What is Change?

SELF LIFE

"So that's basically why we want to break into the Custody's main building, can you give us a hand with that?"

Menide sat in the chair opposite to Gedis. Rhea stood next to them, listening to their voice echoing slightly in the empty, drab room. An Ogun guard stood next to the prison door with his eyes closed.
Gedis purposefully let the silence fall onto them long enough to make them understand what was about to come.

"I send you to Kirk's phizo-infested base, the only thing I hear of that is from the news, that say the base has been destroyed in some accident and that Kirk is missing, after that you disappear without even letting me know if you're alive, and then you just come back as if nothing happened, looking like you've been through harvester, expecting me to help you infiltrate the Custody all willy-nilly?!" Gedis rose from the chair, her loud voice hitting Menide in the face.

"C'mon, you'll make me sound rude if I say yes."

"What even happened to your cape?!"

"Dragon."

"...Dragon?"

"A wyvern, to be more specific. Since it only had two legs and two wings."

“What are you talking about?!” Gedis let herself fall back into the chair.
"I was worried about you, you know?" She said, hand in her colorful hair. "I care about you, and I don't have much else. Not knowing if you're alive... It was scary. I know you're more of a secluded person, you don't really talk about yourself, but we've been through a lot and..." A sigh paused her words, "I don't know, I just thought you'd tell me if something happened."
Menide looked at her and grabbed her hands.

"...I'm sorry Gedis, you're right. I was so angry at myself for getting the tech destroyed that I didn't take your feelings in consideration, and not just yours." Menide glanced in the corner of their eyes. Rhea looked at them with worried eyes. "It's true that I tend to act selfish, blaming myself over everything is part of that, but I promise you that as long as I'm still breathing, I will always report back to you at the end of the day."

"I wonder if that's going to stay true. Fine, I'll trust you."

"Don't worry!" Rhea interjected, "I'm sure Menide would never break a promise. We'll come back from the Custody's base safe and sound!"

"Are you sure it's a good idea?" Gedis turned to Menide.

"What else can we do? Let's not beat around the bush Gedis, the Custody has all the answers we need."

"We barely managed to survive last time."

"Last time was just a test run. This time it's different, I can feel it. We attacked them out of overconfidence before, we didn't know why we wanted to do it, really. But this time we're going there ready to end it all."

"And this time you'll have me!" Rhea jumped in, "I'm also going to help!"

"I appreciate the sentiment Rhea, but Menide isn't going anywhere looking like that! Can you even fully transform?"

"I might be missing an arm and a couple of toes."

"Oh, you've been really naughty then! We have to fix that first, see if there is anything going on with the chip, maybe add a couple of upgrades here and there, we definitely need to go all out if you want to do this."

"You'll help me then?"

"What am I gonna do, stop you? Just take a look at yourself!" Gedis stopped to look at Menide for a second and smiled. "I'm powerless against those stubborn eyes."

"Thank you Gedis, I appreciate it."

"Just don't make me regret it, ok?"

"Let's take down the Custody!" Rhea cheered. "But what are we doing exactly?"

"There is only one thing we can do now, isn't it?" Menide looked at Gedis.

"And it's about time! You've kept me waiting for way too long. Let's just do this." Gedis smiled. She slowly raised her arm next to her face and snapped her fingers.

Nothing happened.

"Is something supposed to happen?" asked Rhea.

"No," answered Gedis, "I just wanted to look cool."

She rapidly turned around and threw a small syringe at the guard's face, who promptly dropped to the ground.

"What's that?" Rhea shouted.

"It's the virus that erases the eyedeas' data. I just mixed it with some other spicy ingredients."

"This prison needs better security."

"Nothing can prepare them for my twisted genius!"

Immediately a red light filled the room, and the piercing sound of an alarm began blasting through the whole prison. Menide had already turned into the chimera and began hitting a wall with their gorilla arm.

"Rhea!" They shouted, "Your shield can block bullets, right? Gedis doesn't have her stuff right now, I'm going to need you to use it to protect her. And put on your disguise!"

"You didn't tell me the boy got a power up."

"Don't worry Gedis, I'll protect you!" Rhea, his body clothed with the kitsune inspired outfit, got close to Gedis and powered up his magnetic field, letting its magenta lights envelop her entire body.

"I promise I don't mean this in a bad way," Gedis said while poking the shield, "Can I open you apart when this is all over?"

The wall collapsed and the three jumped out, followed by a horde of guards. Menide took pieces of the falling walls to throw them at the guards, while Rhea kept moving around Gedis to shield her from any bullet that could come their way.
Pushing through the small mob of guards, they reached out of the prison and into the street. The road around them had been blocked with AR walls to avoid putting citizens in danger.

“Reinforcements ahead!” Gedis screamed, pointing at the Ogun truck coming their way.

“Stand back!”

Menide stood their ground, putting themselves in the way of the vehicle. The truck had no intention of slowing down.
Feet stabbed into the ground and arm extended forward, they braced for impact. The truck collapsed onto them with a loud roar. Menide's claws slashed the ground as the force of the impact pushed them back. Scales flew from the arm, letting out sparks as it crashed on the truck’s bumper. The windshield shattered and was shot forwards, together with most of the hood and the driver.

“Be careful!” Gedis screamed, barely dodging the unconscious body of the Ogun driver flying past her. “We need that truck to leave!”

“I didn’t really have another choice.”

“Are you ok?!” Rhea screamed while touching the damaged gorilla arm.

“Don’t worry, we need to replace the arms anyway.” Menide answered while shaking their hand up and down.

“It doesn’t mean we’re going to throw them away! I can always use spare parts, if they’re not destroyed.” Gedis scolded them while climbing on the driver seat of the truck. “Get on.”

Menide was about to sit next to her, but Gedis stopped them.

“Actually wait, I’ve got an idea.”

Menide listened to her idea and sighed. Nevertheless, they turned around and picked up Rhea with their arm.

“We’re gonna play a game, alright?” Gedis screamed from the driver seat, while Menide tore a hole on the back of the truck using their talons and climbed inside of it.

“What are we doing?” Rhea asked, confused.

“You keep your shield on and shoot at anyone coming our way using your laser,” Gedis answered to Rhea’s preoccupied voice, “Menide’s going to move you around like a turret using their arm!”

“Are you out of your mind!?” Rhea answered, trying to ignore Gedis’s laughter.

“Don’t worry, if something bad happens I’ll pull you back in the van!” Menide tried to reassure him.

“Are you serious?”

“Look, it’s better to do as she says when she gets like this.”

The side of the truck began sparkling with the shots of three Ogun vehicles that had reached them.

“Let's rock!”

The van screeched on the asphalt below, pushed forwards before it could lift off the ground. It bashed through two of the trucks that had stopped on the street, speeding away through the traffic.

Rhea screamed.

After recovering from the shock, and accepting his position, Rhea started shooting at the cars behind them. Many other vehicles had chased them, all of which were sent astray thanks to Gedis's idea. They were already on the outskirts of the city, but little by little their van was crumbling to pieces.

“Focus on the right one and then come back inside!” Gedis screamed at Rhea, who was shooting at two Ogun cars that were still following them.
A barrage of beams collided with the car pointed out by Gedis, which managed to hit the driver and send the car onto an uncontrollable path. Their truck came suddenly to a halt, making the car behind them crash into it and capsize. But Menide and the others had already jumped out of the vehicle. Menide began shooting at what remained of the vehicles’ engines, setting them both on fire.

“And I thought Menide was the reckless one.” Rhea said while breathing heavily.

“Oh, this is nothing, you should have seen some of the things we did when I still had all of my equipment.” Gedis had a smug look on her face.

“You shouldn't be proud of it!” lamented Rhea.

Menide grabbed them both and began walking away from the city. “C’mon, we need to reach the base.”

It only took a few minutes of running to reach the hill that hid Gedis and Menide’s hideout.

"I didn’t know this was Gedis's base too."

"I'm the one that lets Menide use it, thank you very much. It took me years to make it what it is today."

"This is where the chimera was born," Menide opened a hidden door using their eyedeas.

The lights inside the base turned on one by one, shining on the large open space which the AR divided into multiple, color-coordinated sectors, where one could work on any mechanical or digital project. Only when the door closed behind them, Menide took off the pin from their chest and turned back into their human form. Not much remained of their cape.

“…and where it’ll be reborn.”

“Ooh!” Gedis gasped, “Do you have something in mind already?”

“I have a hunch… but let’s prepare for now. I’m sure it'll come to us eventually.”

“What do we need?” Asked Rhea.

“Everything.” Menide looked at Gedis and smiled.

***

Menide stood atop the hill in their chimera form, waiting. Their visor had been restored, and the gorilla arm was patched up as best as they could, restoring its scales and muscles, although it was still missing the other arm.
The cold wind turned a couple of lonely trees into musical instruments. Their music began speeding up, becoming more and more chaotic. The dark clouds that hid the sky were stirred around by the strong wind. A comet breaking through the atmosphere, the scarlet wyvern pierced the clouds and fell towards them.

“And here is the last piece.” Menide grinned behind the visor.

The hill rose beneath them, revealing a metallic ring of guns, all aiming at their flying target. The air was choked with the loud bangs of guns and the hissing sound of flying bullets.
Sparks flew off the wyvern’s body, pelted by the projectiles, but its descent didn’t stop. Instead, the flying monster opened its maw and launched its azure breath down at the hill. Menide threw themselves inside a hatch under their feet, seconds before the seething fumes reached the grass covering the base. The land was scorched by the azure lights, exploding into a cloud of ash and mist as the flames kept crashing down and lit the air on fire.

But as the mist ceased to fall, a blazing bolt of energy pierced the dust and thundered towards the flying beast. The wyvern tried to shield itself by wrapping the long wings around its body, but the bolt punched right through them, puncturing a fiery hole in them and sending the beast precipitating towards the ground. The land shook as the wyvern crashed next to the base. The impact blew the ash off the base’s top, revealing a shining layer of reinforced metal.

“How are things holding up?” Menide shouted at Gedis, who was sitting inside the base, aiming the guns.

“Let’s just say we won’t be able to stand another of those flamethrowers. You weren’t kidding when you said it melted through metal!”

“How long before we can fire the energy missile again?”

“It’ll take some minutes, but I don’t think the monster’s gonna stay down that long.”

“How effective were the guns?”

“Like throwing petals at a brick wall. Not that we could use them again, they're ash now.”

“I guess I’ll have to entertain the wyvern myself.”

“You can’t go out there!” Screamed Rhea. “You’ll melt!”

“I know, but I have to! Don’t worry, that thing won’t be able to fly anymore, meaning I’m probably faster. As long as I don’t go in front of its mouth, I should be fine.”

The ceiling shook.

“We don’t have time to lose!” A singular frame appeared in front of them, taken from the wall of dead camera feed that Gedis controlled with her eyedeas. The scarlet wyvern had climbed on top of the metallic hill and was readying its lungs.
Menide grabbed Rhea and put him close to them.

“Throw me at the hatch!”

Rhea stared at them, hesitating.

“Believe me.” Menide smiled. Rhea closed his eyes.

Rhea’s shield activated and blasted Menide through the hatch. Flying out of the base fast enough to pick up a trail of ash from its top, they reached the wyvern’s head and uppercut its jaw shut. The cobalt flames seeped through the monster’s sharp teeth and blew up in its mouth, sending both Menide and the beast tumbling off the base.
The wyvern’s head rose from the ground, most of its teeth shattered, eyes pointed at Menide’s slightly charred body. The beast put its head to the ground and began rushing at Menide, pushing with its feet and dragging itself forward using its wings, aiming to batter them with its hard skull. Menide pushed their gorilla arm to the ground, managing to jump out of the way at the last second, but the wyvern rapidly turned around to swing its sharp-edged wings and claw Menide’s body with the ridged talons growing on them. Long gashes covered Menide’s body, but their legs were still standing, and their arms grabbed tightly onto the monster’s wings. Climbing around the claws, Menide jumped on the wyvern’s back and began pulling at its neck with their beastly arm. The beast thrashed around, jumping on the spot and trying to flap its wings to take off the ground, but only managing a small vault in the air before harshly landing back down.
Lower hands transformed, Menide tried to shoot their cannon at it, but the wyvern’s long tail suddenly slapped them off its back. Before Menide could even reach the ground, the beast turned towards the base, put its clawed wings on the ground to hold itself down, and readied its flames. Menide tried to get up and jump at its mouth before it could fire, but the raging blue crashed on the dark metal of the base before they could reach it. An azure explosion followed the heavy flames.

Menide rushed towards the base to find a bright ring of metal outlining a hole on its side.

Gedis laid on the pavement, motionless, but surrounded by a magenta-colored shield. Rhea crawled from underneath her body and stood up. His teary eyes were pushed ajar by his screaming mouth. The shield that surrounded him shifted to focus on his arms, which were rapidly pushed to the ground and launched him in the air. He leapt out of the hole and saw the wyvern roaring. Still in the air, still screaming, he stretched his arms in front of himself and put his hands together. They lit up like heated metal, one purple, one orange. A ball of multicolored energy formed in his palms before being shot at the wyvern with such a force that Rhea was pushed back inside the base.
The beast’s left eye was shot off the head, taking a piece of its face with it. But, as if numb to pain, the winged creature flinched back to look at the base and leapt at it.

Neck pushing inside the base’s hole, it began taking in air from its snout with its gaze set on the boy. Rhea couldn’t do anything before the flames rose from the wyvern’s jaws.
Menide climbed on the beast's back and ran along the neck to jump from its head, putting themselves between the boy and the flames.
Menide, visor completely shattered and gorilla arm in shambles, was falling head first towards the ground. Their eyes were set on the gaping maw gurgling in front of them as blue lights emerged from its throat. Their arms, extended in front of themselves, had turned into a bright cannon, flashing its glow at the raging azure mist that was quickly approaching them.

A rampant, crackling mass of reddish energy propelled from Menide and collided with the flames, stopping them in their path. The two attacks struggled for a moment, trying to overpower the other with no success, until the overflow of energies couldn't be contained anymore and blew up into red and blue smoke.

“Menide!” Rhea screamed as the room filled with the fumes of the explosion. He looked for his companion, hidden somewhere behind the fog, while jarring growls echoed above them.

He activated his shield and pushed away the mix of ash and dust filling the room, until Menide’s outline became visible in the distance. He kneeled beside them, screaming their name. Menide raised their arm at him, which he rapidly hugged as he cried.
Suddenly, next to Rhea’s head, a virtual notification popped up to warn them that the energy missile was ready.

“Don’t.” Menide coughed their words out the mouth. “Run away.”

A gust of wind pushed away the smoke. Above them, perched on the edge of the base’s hole, the wyvern was already preparing its next attack. Its upper body was in a devastating state. Apart from the dislocated jaw, half of its head was missing, the scales covering it had been destroyed by the explosion, and the few that remained were left hanging from its body like dead leaves on a tree. The blue mist firing up inside of its throat leaked out from its slitted neck. The light raged upwards and shined on its wings, torn apart like century old curtains. But the beast didn’t stop, for it didn’t care. Its entire head was engulfed in its own flames, which were slowly melting the dark scales its mouth was cloaked in, yet it was ready to shoot.

But Rhea had already made his choice. He left Menide and ran to the control panel of the guns. He sat down and aimed the energy missile at the wyvern, who had opened his twisted maw wide. Both fired.

The base’s electricity gathered above Rhea. The cannon was heavily damaged from the seething mist and blew up from the shot, but a bolt of energy still took off from what remained of the metallic hill's top and punched a hole through the wyvern’s chest.
Its flames were pushed skyward as the beast fell on its back. The earth shook, a roaring sound filled the air, the azure mist gushed out of the beast's ripped body and splashed onto the ground, the wyvern ceased to move.

The wind had calmed down, and the lonely trees went back to their slow melodies.

The weight of a thousand worries was pushed out of Rhea’s lungs with a sigh, but one remained. He jumped off the missile’s commands and rushed to Menide, only to find them lying on Gedis’s body. He approached them, wanting to say something, but his voice trembled too much. He took a deep breath.

“M-Menide, is–”

But he was harshly silenced by Menide. They were holding Gedis’s hand and had an ear placed on her chest. The silence was heavy. As Menide’s head turned around, a mix of emotions escaped their mouth and eyes, but in the commotion, they managed to say:

“She’s alive!”

***

A flickering light broke the soothing obscurity that shielded her eyes. Gedis’s eyes slowly opened and met Menide’s, filled with tears.

“I also care about you, you know?” Menide tightly grabbed her shoulders.

“Touché.” Gedis smiled.

“Gedis!!” Rhea screamed and jumped on her, hugging as hard as he could. “You almost died just to protect me! Don’t do that again!”

“No promises.” Gedis said as she got up.

“Careful. Are you really alright?”

“I can’t really feel my skin anymore, but other than that I’m A-OK!”

“Your skin got badly burned, despite Rhea’s shield.” Menide helped her stand up. “We used everything we had to alleviate the pain, but it’ll take some time to heal.”

“It’ll take even longer to fix all of this.” Gedis said while looking at the huge hole above them. “It took me years to build this base and get all these materials, and we’ve spent everything in one night.”

“We can’t stay here anyway. With the wyvern dead, it won’t take long before the Custody finds this place.”

“Speaking of which, let’s go outside.”

The pale green field of grass that surrounded the base had turned into a desert of ash. The flames had charred the land, and a gray sand filled the air. A faint azure light could still be seen emanating from the wyvern’s body.

“I know a person who has one of those big trucks they use for moving circuses. I could borrow it and use it as a mobile base until I find a new place. I wonder if I can take some of that fella’s parts.” Gedis’s eyes stared at the colossal carcass in front of them.

“You want to use that?”

“Did you not see what that thing was capable of? If I could use even half of that power, I’d be unstoppable!”

“You’re barely standing up! How can you still think about working in front of this devastation?!” Rhea tried to scold her.

“That’s such classic Gedis!” Menide laughed. “She scarcely survived and she's already thinking of the next thing to work on.”

“Eh, it’s my nature. Now!” She turned to face Menide and clapped her hands, “I think it’s time for a new cape!”

“Rest!” Rhea screamed.

“Don’t worry about me, you have a Custody to raid!”

“Are you sure? We don’t have to do it immediately.”

“You’ll need to reach the overseer’s office to get any secret info. Don’t think it’ll be an easy feat! You’re going to need some seriously advanced equipment and it’ll be months before I can get a new base. This is the last chance we have to tinker with the chimera before we leave. And with all the chaos we’ve caused today, the sooner you go to the Custody’s base, the better.”

“You have to promise me you won’t overexert yourself. There’s no point if you just die of fatigue. And leave this place as soon as we're gone.”

“Yes, your majesty.” Gedis casually said as she got back inside the base. “Look, I have a floatchair over there that I can use.” A wide chair with an overgrown backrest hovered towards her, answering the call of her eyedeas. “It’s also got all the tools I need already installed!” Gedis jumped on it.

“You’re irredeemable.” Menide sighed and tossed their cape at them.

“You’ll need some fixes too!” She put the cape on a table as various tools extended from the back of her floatchair.

“Hey Gedis,” Rhea tugged at her shirt, “Since you’re making changes already, could Menide have… non-lethal weapons?”

Gedis patted his head.

“You’re just asking to make enemies like that. There are too many dangerous factors involved. The enemy might wake up too soon, or not faint at all, or plan a year-long vendetta against you where they’ll train to become stronger and hunt you until inevitably realizing too late that your death won’t bring back what they’ve already lost.”

“I’m being serious! It’s unfair that people die because of something we want. There is nothing more important than a person’s life! Seeing how many are ruined because of us, it makes me think if it’s really worth it.”

“Look, I understand where you’re coming from, but these are the consequences of living a life like ours, someone’s going to get hurt. And if you think about it, they’re not really alive. Right, Menide?”

Menide looked at Gedis sitting on her chair. Their gaze then shifted towards Rhea.

“Let’s do it.” They answered confidently. “I’m not sure if I agree with him, but I’m not sure I disagree either. I’ve been a bit confused about this whole thing lately, but I want to try looking at things differently.”

Gedis stared at them with eyes wide open. She then saw Rhea, who was looking at Menide with a big smile on his face.

“I’ll be damned.” She smirked, “What they say is true, parenthood can really change a person.”

“Whatever! Can you give me non-lethal bullets?”

“You bet! You can even choose the level of pain they’ll inflict: From I’ll be a bit sore tomorrow all the way to I wish the bullet actually did kill me!”

“Can we maybe avoid the second one?” Rhea asked with a worried tone and Gedis answered with laughter.

Gedis couldn't come with them, too wounded to be of any use during the mission, but Menide and Rhea were ready.
The morning light of the sun filtered through the dark clouds donning the city, lighting up the black marble of the Custody's building. The air was cold, but their hearts were warm.