Our screams were drawing more of a crowd, and too many were enjoying the show, but once Bond Form was activated, many fled the scene.
With the lightning being redirected, Nurse Nalep decided that it was time to get close and start casting painkillers.
"Great Father of mercy! Please reduce this subject's pain!" He shouted, drawing several runes with one hand and touching us with the other.
Green light descended from the sky onto Nurse Nalep, being channeled through his hand to us. Compared to before, we felt comfortable.
"Thank you, Nalep." Our voice was steady, the pain long forgotten.
We started to take control of the black lightning, using both of our talents to do so, it was made of pure Eneru, not electricity, the only reason it was attracted to the metal around us was that it was all woven and therefore conductive. We redirected all of the lightning upwards and hoped for the best.
To outside observers, it looked like Nurse Nalep was a master healer who just saved us, but in reality, the pain was not only reduced by his spell but also Orin, Spirit, and me. I had experienced so much pain in my life that I was already resistant to it. The horrifying thing about the breakthrough was we were walking normally, conversating, and even casting spells while our skin was ripped apart and reformed.
'Hmm, this is strange, it's like we're thinking together. This requires further study' We thought 'Wait a second, we're naked aren't we?'
The Changling Armor was sitting in a puddle nearby. we looked down and realized that luckily, Bond Form covered us.
"Hey nurse, why are my breakthroughs so flashy?" I took over the vocal cords as my leg was reinforced.
"Not the time! You need to get to the infirmary before you finish breaking through!"
"Sure, but this is an important question for research purposes."
Changling armor returned to us and retreated into the compression sphere. We left for the infirmary looking like some sort of horror. A girl from our class noticed us and screamed as our eye was popped out of its socket to be reinforced, not even to mention that we looked like some type of monster with Bond Form.
'This is gonna isolate us further isn't it? Sure is.' We answered ourselves.
'Spirit is being quiet, we will have to check on him later.'
By the time we reached the infirmary, the breakthrough was over and Nurse Nalep cut my horns for me.
"Thank you Nalep, do you have any clue why my breakthrough goes wild?"
"First, could you like, not be a halfling?"
I was still in Bond Form.
"Important question, uhhhh how do we separate?" Orin and I said together.
"Please, only Ingen speak, it's weird. I have no clue how to separate you."
"Ok, Orin here, I think I have an idea. This form is unstable, so maybe we can cast Jente to fix it?"
We drew the rune, but all it managed to do was make our form more stable.
"Let's do the opposite then?"
We cast the combination Nue, Jente, or the opposite of stable. Very suddenly we were forced apart in opposite directions. That's when I noticed that my artificial arm wasn't attached to my stump.
"Oi! Where's my arm?"
"It probably was ejected when you two bonded, I noticed that your arm was replaced by a hybrid one."
"Well then let's go get it! I need that thing!"
"Woah there speedster, you're stark naked, fix that first."
With a thought, my Changeling armor took the form of my school uniform.
"Well, I guess that's convenient," Nalep said, this was the first time he saw my armor change forms.
I used Changeling armor to make a temporary arm as a stand-in while we walked to the site of my breakthrough.
"My head feels much lighter with those horns gone, it's strange not feeling their weight."
"I know what you mean, I'm stage six so I've gone through that a few times." Nalep came with us because it was dangerous for me to be alone.
"Really? How can you even tell someone's stage?"
"There is no way, you can tell where they are in the cycle of their current stage, but never their actual stage unless they let you give them an aptitude test."
A grin spread across my face "We'll see about that."
"No! That's the face you always put on before you get injured! Stop that!"
"Would you listen to me if I told you to stop treating kids?"
"No."
"Well, then I won't listen to you when you tell me to stop testing and halt production."
"Fair point, in that case, be careful and use wards."
"Sure, I always am!"
"You're telling me that you end up in the infirmary over three times each month and you were using wards to protect yourself?!" Nalep's eye twitched.
"Yessir!"
One facepalm later and we reached the site.
"Orin, you check over there, I'll check over here!"
We searched for about an hour and found nothing.
"I guess I probably should have expected it to be stolen, it's valuable and people don't like me." I sounded a little disappointed
"Doesn't Orin have a decent sense of smell? He could probably smell it." Nalep was eager to get the search over with.
"I can try, but I'm not a bloodhound." Orin sniffed the air and me, looking for the scent. "I think I found something."
"Lead the way then,"