"What did you just say?" Linri asked just to make sure he didn"t hear it wrong."This little cutie pie here is your offspring," said Lyra as she rubbed her face to wox and it licked her in response. It really was cute.
"Wait, mom, let"s back up here for a second. Why are you calling that abomination my offspring?" Linri calmed himself down. If he really let his emotions loose he would really lose his s.h.i.+t. There was no way that he would accept that he was that monster"s parent!
"Well, this little cutie pie here is made up of your flesh, literally," said Lyra.
In order to understand this situation better let"s go back to the night Linri awakened.
---
Lyra watched as Linri lost his consciousness again. It was natural. His body was evolving and during this process, his mind had shut down to fully focus on evolving and integrating the new cells. He was basically going through a bone was.h.i.+ng process. Every impurity in his body was being pushed out through his pores and new cells were replacing his old ones.
"Lay him on the couch," said Lyra. She knew that if she didn"t say anything her master would have probably freaked out. In the end, Lyra was a little bit disappointed. This process Linri going through was specific to the werewolf kind so this meant that his bloodline was still closer to Arkady"s than hers. Once he woke up she was going to have another brute in the house to deal with. Just why couldn"t he be a civilized kitsune? Even though Lyra was complaining in her mind she was extremely happy. Her son had awoken a completely unique bloodline. He was the first of his kind and could basically be likened to those progenitors of old. Even if he ended up being mediocre the history books would still mention his name, his descendants would still call and wors.h.i.+p his name.
Seeing that Lyra was not worried Richard thought everything was alright so he laid Linri onto the couch. After about five minutes blood started gus.h.i.+ng out from Linri"s orifices. This was the excess blood his body had produced. However, according to Lyra"s knowledge, this might also signal another thing. The blood finally stopped gus.h.i.+ng out of his body but unlike what would one expect it didn"t stop moving.
The excess blood Linri just threw up started converging on his ears that just fell down and it created a b.l.o.o.d.y coc.o.o.n. Just like she expected, another werewolf trait. If a werewolf has a pure enough bloodline when they awakened, the excess blood would converge together to form a companion wolf that would protect them for eternity. This wolf was just not a simple guardian. They would be much stronger than the regular wolves and they would even share a telepathic connection with their owners. Most importantly, as their owners got stronger so would they. Basically, there was no cap on how strong they could get.
---
"So what you are saying is this little abomination is my guardian beast?" said Linri doubtfully.
Honestly, what Lyra said challenged everything Linri knew about werewolves. They did not exist in reality so they didn"t have an established mythos but this whole story still felt weird to him.
"Yep," Lyra nodded her head.
"Then what about dad? Shouldn"t he also have one?" Linri asked in doubt.
"Didn"t you listen to me? Not every werewolf has one. They have to have a pure enough bloodline first" Lyra facepalmed. Just like she thought, her son was going to be a mindless brute.
"So? If the legitimate heir of Frostback Wolf clan doesn"t have a pure enough bloodline who does?"
Lyra was surprised that Linri knew about that. They had not told him anything and they had erased their existence so that they wouldn"t be caught. It was pretty impressive for this little rascal to unearth that information. Maybe there was still hope for him. Her kitsune blood didn"t go to waste after all. Then again despite how much werewolf-like characteristic he displayed on his awakening, it was obvious from Linri"s looks that kitsune blood was more dominant inside him. Just look at his cute little ears and fluffy tails. Agh, she wanted to pat his head so much but that would ruin Linri"s image of her. She needed to keep her cool for now and show affection to him once they get the serious stuff out of the way.
"You know about that huh? Who told you? Was it Richard?" asked Lyra.
"Nope, it was actually Santa Claus" Linri replied sarcastically.
"Old man James is still around?"
"Not anymore..." said Linri awkwardly. He was still feeling some guilt over that.
"May his soul rest in peace" Lyra took that as he had died.
"No, no he is still alive. He just left the school for the time being and I don"t know if he will ever come back"
"That"s good. It would be really awkward for parents to explain why their kids didn"t get a present next X-mas"
"Yeah"
Then Lyra hit Linri on the head!
"What was that for?"
"Why didn"t you tell me anything about your little venture in the forest?" Lyra asked with a dark expression.
"What would you have done if I did? I had learnt that I was going to die so I didn"t want to worry you. I was also hurt that you didn"t tell me anything about my true background" said Linri as he put on an Oscar-worthy performance.
"And what gave you that right? If you are ever in trouble isn"t it normal to ask your parents about it? You don"t have to carry your burdens alone. We are always here for you," said Lyra as he put her hand above Linri"s.
"Mom..." Linri said as he tried to hold back his tears. These were real tears. Ever since he was thrown into this world he felt like he needed to do everything alone. He could not trust anyone. He wanted to trust Jaime but that changed his mind after seeing her true colours. So it was nice to see that there was a tree out there where he could rest under its shade.
*Smack*
"That doesn"t mean I am going to forgive you easily though!" said Lyra as she hit Linri on the head one more time.
"But mom!"
"No buts! Now tell me everything. Where did you get that dangerous flamethrower, how much do you know about the future and most importantly what was the terms of your deal?"
"I designed that myself and got Silfy Oaken to build it for me in exchange for a favour. I know close to everything concerning next year and as for the terms I need to fight someone they want me to in the next 2 or 3 months. Though weirdly enough I couldn"t see anything about him in the future"
"Go into more details. Aside from gaining a portion of their powers what else happened?"
"Well, I can speak to them whenever I want and I have nightmares of getting killed and torture every night. Aside from these nothing else, I suppose"
"You said what? You willingly let them open a door to your soul?"
"I don"t know about the door to my soul or whatnot but in the deal, I made sure that they could only talk to me and watch my surroundings when I let them and I am sure that they are gonna hold the end of this deal because the G.o.ddess I made the deal with was the G.o.ddess of Sun and Justice"
"Phew, at least you are still smart and didn"t make a big mistake. Anyway, tell me about this torture, maybe I can help"
"Well, I hoped so, otherwise, I wouldn"t say it in the first place"
"Are you getting smart with your mother now?"
"No, I wouldn"t dare. Anyway, basically Udcek the G.o.d of Death and Harbinger of Anaya tortures me each night. Whenever I fall asleep I wake up in a weird cave and fight against him and he always kills me in the most gruesome way. The most frustrating part is I can"t even put a dent on his smug skull-face. So is there anything you can do? I don"t know maybe a mental barrier or stuff?"
"I will try and you can tell me if it worked or not but are you sure this was all? You are not keeping anything else for me?"
"No, not that I know of," said Linri. Of course, he still kept the fact that he was not her real son but he would never tell her that. Telling others might be fine but he could never let Arkady or Lyra know that. Well, in essence, he was still the same old Linri since the OG Linri was based on him and there wasn"t any difference between them but he just couldn"t risk his parents looking at him differently. Also, how was he supposed to tell them that he wanted to kill their son to avenge himself? That was the one thing he wouldn"t back off from. The OG Linri had to die. He didn"t even care if he couldn"t find a way to return to his old body. As long as they meet face to face again he was going to die.