The loud sound of knocking on his door tore him from his restful and he turned over in bed, snuggling deeper into the covers. Whoever was bothering him was doing it too damn early in the morning. He had barely laid his head down again before the door burst open and he was forced awake as a familiar figure entered the room. It was the butler, and he looked nowhere near as composed as he did yesterday.

  "Something happened to Galayne," the butler said, urgency in his voice. "Follow me." It was quite a rude response, far different from his polite words yesterday and Banks frowned inwardly, before he sighed.as he got out of bed, dressed in his pajamas and followed the butler, who seemed to be restraining his urge to hurry him up.

  "What's the issue," he said as he followed the butler, his own steps matching the other. While he was resentful, being dragged out of the bed so early, he was being fed and given warm bedding by this group of people so he might as well take them seriously.

  "Something went wrong with her body," he said. "I can't describe it. You have to look. Hurry up." He increased his speed by half and Banks sighed inwardly. At least the quicker he sorted this out the quicker he can go back to bed. Without the distraction of paintings and artwork, it was barely a minute, before they arrived at an innocuous blue door and the butler pushed it open to reveal a horrifying, yet expected sight.

  In the bed was a heap of squirming flesh, with multiple, eyes, arms, mouths and limbs writhing in a discordant pattern. Two headless trunks extended from the heap of flesh, bulging and erupting a bloody fluid from where the head should be. In the middle of the mass was the face of the young girl, Galayne, a look of absolute terror in her eyes, mouth opened in a wordless scream.

  Near the side of the bed, was what appeared to be a doctor, trying to examine the lump of squirming flesh without getting pulled into and crushed by the numerous appendages. Before he could see anything more he was accosted, grabbed by that elderly man, Rex. Who gripped his shoulders and stared deep into his eyes, his own orbs filled with panic, terror and the beginnings of madness.

  "You," he said, his voice filled with desperation, anger and fear. "You have to help her, this was your mixture, if you don't save her... I'll___I'll."

  "Huh, I've always wanted to do this," Banks remarked to himself calmly as he raised a hand and swiftly delivered a back hand, before he frowned. It wasn't a very good one, his knuckles caught the cheekbone.

  -0.5 seconds

  It was a much better backhand this time, and the lord of the manor's head gave that satisfying whiplash look as he caught him on the cheek. He grabbed his own shoulder, putting force before he matched the look.

  "I need you to calm the fuck down," he said calmly, watching as a good portion of the chaos in the room died down. Even the motion of the blob started to slow. "Let's just do some breathing exercises, in and out, and in and out, and in..."

  "Save my daughter," the man implored, the anger, and madness fading in his eyes. "She's..."

  "Shhh," Banks said, raising a finger to his lips. "Calm down, she will be fine. This really isn't as big a deal as you all are making of it, but she's panicking which caused you to panic which caused her to panic and the two of you have completely psyched yourself out into madness. Let's all dial it down to a two or three." He let his words, hang in the air for a bit as the man visibly calmed himself.

  "Alright, I'm calm," he said, taking deep breaths. "How do we get my daughter back to normal."

  "Time," Banks shrugged. "Shouldn't take too long, but panicking will just set the process back." He walked over to the bed, staying out of range of the grasping limbs. "Galayne, that was your name, right?" he said, getting no response except for the desperate swaying of limbs. "Do you feel any pain, just blink twice if no, once if yes. For the record," he said holding up a hand to forestall any answer. "I'm not asking about the static feeling or the occasional pinching, compression feeling. I'm talking about actual pain."

  "No pain," her teeth spoke in unison, a harsh grating voice that seemed to come from everywhere.

  "Alright, I did ask for a blink," Banks said. "Not to talk, but I suppose your Stranger power is not following basic instructions. I once knew a Stranger who turned into flames during the process and set half the house on fire. Didn't even get hurt," he said before winking. "Can't say the same about his curtains."

  "My power?" she asked, her voice still sounding hoarse, but slightly better.

  "Some form of shapeshifting," Banks said, sitting by the side of the bed. "Want me to check your concentration of Strange Elements?"

  "Yeeeees," the lump of flesh said, and he grasped a hand that gripped way too hard on his own, feeling the resonance. He whistled at the feedback.

  "A bit over six," he declared. "Rather quite high. You have a very strange Stranger over here." He tried to move his hand away. "Alright you can let go of my hand now." She wasn't letting go. The misshapen limb, gripped his own hand in a death grip.

  "How high is six in comparison to the average," the father said, his voice now calm, and Banks blinked trying not to laugh at the red handprint on his face.

  "It goes from one to ten, but the scale isn't linear," Banks said. "Six is much higher than five and seven is much higher than six. I knew a woman who had a Strange Elements concentration of eight. She could rip souls out of the body and fashion them into ghosts. I've seen her turn a whole army into an army of ghosts in seconds."

  "And she is much stronger than my daughter?" the father asked.

  "Nearly a hundred times," Banks clarified.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

  "Can...improve?" the assortment of mouths asked in a cacophony of confusion.

  "Very hard to improve the Strange Elements concentration," he replied. "And it's very often not a good thing." He watched as the limb movement slowed down further and further. "Well I can see that I'm not getting any more sleep tonight. Can we have some cocoa up here for the girl, and some for me as well."

  "Already ordered," the butler Jordan said. "Will she require anything else to complete her transformation?"

  "Transformation," Banks said raising an eye. "No, this isn't a transformation. Her Strange Elements are just spazzing out. Think of it as a person being woken up rudely in the middle of the night and rolling around to get their bearings. Just need to let them calm down." He paused in thought. "Technically you can focus on using your mana, doesn't matter how. Just to get your Strange Elements used to it quicker."

  "-kay," the voices said, now sounding reduced in number as a flicker of mana started to run through the body before it turned into a stream. At first the flow was discordant, unusual, before it started to stabilize as the limbs, and various body parts started to retract and the lump of flesh began to take on a more humanoid form. Banks turned his head and examined a nearby picture of a horse, experience telling him how this would go, and after another couple of minutes the vague sense of mana flow stopped, before a scream was heard.

  "Here's your clothes, sweetie," the voice of her father hurriedly came from behind, as the doctor joined him to peruse the horse painting and a rustling of fabric later, he turned back to see a now fully clothed, girl. The butler walked towards him before handing him a cup of cocoa, and he indulged sipping at the treat as the father and daughter embraced.

  "Congrats you are now a Stranger," he said, walking towards her.

  "That was the worst thing to ever happen to me," she gasped out, a look of horror still on her face.

  "The worst thing to happen to you so far," Banks corrected. "Do you regret it?" For a moment she was quite before she looked at her hands, and another finger writhed into existence, giving her five and making her look like a Psideri.

  "I don't regret it all," she said firmly, as her extra finger retracted, before an eye grew on her palm, before she went pale as it visibly retracted. Yeah, that will teach her to grow extra sensory organs.

  "Take it easy, sweetie," the father said. "Thank you," he said to Banks. "I was so worried."

  "It's cool," he said taking a sip of his drink. "I want to emphasize that there was no danger. I was hoping that it would pass in her sleep or that she might wake up in a panic, flail about and then tire herself out. Can you check her mana levels?"

  "One hundred and twenty one," the father said after a while. "Does becoming a Stranger increase it. Does the presence of Strange Elements increase mana levels?"

  "Sort of, but not really," Banks said stretching out. "If there's nothing else I'm going back to sleep now." He took a sip of his cocoa, pausing as he felt the caffeine enter his system. "Bugger. Well I'm going to read until the first hour of day. "

  "The library only has natural light," the father said.

  "Double bugger," he said. "Well I'm going to go walk around the street, looking cool," he said. "Am I allowed to do that. Is there a curfew?"

  "Yes, one was announced last night," the father said, the older man's look as serious as ever, but he could sense the undercurrent of amusement in his tone.

  "Alright, fuck it we ball," he sighed pointing at the young Stranger. "You, get yourself decent and then meet me at whatever training area you have." He downed his cocoa one gulp before gently slamming the cup down. "I'll show you how to use your Stranger powers."

  He walked out of the door, before he returned back to the room. "Can somebody show me where the training area is?"

  xxx

  He casually stretched his body while waiting in the outside area. Daylight was not yet breaking past the horizon and he yawned, tired but with utter certainty that he could no longer return to sleep. He was too lazy to change out of his pajamas, but they were those old timey full body pajamas that he honestly couldn't tell the difference between those and normal clothes, although the butler did shoot him a few disapproving looks, and he had not too subtly offered him some footwear. He ignored him, instead using this time to practice his mana defense, and chip away at that mountain of crystallized mana in his core. Eventually after half an hour, his eyes flickered towards the entrance revealing that instead of the girl coming, it was instead the father.

  "Galayne couldn't come," the father said, in a passable imitation of his real voice. "She fell asleep immediately after you left. Can we perhaps let her rest up a bit and then continue this after breakfast?"

  "Nice try," Banks said. "You have much less mana then your father." He looked the figure down as it morphed into a young girl half the size who stepped out of the oversized copy of her father's clothes to reveal a stretchy training outfit, that drew tight against her.

  "I was hoping to get you," she admitted.

  "I see that you have got some grasp on your abilities, already," Banks stated.

  "Is it just that intuitive?" she asked.

  "It's initially highly intuitive," Banks stated. "At least if you have the slightest experience with mana, but if you think that's the fullest extent of your abilities then I can only condemn your lack of imagination. Now can you take the form of our butler friend?" He gestured at the man who stepped forward.

  "I can," she said firmly looking him, up and down, before she shifted, exactly a few centimeters in height. "I can," she said more firmly as her hair took on a greyer tone."

  "It's a lot harder copying somebody when you don't have any of the same genetic code, isn't it?" Banks said casually. "Now I want you to transform your right arm into that of your father while keeping the rest of your body the same as usual."

  "I'll try," she said as she focused, before she sprung upwards, turned into her father, before back to herself, then to some weird blend of the two.

  "Still think it's intuitive?" Banks asked before turning to the other person in the room. "Now for this next trick, I would like a drop of blood Mr. Butler, that was way too fast," he said as a the butler sliced open his palm with a small knife, before he had even finished speaking. "You are way too quick about that. Holy shit."

  "There are many uses for blood as you should know," the butler said expressionlessly.

  "Yeah, but it's still freaky that you were so quick," Banks said. "Okay now I need you to ingest the blood."

  "Ingest?" she repeated.

  "Swallow it, create a mouth on your hand, stick it up your nose, shove it up your..." he paused, deciding to tame his words a bit. "As long as it is in your body I don't care."

  "Okay," she said as she stuck in finger into the offered blood before quickly tasting it. "Woah," the words seemed to involuntarily leave her mouth as she transformed into a direct copy of the butler, clad in that tight training outfit.

  "Genetic level transformation," Banks said, before a thought came to him. "Don't ever drink the blood of another Stranger for your own good."

  "Why?" she asked immediately and he raised an eyebrow knowing that this was a person who only ever learned by experience.

  "You'll explode," he lied, somewhat unconvincingly. A beam of light caught his eye at the moment and he turned to see the sun ascending past the horizon, announcing the presence of the second day, which he finally reached. "Come on, let me give you a few pointers and then we can go for breakfast."