Pegnam's Feathers

"How do you know Black? Wait, more importantly, will you kill me then?"

"Well, Black was my apprentice's arch-nemesis. I can experience the world in small doses through her and for many years, he was there as well. You two make an adorable couple."

"We are not a couple, stop saying that. She will kill me if given the chance and I would do the same."

"How it hurts for me to hear that." Zero sighed, "but as for if you will die or not, I thought I could decide once I saw what you shoes, but this complicates things. My mana has run out, so I won't kill you yet. But my apprentice will find you and watch you from afar."

"No! No, don't tell her where we are! She will end us!"

"Do not worry, Black. She will only kill you if I judge you to be bad."

The hundred quickly caught up with Zeeth along with Page, Nadaho, and the rest.

Ifgizan saw Zeeth's sword and asked, "you use the sword? That is one heavy chunk of metal. Do you use Nim with it? The art of the sword requires the perfect mixture of mana and Animo. Without either, you will never be able to use a sword."

"Yeah, I do. You do as well?"

"Yes. everyone in the hundred can use it, I taught them with all the time we had. But damn. I was going to teach you Nim to repay you. What else can I offer you?"

"Nothing, I don't want repayment. I just hope we can stay close comrades."

Rustran threw his arm over his shoulder and bellowed, "comrades? HAH! Why are you so stiff? C'mon, we're more than that, the best of friends! Everyone here has spent at least a hundred years with each other, we are family, and you are our newest member! We all agree that you are like our newest son or brother! Right, guys!"

Everyone in the crowd, humans, beasts, reptiles, men, women and anything in between all yelled together in a mixture of cheers, "my newest son!"

"The brother I never had!"

"Family! Yeaah!!"

Looking at them all, he felt a joy he never had before. Acceptance and love. Over the harsh year filled with work and training, many more memories came back. Especially memories related to his past as a murderer, and as he recently learned, a secret government project. Memories flashed to him even now, the girl in the cave telling him, "your parents were the greatest of the third generation. Meaning you were the greatest of the fourth generation."

"Generation?" He asked. Under the firelight and a calmer tone, he began to notice how beautiful she was. Her round, compassionate eyes looked directly into his while reflecting the dancing orange flames.

"Yes. Back in the year 2034 the government began working on a revolutionary project. It was to research how to replace lost body parts of disabled people, things like robotic arms that had bottle openers or legs that could withstand a car crash and all have adjustable nerves to pain. They asked for donations and support from the people, and millions swarmed to help in such a project. I mean, even connecting the nerves? Loss of limbs was an important issue and thousands of famous celebrities or social media stars began supporting and spreading the message, easily spreading the word overnight.

They earned hundreds of thousands every day.

But that's all they told on the surface. Underneath all the propaganda, they were secretly creating, rather than attempting to create, bionic humans, next-level war weapons, deadlier than a gun and more useful than the nuke. Bionic humans were their great hit to solve all the wars they had. But of course, with every great idea, there come great obstacles.

They wanted to use the money and jump to retractable wings or jet packs, impenetrable skin, or bullet fingers. They used wounded and useless soldiers who felt a strong national pride for their experiments, but all of these were major failures. Wings and jet packs failed to work from the excessive weight, impenetrable Skin has a high mortality

Back in front of the hundred, he smiled and wondered if this is what it felt like to be in a family. One that accepted him instead of being hypnotized into it.

Rustran and Ifgizan took an orb from a reporter and standing next to a normal person, it was incredibly apparent how tall they were, their muscles loomed over the intimidated man. "Rustran, look at this orb. It's far clearer than any orb I've seen in my life, even the super orbs only nations had back in the day."

The reporter looked up at them like they were mountains, too intimidated to even speak. 'Oh my god, these guys are so tall! They really are Rustran and Ifgizan! But they were unrelentingly attacking each other years ago, what happened to them? Why are they friends?'

"Let me see." Ifgizan tossed the orb to Rustran. The reporter watched it soar through the air, nearly throwing up from worry.

'My orb!! If that breaks I will be fired for sure!! Please be more careful!' he thought, but was far too scared to say anything.

Zeeth watched the hundred interacting with new things, creatures wrapped around hunters with new gear, terrifying monsters were carefully poking at terrified humans with cute animals sitting on their shoulders like best friends.

"Look at these guys." he told Page, "creatures from all over the world, big or small and everything in between, but only the strongest of the bunch have collected here. They've spent centuries together, this looks so strange."

"But they all seem to want to leave," Nadaho said. Some were looking up at the sky or jumping and stretching, testing how fast they can go or where they want to go. Several of the hundred had already been talking about their family and home that they want to visit, some on the other side of the world.

"How will everyone contact each other? Will they die never seeing these people again?"

A bird-bull humanoid approached Zeeth, like many of the other hundred, and said, "perhaps I can help. First off, from the bottom of my heart, I thank you for what you've done." She had a gruff but high voice, a strange combination.

"Don't worry about it."

"But I do. My race of creatures hold selfless deeds in high esteem, we cannot simply let an action that saved us without some form of appreciation. Without you, we could've died. I thank the world for the luck that brought you there to free us, but I don't know how to thank luck, so I will thank you instead. Take one of my feathers." she unfurled her large wings, shaking loose a few brown feathers. They had a pattern on them that looked like a skull.

"Oh, uh. Thanks. I'll treasure it."

"I haven't even told you what it does."

"Oh, it does something? Well, uh, tell me."

"Normally, in exchange for saving my life, I would serve you for a lifetime. But I hope you will forgive me just this once. I need to search for my race of people, it has been 6,000 years, and must find my home, to see if it is safe. But I hope this feather will be enough for now. In my race, when you become an adult, your feathers grow a special feature. If you trace the white symbol on the feather it will call to me. My specific feathers have a distance of about half the length of the world, meaning you can call me whenever you like. Perhaps, when I find my family and fulfill my responsibilities as the next tribe leader, I may come back and serve you." she bowed down, "I heard this is the form of appreciation humans show."

"Oh, that's alright," Zeeth chuckled awkwardly, "you don't need to become my servant or anything. But this feather, this is amazing. I've actually been wanting to create some kind of communication device so I can give all of you one and keep in touch. You guys are family from all around the world, right?"

"I humbly thank you. Would you like me to give a feather out to everyone here?"

"Can you?"

"Psh, only 99 more? That is nothing for someone of my caliber." she expanded her wings, bursting them apart so feathers flew out. The wind carried them all around, tucking each one nicely into the hands of the hundred.

"Thanks, Peggy." Rustran tried to pet her head.

She struck him in the chest with a kick of her bull legs, knocking him into Ifgizan, and menacingly said, "once again, do not dishonor my proud name, Pegnam."

"Oh man, you have to learn to control your strength," Rustran groaned, getting up with difficulty. The floor that she stood on and the floor that Ifgizan stood on were both cracked and demolished, some heat still sizzled off her food and his chest, "we're not in the space anymore."

"Yes. you are right. I forgot to control myself, as we all should relearn. A hundred years in a room of immortality and you guys have completely thrown off my perception."

Immediately after, a rift began forming between them. Page yelled, "A demon is coming through."

Zeeth lifted his hand and two rocks rose from the ground, heated up to the point where they nearly melted and trapped the opening gate. A demon walking like a drunkard with long, black legs came out. It stared at everyone right outside the gate, narrowed its thin eyes, and ran forth in a burst of speed. But the heated floor was already melting and each step it took only burned it more. Skwil jumped onto its head and grabbed at the air, twisting the mana around it so that its head was snapped right off. She continued swirling the mana until all of it was drained from its body and collected in a single tip in its head. The rest of the body shriveled up and fell into the ground while the single point was carved out.

The floor cooled down while its body sank lower. Zeeth was about to take the body out but when he tried moving the rock, a single-pole sprouted from the demon's body. It kept growing larger and larger, branching coming out the sides and leaves growing along with it like a tree growing faster than normal.

God's eye told him, [a dead demon's body decomposing and morphing either the surroundings. Because all its demons mana was taken out, its empty body took in the surrounding mana at an absurd rate trying to fill in the empty space and is now changing to fit the mana. This tree will bear mana-dense fruits.]

"What is that?"

Page quickly started explaining, "The thing we just killed is a demon. The gate to hell is weakening and dangerous demons will come crawling out, we need to kill them as soon as possible and close the gates. I have a pamphlet, please take the time to learn about demons and kill them all." He handed them all a pamphlet with everything he knew about demons, which he had been working on over the year, and said, "that is a demon tree. When demons have their mana sucked out, their bodies become empty sponges surrounded with mana, so it sucks in the mana of the surroundings. In nature, they will grow into trees and they are tough beyond belief. Do not attack the trees, they will retaliate."

Peggy took the pamphlet, thanked them once again, and looked into the sky. "I must get going. If I find my tribe, I will spread the knowledge."

She prepared herself, crouching lower onto the floor and boosting herself up, flapping her wings that somehow didn't lose any feathers.

Rustran and Ifgizan waved to Zeeth and said, "Come to my kingdom anytime. I'll be waiting with gifts."

"me too."

"same here. call anytime, brother!"

the hundred all said similar things and scattered, moving all across the world.

Zeeth opened his spatial bag, full of gifts and mementos the hundred gave him. They had only come out of their slumber and didn't have much, but the little that they did have were all tremendous items, filling his bag to the brim with mana and pouring out a wild mixture of different powerful mana when he opened it.

Dealu and Pishku caught up with them after narrowly escaping the reporters themselves, using the other monks to keep them in place. Dealu slapped his hand onto Zeeth's back and yelled, "Hey, what was that? I've got so many questions!"

"As do I," Pishku said, raising an eyebrow. It was one of the few times he even showed emotion, usually covering his face with his large hat. "How were they released?"

"I had some help. It was all very confusing." Zeeth replied he didn't want to explain everything just yet. This connection to his slimes could be a hidden weapon against any mind-related enemies. "But I want to go back to Fahlhala. Cuddles laid three eggs there that I want to check up on and it's been a year."

"Yes, of course. I suppose we can't pry," Dealu said.

The next minute, he was checking his belongings, the blood slime coffin, his magic table, his bag full of miscellaneous items and his robe. It had been severely damaged but it had been repurposed as a cloaking device, to hide his and his slimes mana so he didn't have to hide his mana himself and risk detection by others. It mainly covered anything emanating mana from under the robe so his head and hands still stuck out, releasing only a portion of his full strength, not mentioning his hundred slimes.

The robe now read, [Cloaking Cloak. Repurposed from a protection robe, it has been altered and combined with armor that blocks any mana from escaping to create this.]

About a year ago, while they were all working with the monks, Zeeth kept working with water, Page worked on his skills and mana, Eddie worked on some mystery skill and blood slime simply worked with Zeeth at night to absorb blood and work with materials he used. Only Eddie was having trouble finding any growth, he didn't seem to have any skills to grow on, and talent to manifest, or any knowledge to develop fighting tactics. The monks were having a lot of trouble coming up with anything and decided, "we need to take off his armor and see what he's got. I don't know what to work with otherwise."

It took them five minutes of hard work and convincing, but a small bit of metal clicked a button, popping off all the armor at once. The metal scattered like coins spilling from a bag.

The monks and even Eddie jumped in surprise, the loud clanging sending shivers through their bodies.

Zeeth wasn't close, but the moment the armor came off, Black yelled, 'there's another immortal energy, how did it pop up so suddenly?

Wait. That's… that's Eddie.'