Hero Scout 24 Chapter 24 - Firefox

Violet huffed and rubbed her eyes.

"All that for a few coppers? Can we at least not eat that tavern's gruel?"

Kenji wished they didn't have too, but clenching his fist he shook his head. Even though his stories tonight had brought in another silver, they needed that money to earn their status as real adventurers.

"No, but would it help if I showed you something interesting?" While he had her attention, Kenji had been thinking about this for a while. His friends not knowing about his powers made him uncomfortable, and Kenji thought it was finally time to come clean.

"What is it Kenji?" Tenko said, ears flattening, "you're not leaving are you?"

"No-no! I am not leaving. You know what? I think it's a bit late, how about we drink, have a good sleep, and I'll show you two tomorrow."

No one seemed to like that plan, but once the grumbling was over with they were tired enough to fall asleep rather quickly. Except for Kenji, who fretted for hours before finally falling into an anxious sleep.

The next day they were on their way to a capture quest when Kenji decided it was time. As they walked outside of town, over rolling hills and into the farms filled with golden stalks and grazing cows, Kenji stopped suddenly.

"You guys need to understand this before we continue," he said.

"Yeah? What is it, did you buy us fans?" Violet said as she waved air against her face. Sweating hard, she peered up at the clear blue sky and the golden sun that was the culprit of this blazingly hot day.

"No I didn't buy you fans," Kenji sighed.

"Did you get us food?" Tenko said, peering at a distant line of smoke coming from a nearby field.

"No, I didn't buy you any food. This isn't a guessing game, I'm just saying I'm a mimi-"

"Firefox! I've sighted it, come on!" Tenko bounded forward, special herb in hand.

Pulling out more of the herb, Violet ran after.

Gritting his teeth, Kenji pulled out some of the herbs that the quest giver had given them too and followed. He still couldn't believe there was a literal creature called a 'Firefox' and he could only shudder at what a 'Google' would look like.

Running after them, Kenji entered a smouldering field to find a very real firefox. It's burning tail had set the wheat alight, and only a swift formation of crystal prevented the fire from spreading. Already Tenko snarled in her beast form, the Firefox hissing back as its tail flared behind it.

"I am a mimic!" Kenji shouted, having had quite enough of staying in the closet.

"A what? Hurry up and give it the herbs already!" Violet shouted back, creating walls of crystal around the Firefox only for it to bound around. Tenko summoned her Silver moon, the parties agility and movement speed increasing, and yet being able to seize the Firefox with their hands wasn't enough to stop them getting badly burned in the process.

"UGH, just watch this," Kenji growled and activated his slot.

Bubbling up three times his height, Kenji transformed into the Obsidian barked Spirit Tree. In the next moment, he extended his many roots and vines to bind the Firefox, it's fiery tail causing extreme damage to Kenji's tendrils.

"Hurry! Press the herb into the tail!" Kenji cried out in great pain.

Violet and Tenko just looked at him numbly.

"Didn't we beat you up, Mr Spirit Tree?" Tenko said, eyeing his branches with interest. That some expression flattened into depression when she didn't find another golden apple waiting.

"It's me, Kenji, Please hurry up this is REALLY painful!" Kenji whined, both of them sharing confused looks with one another. Peering around they couldn't see the boy knight either, and after several agonizing seconds finally threw handfuls of the herb onto the Firefox's tail.

Immediately the tail was extinguished, the resulting smoke causing the Firefox to grow numb and collapse into a deep sleep.

Sighing, Kenji let go of his transformation, his many singed roots retracting to a point and Kenji the old man covered in dark cloth and bronze chains appearing. He also felt how he could have jettisoned the body for a quicker escape, but that would have resulted in the full one day wait time for the form to become usable again, instead of perhaps the half an hour it would take to fully replace the damaged roots.

Violet looked affronted, but Tenko bounded over excitedly.

"Mr Storyteller, why are you here?" She said, plush tail wagging excitedly.

"Tenko, it's me. Kenji. This is my true form as I currently exist, and even though this is not the body I was born in, it is what I look like now. Uh, I'll become the Kenji you know again while you think of how you want to respond," Kenji quickly shifted back to the boy knight, and pushed aside his fiery orange hair. Quickly Violet stepped far too close, staring right into Kenji's golden eyes, put a finger on his lips and dragged it down to his neck, then chest.

"A mimic...huh?" Violet smiled.

"You're...ok with this?"

"Please, to know a fellow Parasite type is around me makes me feel much better. And here I thought I was all alone..." Violet turned to look at Tenko, who had sat down to better manage the fast thoughts bounding around her head.

"Story," Tenko demanded at last and crossing her arms.

"When we get back," Kenji smiled. "But Violet, what is this Parasite type you speak of?"

"Oh you know, Vampires, Demons, Werewolves, Mana worms and of course...Mimics. We are the species that could not survive without a host civilisation to feed off, although that doesn't have to be as aggressive as many Parasite types are. There exist Parasites that seek more of a Symbiosis, although I've only ever heard a rumour of that. The Congregation of Parasites whisper about the possibility, and the Parasite type nations that could arise if we work out a method of existence that isn't as harmful to other races."

Kenji stared at Violet intently, hesitant to interrupt. Before his very eyes, Kenji watched Violet flitter between an internal decision. Would she live for herself, or would she live for others?

When no decision seemed forthcoming, Kenji sighed.

"So which of those are you then- vampire?" A bad guess, but Kenji had literally no idea of what the purple alien elf could be otherwise.

"I'm a mana worm," she said simply.

Kenji raised his eyebrows, Tenko clapped and smiled.

"Story!" She said.

"A mana worm is....rare," Violet said with a small smile as the others encouraged her onward.

"We are from s.p.a.ce originally, although I was told that by another. We reproduce rarely, and so many of our kind descend within comets from the stars. After hitting the earth we find a magical corpse and fuse with it, adapting the body and generating innate powers with some special control over the species itself."

"So you...fused with a dead elf?" Kenji's eyes watered, "Just like me and Arthur...do you have their memories too? Their desires and ambitions?"

"Kind of. The elf I inhabited was a newborn, with little willpower and even less experience with life. After I fused, the elf kingdom, only numbering a few hundred, called me a sign of their G.o.d. I was raised to a position in their church and was set to become their ruler. Then humans attacked, I was separated, and then captured."
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Kenji was about to tell her about the elf he could morph into, realising the elf might have memories of this person, when other adventurers arrived.

"Have you seen a Firefox around here?" they said.

"Yeah, we just caught it actually. You guys are as slow as Internet Explorer by the way- oh! And lookout for the wild Google seen around these parts. Not only is it huge, but it contains all the information of humanity..." Kenji chuckled when he saw the trios horrified faces.

Steering his friends and he sleeping Firefox away, Kenji led them back to town.