Coming to once again, I find myself lying in the back seat of a familiar vehicle environment. I was in an unmarked transport van for the Bureau. In the front row seat in front of me sat the director who was chatting with an all too familiar driver. On the bright side, they did not seem to know I was alive yet.
"Morning, sunshine," the director says without even turning around, proving me completely wrong. "Did you have a nice nap?"
"Where…" I groan groggily, wishing I could get one free punch on this guy.
"Not far from your place," the director reassures me calmly. "We'll be there in a little while, just focus on breathing and the feeling of your body."
A little later, "This new body will be taking its first steps in a just a second and I bet on you looking like a fool. If you can make it to your front door without kissing the mother Earth, I'll buy you a new toy. If you end up bailing and eating shit, Kershaw buys me a new car."
"Don't fall," the driver, Kershaw, suddenly chimes in quickly as the director leans over to slide the passenger door open for me.
"I… hate you… so much," I say hoarsely as I shakily climb to my feet in the large but somehow cramped vehicle, almost wishing I had another glass of drugged water just because of how thirsty I was. My ankles did not seem to know which way to bend and my foot refused to step flatly down. Whenever I put weight down, even while holding the seats or side of the van, my knees would start bending like silly string.
My entire body was trembling as I took my first steps along the side of the van for practice. Even after the director shut the door, though, I just kept cheating by pacing back and forth bit by bit. Until half a minute later when the front door of the house suddenly opened up to reveal Lucinda still in her pant suit work clothes.
"Shit, the guardian," the director's muffled voice suddenly calls out from inside the van while he hurriedly starts slapping the back of the driver's seat. Half a second later, the van engine started rolling over and it was suddenly driving away from me. I could only take two staggering steps forward before collapsing to the ground.
Lucinda was already out in the yard and helping me up by the time I could push myself up on my hands and knees. "Malcolm, honey, oh my God are you okay? Where have you been? Can you talk? Who were they? It looked like a Bureau van, so it wasn't Ms. Gwyn."
"Water..." I croak tiredly while holding Lucinda's shoulders to lean on her and forcing her to walk forward beside me. I was dying of thirst and I was damn tired of waiting for something to drink. Lucinda could only be my crutch and keep walking while both angrily and worriedly nagging at me.
Once inside I went straight to the kitchen and then to the islet's sink where I left Lucinda to start sucking water straight from the faucet. Suddenly, Lucinda asks a very appropriate question that actually made me stand up and check myself out. "Were you always so… big?"
The first thing I noticed while turning toward the fridge for its reflective chrome surfaces was that I could now look straight ahead over the top of the tall industrial sized double-door fridge and freezer. When I started to crouch down and see myself in the doors, I realized it was pointless. However, I knew that the fridge itself was just over my head every other time I stood in front of it. I was at least three inches taller.
All of my gear and equipment would need to be replaced, I would probably need Johnathan to do it because my coat was long overdue for repairs and my weapons needed resizing. "I should probably just replace the big sword and use it for scrap material," I find myself mumbling aloud while thinking about the various grades and weights in my current stock. If I threw it all together with my E grade sword, it would be around thirty pounds of D grade steel to make a bigger weapon.
"Jesus, yours pupils are bigger than your whites," Lucinda says while grabbing my face in her hand and making me face her after hearing me mumbling to myself. "Are you on something? Is it the guy who was driving you while I was gone? What did you take? How much?"
"Anesthesia… and whatever… the… director of portal… registry… put in my water… at the… hospital," I reply slowly and blearily, feeling satisfied and tired again after having had something to drink. "So… hungry… not since… last night. Lucinda… sleep." Then, having slowly made my way to the floor while speaking I was out like a light.
When I ONCE AGAIN came to it was to find myself lying on the couch in the living room with an older doctor lady and Lucinda talking quietly nearby. Poniard was sitting on the floor beside the couch, watching videos while chewing apart a one-pound tube of ground beef. As I slowly sat up I got the attention of Lucinda and the doctor but I did not have time to care.
Getting up without taking the time to think about it, I quickly find that my body is much more 'stiff' than it was yesterday and my legs could actually support some weight. However, making use of my joints and shifting my body in general seemed to be impossible because as soon as I stretched my other leg forward I teetered and suddenly found the floor rising up to meet me. Still, it would take much more than this to stop me.
Light coming in the living room window told me that it was once again day light. This meant that I had not taken a leak in AT LEAST two days and I was ready to paint the living room. I quickly shuffled and crawled forward until my arms and legs started responding at the proper times.
Two minutes later I stepped out of the bathroom sighing in tired relief, leaning back against the door and slowly sliding down to the floor of the hallway. I had never filled the toilet before but that was the closest I ever came and I was almost proud of it if not for the slight twinge of cramps in my lower stomach.
"Malcolm?" Lucinda says when she appears at the end of the hall a few second later. "Honey, how are you feeling? Do you think you're ready to eat something?"
Nodding my head slowly while holding my stomach, I say, "Bread. Something soft and… bread."
"Do you have any questions or anything at all you would like to talk about with a doctor?" The stranger that Lucinda brought over asks when she replaces my guardian at the end of the hallway. "I assume you're at least slightly aware of what happened yesterday even if you had roofies last night."
"Some kind of surgery, hybrid grafting… D and C grade mucus tissue in my body..." I say distractedly while rubbing my eyes as I try to remember all the random shit the director told me about the surgery throughout the day before. "I'm alright, I think, I just… I just have to get used to it, I guess. I'm, like, three inches taller than the day before yesterday and my joints have inner slime cell wall lining for cartilage. I'm just taking the fact I never pissed myself as a blessing, for now."
"What about the people who seem to be playing this sick joke on you?" The doctor asks to get to the point. "The surgery was certainly a success, I'm both a doctor and a healer so I can FEEL everything that's different in your body."
"Some rich friends in a higher grade than me that I met by chance," I reply with a shrug. "When I met them the first time, they mistook me for someone else because I was walking a goblin but when they found out I have the potential for making money taming portal beasts we became better acquainted. This is basically an investment between friends."
"It sounds like you're the poor friend they found for charity," the doctor says dryly, probably just going along with my story instead of actually believing it. "Any way, just imagine your consciousness was taken from its body and put into the body of an entirely different species. It will take a few days to get used to things, especially your own weight and strength, but you should be halfway to normal in about a weak since there's nothing actually wrong. I suggest bathing instead of showering, walking on the treadmill while holding the bar, and similar practices to help your rehabilitation.
"If you need help taking care of yourself, like bathing and such, I have already explained how to help you deal with your new body to Lucinda," she goes on to explain while I simply roll over on my side and deal with my cramping stomach. "You're a big boy so if you could get yourself into this mess I'm sure you can get yourself out of it."
With those choice words to leave on, the doctor simply turned and walked off to join Lucinda in the kitchen. Shortly after, Poniard came walking down the hallway from the living room without ever looking up from his tablet. Sitting down next to me, still without every looking up, Poniard seems to attempt comforting me by gruffly muttering the word, "Food."
Watching his tablet to see that he had found his own martial arts video to watch teaching staff fighting techniques, I did not even care to scold him and simply grunt, "Food," in kind.
We sat there like that in silence for a little while, just watching one of those short and simple videos that just contains a list of techniques being displayed. There were no lessons in mobility or flexibility, no real speech at all besides naming the move being performed. That seemed to be more than enough for Poniard, though.
Lucinda soon came over with a peanut butter and banana sandwich and a large cup of milk to drink with it. She was currently talking to her doctor friend about the progression of physical therapy and things like that. I just sat there eating my sandwich and watching Poniard's video, wondering how long it had been since the last time the goblin was properly worked out. Probably since the day before my operation.
By the time I was done with my sandwich the doctor had left and Lucinda was just standing in the hallway staring down at me. "I-" I start to say, only to be cut off.
"What was that shit you said last night about some registry director putting something in your water?" Lucinda asks angrily as soon as I started talking.
Resting my head tiredly on my arms, I go ahead and start spilling the beans like an absolute idiot. Starting from when I decided to try and sneak in an extra dungeon I told Lucinda everything up to date about the person my instructor introduced me to. I even emphasized the fact I still needed to not just talk to that guy but punch him in the face as well.
There was a long period of silence after that in which Lucinda seemed to be digesting everything I was telling her. Then, she sighs while rubbing her forehead and saying, "Portal registration is a big department, they handle the allocation of portal services not just for the Bureau but also all the big clans and guilds who work in the private sector can't even place a bid without being cleared for it. Portal Registry might sound like a cozy desk job but they are also half of the law enforcement that targets Protectors."
Oh, goody, does that mean I am Director Carlyle's low-grade bounty hunter?
Walking over slowly and crouching down in front of me so that she was at my level, Lucinda lightly shakes my leg to make sure she has my attention before saying, "Be honest with me, Malcolm. Are you scared of them?"
At first I wanted to say, 'ABSOLUTELY' but then I thought of how the director actually reacted when Lucinda opened the front door as well as the driver's more or less companionable personality. "No, I just need to actually talk to somebody without getting jerked around. And then punch two of them in the head a time or two."
"I'll make some phone calls," Lucinda reassures me, patting my leg before getting up to make some phone calls. "Nobody messes with my cub and gets away with it!"
After sitting with Poniard for a little while I finally got up the energy to use the wall and push myself up to my feet. The doctor's warning about my weight echoed in my head as I got up, causing the drywall to recess around the heel of my palm and fingertips while the stud underneath groaned and even cracked under my push. I was definitely a lot bigger than I used to be.
Leaning bodily against the wall to distribute my weight over a larger area, I shuffle sideways in an awkward manner to the end of the hall. From there the only thing that I could really do was push myself and see how many steps I could manage before falling. Sadly, after pushing myself forward from the wall I tried to step forward with speed and my body seemed to think I was sprinting instead of walking.
I ended up kneeing myself in the chest while leaning forward so hard that I knocked myself flat on my back between the hallway and living room. Lucinda, on the kitchen, suddenly burst out into hysterical laughter after witnessing this scene and moments later had to furiously apologize and explain the situation before laughing all over again. I could only lie there while my face rose in temperature and color from the shame.
Unwilling to admit defeat even now, I use the same strength to push myself up and soon found myself rising up and forward. And then onto my face. My upper body strength, apparently, greatly exceeded my body weight even though I was bigger.
The sounds of someone choking and dying were coming from the kitchen, but I could not allow myself to give up even after that level of foolishness. So, I started crawling like a baby toward the couch while Poniard nonchalantly followed behind with his faced turned down toward his tablet. He was going to need a neck brace if he kept up that posture.
Because my upper body was in a much better condition than my lower it was probably more appropriate for me to be crawling to begin with. Some might say 'taking baby steps' but babies do not step until after they crawl! At least that was what I was trying to comfort myself with as I finally climbed onto the groaning couch.
Despite all expectations and the plans Lucinda was putting in motion on the phone, the last person I wanted to see showed up at our door twenty minutes later while carrying a large Bureau box. "Ah, Ms. Lucinda, a pleasure to finally meet you," Director Carlyle says from outside the doorway he had to bend his neck to walk through, holding out the giant hand not holding the box. "My name is Carlyle Maxim, Director of Portal Registration."
Once she heard the words 'portal registration', my guardian's face darkened into a scowl as she took half a step back and swiftly drew back a fist in the process. Then, right before the eyes of the entire world, Lucinda stepped forward in perfect form and turned her first and forearm during the throw of her perfect punch. For as big as he was, the director was actually forced back a step as blood started pouring from his nose.
Leaning against the entryway of the large brick house, Director Carlyle pinches and twisted his nose while saying, "Yeah, that's gonna take an hour or two to mend. I'll give you that one for free, ma'am, for Malcolm's sake but don't even-"
No sooner were the words 'for Malcolm's sake' out of his mouth before Lucinda was leaping forward as if she had the assistance of wires to flying spear kick the director in the chest. Not only was his short reprimand cut off but he was also finally knocked down to the ground. Lucinda might be a special case who was capped at Lo-MP, but she was technically an F grade tanker who chose marksmanship over melee.
"Lucinda!" I call out while scrambling over the back of the couch, fearing the fight would continue outside and the director might actually fight back if it goes on. I did not doubt Lucinda's abilities, she was a trained agent since before the portals and was equal to or better than special forces soldiers even with Lo-MP. However, the director was probably a special forces soldier before the portals if he knew my instructor and was certainly a higher grade than my guardian before his own operation.
By the time I got back within view of the doorway, though, the director was holding Lucinda by the face and head with her feet off of the ground in one hand while carrying her back inside. Dropping the box without regard on my back as he walks by, Director Carlyle says, "For you," before just as unceremoniously tossing Lucinda on the couch.
Loosening the dark gray and navy blue pin striped tie that only somewhat matched his red splattered dark gray suit and coat, the director points a finger at Lucinda when she starts to jump back up and simply says, "No."
Poniard was watching this scene with a clear lack of understanding on his face. He was even currently gripping the corner of his tablet as if considering throwing it. However, a quick shake of my head caught his attention and made him stop considering his options.
The director was not somebody we could simply 'fight', especially in my current condition.
*