness got the better of me and I finally spoke up. “Umm. Hello? Mind, uh, saying or doing something?” Yet even with my words, the person didn’t move. After another minute, I had an epiphany, and calmed down immediately. I sighed. It's another stupid prank from Len.

“Okay, you guys got me. Ha Ha. I freaked out, you can come out now.” I didn’t get any response. I looked around the hooded figure and around the rest of the room. No one responded. I turned back to the window. Did they expect me to jump out the window from the shock? Come on, I'm not that excitable.

“Guys?” I called out. Yet I received nothing but silence again.

I turned back around. And then jumped. The cloaked figure now stood directly in front of me, half a foot away. I almost shifted into a form out of pure instinct. They grabbed my arm. Their fingers were small but rough. She spoke in a low feminine voice.

“You’re the Feral boy. Yes?”

Freaking great, just what I needed in my life today, more bullcrap racist remarks. I pulled my arm away from her and backed up, my guard raised. “Yeah, what of it?” I snarled, preparing myself for the incoming insults.

The stranger pulled her hood back, not all the way, but enough to see her shockingly pretty face. Her gaze wasn’t filled with malice or anger, but concern? He spoke once more

“Is everyone in the village safe?”