Chương 33: Eulogy Of Plastic Sunglasses

June was quite used to working his body even when it was unconscious; the problem in this case was that he would have rather taken a direct motor shell to the jaw. He was lucky that his body was abnormal; being a Dreamer and having a high affinity towards body manipulation was the only reason poor Lilia wasn't picking June's skull shards out of her face. June was blipping in and out of consciousness, but each second of momentary clarity made him seethe more and more.

He had a habit of experimenting on himself; it was the only way to survive the trek, and even though June seemed fine, it only ended less than fifteen hours ago, and the memories of his perpetual anguish were fresh in his mind. Well, they were until his brain matter painted the walls of his fractured skull with itself; the only reason he was truly alive was because he tried turning his entire body into a brain during one of those experiments. A secondary one.

Albeit a rudimentary one, he didn't get to spend as much time as he would have preferred in developing it. He once saw a stupid plot development in an anime, where one of the antagonists sent his mind into his nervous system when his brain got splatted against a wall.

"But stupidity breeds innovation" was almost a catchphrase to June considering how much he said it to his friends.

'I miss my friends.' One of his eyes was trying to recover enough to see the bastard who put him in this condition; it was harder than he thought it would be considering pieces of his poor cheap sunglasses were jutting out of his eyes.

'My damn sunglasses' Every second a bit more of June's primary brain would reform. The purpose of the secondary brain was simply to use will and, if push came to shove, fight something on instinct. It was more effective than having his normal brain think and move the body and do this and that. Instead of keywords like a normie, he had his secondary brain. It did have a couple of problems.

It worked on instinct, and instinct tended to be aggressive when provoked, and it would only activate like that if the primary was destroyed. It was a makeshift counter to a situation that would realistically never happen. But it happened. He was able to think just a little using his secondary brain, but in truth it relied on a more animalistic side at the moment; it was a prototype at best. Not to mention, the second his body can...

'Shit, my hand just moved.' The second his body was healed enough to move, and if the primary didn't work, his body would default to that instinctual side.

'Heal, Heal, Heal''Come on, heal the brain.' He couldn't feel pain yet; that part was sludge, but he knew what was going to happen. He had a habit of always healing the ears first to be aware of his surroundings. He heard a squelch, he heard his voice scream, and then he heard another scream.

'Lilia's scream' The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation. June didn't like the sound. She only screamed once why did it hurt him so badly? He heard bits and pieces of her pleading with someone?

'Why would they hurt her?' June was under the impression that the squelch was caused by the attacker.

'Hopefully it was me.' He hoped he was the one injured, not Lilla. He heard her pleading to stop... He only heard bits and pieces; she was telling someone to stop hurting him.

'That's a relief.' Maybe it was something deep inside him, something human, but hearing someone else scream it...' IT BURNS'

'Would you look at that, its hands already moving, truly a monster too disgusting for milady.' The old man had a glum look while both of Lilia's selves yelled at him. Unbeknownst to Lilia, both of Lilia's, something was happening to June. The old man prepared his cane and with a swift strike crushed June's knee. Blood splattered onto his dapper ducktail coat.

'It seems red suits me more than black; in fact, the color seems to jump at me even.' Lilia screamed at him and started to tear up. Her other self started manifesting an ice cocoon to stop her mad butler, but even the cocoon failed to stop his heavy cane. The defenses she put up to stop her gray old butler from killing June were useless. She tried using more magic. She tried layering her cocoon. And eventually she tried pleading with the old man on her legs with snotty tears running down her face.

"Please, please stop hurting him, Mortimer."

"Why... Why are you hurting him? He did nothing." The old man lifted the weeping girl up and looked at her with a sorrowful face.

"Milady, that THING is nothing but a monster."

"You haven't seen the carnage it could wreak on a sane man."

"You are but two young girls; your lives will be filled with better men than that vile creature."

"Have you seen the way it uses its body? Even your fathers, your brothers, and your sisters, not to mention your mother, who fight nightmares, would be appalled by IT." The old butler firmly grabbed the tall girl and, in a gentle way, pulled her aside. Lilia was a Dreamer, and to the common person, Dreamers were at the top. Few would become Dreamers, but going a step past was inconceivable, impossible even, and yet the butler was halfway to that next step.

Mortimer was the king's right-hand man; in fact, he was almost on par with the king, who had reached that next step. Despite his frail looks, his graying pruned hair, and his black ducktail coat without such a fold or a piece of lint on it, Mortimer was one of the most dangerous, if not one of the strongest, people in the Nightrealm. As much as both Lilias were promising and undefeated, Mortimer was a beast in his own right; in fact, in a serious bout, Lilia couldn't even compare to Mortimer.

In every way she was inferior; he was the ultimate warrior, then the best butler. But never in her life had she seen Mortimer rattled. The lights of the parking lot had long turned on; she saw what June did. But at the same time, she knew he was defending her. She was the one who dragged him into this fight, and despite that, he still fought to protect her. She owed June this much to try to stop Mortimer from killing him. She didn't believe her chances against the old butler, but surely....

She heard a deathly howl and several bones crack. She saw a look Mortimer had never made before. Fear. ***' IT BURNS IT BURNS IT BURNS.' The hand twitches turned into convulsions.' WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY' His worries came true. Instinct took over; he wrestled it weakly for control, his mind still leaking out of his ears. This was dangerous, not just for the bastard but for him. He had enough faith in the body that it wouldn't target Lilia. But on the off chance it did.

He had no qualms about taking his own life. The broken kneecap popped back into its original position, his feet flattened on the ground despite his prone state. A weak arm lifted towards the dim light of the mall. There were no stars to grasp; light pollution took them from him. The sky was still blurry, and his eyes were open despite the shards of his poor sunglasses.

Almost like a marionette, a seemingly invisible force grasped his arm and lifted it up; his second ribcage that turned itself into a nice ornate bracelet ripped itself from hiding, sheathed beneath his skin. It turned into a wrist dagger, then creaked into a buckler, then creaked into a claw hammer; the air around it distorted before igniting in a ghostly flame.

His head hung back limply, as did his arm; his legs were still bent into a squat as this invisible force tugged on his new addition and breathed mystical flame into it. His jaw elongated into a pointed triangle shape, and he clacked his teeth together, making discomforting clicks. The head finally limply tore itself up to look at its prey; shards of plastic slid out of its eye and healed before blood rushed to kiss the wound.

The pure gold glow with its beautiful ruby inlay was replaced with a chilling fashion change. His gold eyes resembled real weathered gold instead of just its shining color; scratches and damage appeared on it, and the ruby pupil turned more gemlike than it was before. The glow was gone, dull, forgotten. If people didn't want to covet his eyes before, they would now consider killing each other just for a single glance.

His beautiful olive skin was covered in filaments of clear bones, making him look like an artificial puppet, and visible wisps of golden will emanated from him like steam. This could all have been prevented if his cheap sunglasses weren't shattered.