(5) The Child Born of Life
"Oh, my fuckin lord. Every day. It gets me every time I wake up. Not only am I a dude now, but I also ended up being an idiot all over again," A golden skinned one month-old baby with the stature of a 6-month-old child and the muscle mass/ bone density of a 1-year-old, frowned in a way unbefitting of her age. Well, his age... their age? Her age... But, like, his...?
"Gah. This is so annoying. The whole situation. Am I still me or did my memories just melt into that Idiot's mind. If it's the latter, I don't know which of us is in the lead if that's even a thing... Fuck! It must be the melting bit. Jac and Jack have no differences in my head, so which am I...", Saalimon flipped onto his stomach in frustration and used her arms to prop his head up.
"Honestly. How hard is it to just keep track of the new memories you wake up with? Fuck my life, am I stupid or something? OH my god. Don't tell me I actually caught his stupid?", He bashed her head against the feather down pillow underneath in frustration.
"I think I'm Jack? Or am I Jacqueline? Jac? Fuck me! Everything feels so wrong. My memories, my body, even this status garbage is wrong. I thought the character's name was Salomon. What the fuck is this change?"
Saalimoon Monte
Affiliation: Life
Blessings:
-IMMORTALITY lvl.1
*PASSIVE: Healing: (1x [10x])
*ACTIVE: Healing Amplifier (10x [100x]/1x[10x] Per day)
*RESOURCE: Charge Generator (70x [100x])
"The only good thing is the blessing still hits hard, or I would have been stuck as a dumb person forever. The only problem I have right now is my body, which I can change if I go to the
"FUCKING WHAT? Who bought it? How could they have more points than me? Ahh, dammit. I am stuck in this stupid body,", Saali lifted her eyes up and stared at the guardsmen by the only entrance and exit to his room.
"What the hell am I saying? It's one of those guys who has it. I can just talk them into helping me out. It's no big deal. I just have to deal with this for now", Saali blew a raspberry and squeezed her pillow since the odd looks the guard men gave him felt a bit off.
"Kalil, what do you think the young master is talking about?", One of the guards whispered to his brother in arms.
"He may be smart, but he's just a baby. He's not saying anything. Now focus on your great honor. We are tasked with watching the new Messiah,", the second guard said.
"-I wouldn't be in this situation if remembered that I was in a damn story. I would've changed the settings of my blessing to avoid my family's stupid test-", Saali reviewed the original text and grumbled into her pillow even more since talking out loud made her feel awkward whenever someone thought he was trying to talk.
In the story, Jack, the original Salomon, activated his blessing through pure instinct. He didn't know what his blessing did or how it worked but, through pure reaction, he used a power that improved or created a healing processes for things that would otherwise be slow or nonexistent.
"-And what type of family stabs a baby with 20 different needles as soon as they are born? It's absolutely insane-", Saali knew her background information was similar to the faded soul's in that they both had completely insane religious families and followings. Instead of being born into a death cult, Saali's family proclaimed that they were the direct descendants of a certain religious "messiah". Though its veracity could not be tested, the family did have something that on other person in the world possessed.
"-Let's stab this baby and see how fast it heals, oh wait, that's not enough, let's draw some blood and check to see if it's a better ingredient for our weird ass potions. Fucking insane. All of these people are fucking insane. Who thinks like that? Oooh, new baby, let's see if it can provide more medicine for our members? Who sees a baby as a resource, these fucking animals-", despite her complaining, it was a fact that each member of his family possessed a body that was insanely useful. Blood, skin, bone, hair, everything about them held some medical or drug-like property that put modern medicine to shame.
Regardless of the truth Saali would, like Aaradhya, be able to grow to her fullest potential in terms of points and blessing usage if he learned from the family. At the very least, if she allowed himself to be used, her points would surge very nicely. The family, unlike Aaradhya's, only needed a little cut and a stopwatch to determine the worth of anyone in their community.
"-A whole month. How do you drain a baby of their blood for an entire month? You fuckers are just lucky I can't move a lot or else I would've killed you all myself,-" Saali flipped around onto her back and stared at the ceiling with a pout. His family spent her entire first month of life taking whatever bodily fluids they could to test and retest their newest addition since there was almost no downtime in between the childs healing. A cut would instantly close the moment it was made. Thus, every time they drew blood, it was more potent than the last batch since that's how adapting to circumstances worked. It was harder and harder to cut Saals skin every time so It was only after this month that they stopped to let the child's calloused body soften up. It took nothing short of a diamond knife to cut Saals skin toward the end of his familys expieriments.
One researcher for the family determined that Saali had a mutation that made her divine in some way, that it was even possible his body was purer than their founder according to some damaged records. Like in the story, the initial stupidity and ensuing bloodletting netted quite the catch of points and achievements.
Most of the point gain was in the shape of achievements:
The third achievement was signed with a cursive, "GoL- God of Life"
A few more came in a little bit longer than a week after his birth but their existence was promptly ignored as an annoying sound by Jack, the original version of Salomon. He unlocked the
"*Grumble*, -disregarding everything else, how does someone see giant golden letters flash in their head and not wonder what they mean? I just have to think about it and bam. -"
"-And look. The whole quest window opens up. And these other fucks! Do they need to take so much blood every time? At least I'm getting a lot of points...-", Saali sighed, then nodded in acceptance.
"Bah! What the fuck am I saying? This is how I know I got dumber. Leave it to an idiot stereotype to remain relatively happy in this shitty situation. I'm not accepting it. I'm not," she thought about the life she would have if he did not remember anything about the story or her true personality.
"-I shouldn't hate how stupid he was in the story, but I refuse to be a dense super idiot like Jack. I am Jacqueline and unlike that Idiot, I am prepared to escape and live my own life...-", Jac, the new Saalimoon didn't argue with the trauma Jack suffered in the story because of his family, she lived it and endured just as he did but it was painful and stupid to continue dealing with. That was the problem with having her mind melded with a character from a story. It's just, outside.
The world immediately outside of her familys compound was not exactly in a good place. Well, at least her current location was not a good place for a child to be all alone. It was an active warzone so she has seen and suffered her fair share. To prove a point, It was just then that an ear shattering explosion went off somewhere in the distance, throwing everyone in the family's compound into confusion. Saal, completely used to be running through active minefields or driving out of carpet bombing locations due to her previous occupation, was not even a little bit rattled by the sound. Instead, she knew this was coming since it was part of the story as part of the original Salomons background info.
"Invasion time! I'm ready to go Mr. Soldier man", Saali laughed like a moron as she adjusted her system settings. She clicked a button that raised her turn her sense of hearing up by one from the lowest value. In fact, if someone else could see her settings, they would notice that nearly everything related to her body was categorized and had a slider next to it. Most were turned down to the lowest possible settings. A little automated text bubble in the bottom of the screen, sort of like a predictive chat bot, wrote down some of the Info Big G gave to the group of champions. Specifically, it was a guide on what to do during the attack on Salomon's family.
Around her third bout of laughter, and the fifth round of explosions, Saali calmed down enough to hear two people discuss the safety of their young master, him, and the urgency of the matter. One of the men said he would go out and call over the rest of the guard in the villa, together, they would all forge an escape path.
"-Watch out men. There are ghosts lurking about-", Saali sat up with a smile and looked towards the door. She turned up her hearing slider once more and could make out the beating of hearts of the two guards in the room and just barely make out the droning beat of two other people shuffling just outside of the door. Off in the distance, an explosion nearly ruptured her eardrums, so she once again lowered the slider.
Anyway, like in the story, as soon as the door clicked open, it clicked close. Saali could see a silent body barrel through the opening, landing centimeters from her extravagant crib before it rushed forward. The two soldiers that acted as his guard, dropped to the ground, tiny needles poking out of their throats.
"Hey guys. I see you are here to pick me up...", Saali flipped her body over a third time to stand up in the crib and follow the person who dashed in. Her voice came out as a nonsensical babble but he didnt seem to care as excitement rose in her beating little heart.. Inside of her room were two men dressed in urban, sand colored, military gear.
A large, muscular man placed himself just behind the door and pressed a small device against It. The smaller, speed inclined man that she followed, proceeded towards the only wall sized window in the room. He set up a quick rope system so the two men could rappel out at any time.
"Where is the extraction team?", The smaller man said in English as he crouched at the window. He frowned when he realized something and locked eyes with his ally by the door. The large man frowned and then nodded.
Explosions and gunfire blasted off everywhere except for where they were. Both men immediately understood what they had to do, they were now the extraction team, but not in the way they thought or prepared for.
"It was nice knowing you...", the larger man yelled as he threw the doors open and ran towards the noise he heard with wild abandon. He barreled into a stocky but shorter man. The other English-speaking soldier grabbed Saali and ran towards the window with great speed.
The larger soldier briefly overpowered one of Saal's guards and threw him to the ground, giving his brother in arms another few seconds of time to get clear. Saali's guard was much stronger despite having a smaller physique and threw the English-speaking soldier off of himself after a brief struggle. An explosion then engulfed everything behind the speedy man within a fraction of a second as the english speaking soldier pulled the pin on a grenade he carefully kept in a bullet resistant chest compartment. The flames and shrapnel blasted against the smaller man's back as he rappelled out of the window.
Even with his wounds, the man brought Saali to the ground safely. Even though he trembled when his feet touched the ground, he forced himself to skulk onto a hidden architectural flaw the team discovered during their preparation phase: A hidden but deceptively large clearing hidden between a few buildings.
"Fuck. FUCK. fuck," the man was about to tear up when he put Saalimoon down in a patch of grass. He was afraid he might drop the child in his unstable physical and emotional state.
The soldier smacked his face and refocused his blurry eyes on the now rather than what happened. He took his shirt off to assess the damage done to his body. Wood and stone shrapnel peppered his skin, third degree burns ranged the full expanse of his back, and second-degree ones spread across the rest of his body in irregular patches. He looked at Salimon with a distant spark of hope.
"You wouldn't happen to have some of your family's potion on you...", the man frowned at his own stupid words and then put on a friendly smile. He was talking to the baby, but something about Saali made him truly wonder. He had never seen a baby make the face of an adult like understanding and worry. A moment or two passed by in uncomfortable silence, until the sound of a march echoed throughout the near empty clearing. The soldier put a finger to his lips and then vanished right in front of Saalimoon. Saali, almost reactively, put up the slider for hearing.
"-Interacting with this guy is so different. To just naturally disappear in plain sight, Ridiculous. No wonder those guys were still caught off guard…-", it was at this time that Saali stopped ignoring the rhythmic steps of nearby troops. A pair of his familys guards broke off from the rest of the group and headed directly towards her location. They were loud in comparison to the cacophony of bombs and shots in the background, showing how close they were. Constant sensory overload would melt her brain if she wasn't careful, so she put the slider back down once the guards entered the clearing.
"Tch, he should be struggling right now, pushing his body like that. If I let him stay like this then later on during our dashing escape, he will collapse and I will be stuck in the same horrible life as the original me...-", Saali sat herself up in the bushes that the man left him in and waited for a pair of footsteps to get closer. These men split off from their cell to cover more ground.
"-I wonder if Mr. Soldier knows ESL (English sign language). He should, considering his profession. Oh. They arent my familys guards. Are they from some other military force that decided to attack?-", Two men rounded the corner in outfits similar to but not entirely like his own family's special forces. They gave a quick scan and were about to leave the area when one of them focused a little bit too hard on a patch of grass in the corner of the dark little area.
"We found him...", The man turned took out a walkie talkie and adjusted the tuning knob to reach his squad. His ally was even worse as the soldier just walked forward like this whole situation was not odd.
"Idiot. Who the hell trained you idiots? How can you just enter an area without knowing if it's clear. Tch, rookie mistake...", Saali watched as the English-speaking man silently approached the two enemy commandos from behind.
"Look. The baby is trying to talk. He's actually kind of cute right?", the soldier said. He did not get a response because his ally was already dispatched by Mr. Soldier. The English speaking man quickly followed up and got rid of the second commando.
"This will have to do...", The man stripped down, removed the shrapnel that he could reach, gave himself a shot of adrenaline he found on one of the dead footmen, and replaced his clothes. He was about to change into another shirt when he caught sight of Salamon's little fingers.
"Hey. Do you understand me?", Saali acted out her thoughts with her body.
"It was in the reports but this, wow. It said you have impressive intelligence, but I didn't think it was true. No wonder everyone wants you....", The man whispered to himself. Saali rolled her eyes at the comment.
The man then said, "I do. How do you know English, never mind sign language?", incredulously. Such a thing was not in the reports. He just knew that the child was a bit special, even more so than the rest of his family, and possessed intelligence far beyond what a normal baby should have. This level of intellect, however, was frightening to say the least.
"You do not need to know that. Just know, Charlie Briggs, that we are just pawns in some stupid political game...", Saali got right to the main point and said what was directly stated in the info Big G gave her about the original story.
"...", The man waved "continue", as he thought about what the target expressed. He was not only confused, but frightened that the child knew his name. Not even the team that he was a part of knew his real name.
"I can heal you back up to full health with everything I have but I will only do it if you promise to keep me safe...", Saali's single tooth shone as she smiled.
"If I don't accept?", Briggs spoke with a frown and shining eyes that held a glint of fear.
"You will die, and I will be tortured by whoever wins this little battle, which will be my family. I will then live for as long as I am useful, which will be for the rest of my life. Or until I am big enough to break out..", Saali showed.
"You have an adult's reasoning skills if you can see what will happen to us. I accept. How will you heal me?", Briggs picked him up and hid in a corner of the little area. He could not find the strength to continue standing and waited for the booster shot to kick in. Not to mention killing and escaping from a small warzone, that was out of his depth with these injuries. To be completely honest, he went along with whatever the target told him entirely due to his delirium: The heat, his wounds and blood loss, physical shock and desperation also accumulated into a slight hysteria that made him feel as though all of this was normal.
Saali laughed inside of her head because the Sal freaked the fuck out after seeing those two people die in front of him in such a visceral way. On the other hand, Saali had seen some of her closest friends get blown up right in front of her, to IED's, so seeing two enemy soldiers not from her family get their throats cut with a piece of particularly sharp shrapnel was nothing. She personally strangled an enemy soldier with a metal coat hanger before so odd killing methods were fine. Sadly, she died soon after that very same day, sooooo…...
Forgetting that particularly dumb way to die, she remembered that a passing group of Sal's family's personal soldiers intercepted the platoon outside and killed Briggs within a few minutes of this scene. He then spent the remainder of his life being drained of blood, racking up points and skills that he couldn't figure out how to use because he was caged up like an animal. It was only a few years later, after the first field test, that Jac learned how to capitlize on his blessing, the store, and his strength. This time would be different.
"Cut my hand a little bit and then drink as much as you can...", Saali gestured.
"This was hinted at in the reports, but the special effects of your family's medication really do come from the blood of the main members, right?", for some reason, Brigg's unhesitatingly followed Saali instructions and felt his back itch beyond belief. Saali herself felt a small amount of pain from the cut as she adjusted the system settings. Sadly, even with everything turned to the lowest settings, his cut healed in seconds. She grumbled and showed Briggs that he had to make the cut bigger, which, for some odd reason, he did.
Seconds, then minutes passed in awkward silence as Briggs reopened the wound and drank once more. To him, Saali blood tasted like strawberries and had an orange tang to it.… Saali, in the meantime, thought about their escape but drew a continuous blank even with a healed-up kidnapper since she had no idea where she actually was other than in her familys hidden base. Her confidence waned as shots and explosions rocked the nearby environment, sand fell from the rooftops as the building cracked.
"We lost visual contact with the Irial and Greysha around here. Do any of you see anything?'
"No. There's nothing over here."
"There's no way they vanished into thin air; They should be around here."
"Guys, I see tracks."
"Those lead to a wall"
"No way, look at this."
"What?"
"It's a crack in the wall but it's hidden by pillars and brush."
"Quiet down. They probably went that way."
"I know, I know, but I walked by here every morning while undercover and I've never seen this."
"I said, quiet. Now, watch each other's backs, we're going in..."
"HEY!"
"Fuck. Uriel you were supposed to be our lookout. Open fire!" Almost within the same breath, gunfire and explosions rang out just outside of the hidden clearing. Just like the story initially said, her family found the roaming commandos and were about to easily dispatch them.
As Saali gnashed her gums and singular tooth, an explosion landed square in the area that would have been the entrance. Debris fell, locking the two in and any enemies out. Screams of pain rang out as the soldiers fought for their lives and used some of the debris as cover.
It would take a few minutes extra time to reach the location. In that time though, Saal's guard would completely decimate the infiltrators and clear the rubble with their bare hands to get to her.
"Wow. Look at that, If I just stayed quiet, I could have had this glorious moment of respite... I mean, If I stayed quiet, Jac would have had... If Jack stayed quiet, I would have... Fuck. I keep on mixing us up," Saali looked around the clearing and noticed how the debris seemed to completely miss them. In the original story, Jack got rattled by the insane shelling of the area and squirmed out of Briggs hands. To keep the child safe, the already wounded guy used his body to block even more debris which meant he suffered even more grievous wounds. He couldnt even struggle against the family as they took him out. More importantly, Salomon and Briggs did not see the heavenly opportunity that was blasted open for them.
This time, Saali noticed the collapsed wall that led out to a near endless golden and white sea of rolling sands.
"Are you okay?", Briggs asked Saali, sweat and blood pooled at his feet but for some reason, it wasn't from exhaustion. Rather It felt as though his body boiled and the blood that came out was dark and clotted. Even his senses sharpened as he truly noticed how pale Saali was at this moment. When that clarity reached his mind, he wondered if he was in the right state of mind or if this was the clarity before ones death. He had just drunk the blood of a child like a monster. But, on that note, Saali's blood tasted like a strawberry punch cocktail with a spritz of lemonade, and an orange tang as an aftertaste.
In response Briggs received, "Turn around and run. We have a chance...".
The child's complexion remained a healthy gold in less than a handful of breaths.
"-Damn. I'm hungry now-", Saali's stomach rumbled wildly but Briggs regrouped his dwindling mental faculties and listened. A route directly out of the combat zone. Briggs locked eyes with the almost too intelligent baby and ran. He ran, and then ran even faster than he had ever done in his life. It was the only thing keeping his mind from falling into a pool of blood, mentally that is. Saali would soon learn that getting recaptured and tortured by his own family would have been a better option to living with a Ghost...