Heartworm [WEIRD progression fantasy] (Volume 1 complete!)

"'So, Dario, what do you think our Doxie has?'

"You'd need to take her to a graduated vet with a proper clinic to discard some conditions that can present like this does, but judging on the way she walks with her feet curled, how she crosses her legs, her breed and age… chances are it's an unfortunately not-rare-enough neurodegenerative disease. I'd tell you the name but you are likely to forget it, no offense mistress.'

'But Dario, how are we getting her medicine without knowing what she has?'

'If I am right you are not getting her any medicine. You are getting her a doggie-wheelchair if you want her to remain above the ground, or a lethal injection if you don't mind her getting covered in dirt. But, as I said, take her to a good vet, get her an MRI to discard tumors or slipped disks, and maybe a genetic test to know if she is at risk for —and here's the name you so much want— degenerative myelopathy. But hey, world is ending in a month, so, she won't suffer long anyway. She may meet the final day still standing.'

'You are terrible! Your father should be ashamed of you'

'But I diagnose the pets of my acquaintances for free whenever I am able. It's good practice.'"

—The Creator, speaking to a neighbor of his family.

Supported by a disk-shaped excrescence on the side of a stalactite, Dirofil waited. His psycholocation picked them up, crowding in the dark all around, the chains like silk. They hanged out of sight, and in his recklessness he had already broken through a few. Whatever had hung them, he reasoned, could be using them like a spider its web. The slightest movement of his could alert some creature that, for the time being, was either unaware of his presence, or pretending to remain so.

His toes danced unsteady over the audibly-breathing Malamutes that supported his weight. Where? Where did the architect of the net hide? Climbing or flying could lead him straight into its frightening jaws. Worse yet, he disposed of no information about the threat at hand. How intelligent was it? how instinct driven? Was it unaware of his presence, or was it hiding from its prey, stalking from some unseen nook of the sea?

And, the least important of them all: was it even there still? Because killing the spider wouldn't get rid of the cobweb, and it was even a gentle gesture from fate to advertise a predator with such a glaring construct.

But there was no excess possible when exercising caution, not in a sea of dogs. If the spinner wasn't, hiding meant losing time. And as precious as time was, losing his mind would mean losing all possible time.

His core shed scant light, the eyes he had spawned with the wrong tool to navigate this layer. Even his psycholocation had begun to fail him, the overwhelming presence from what he had come to call The Other an omnipresent, constant interference that reduced how far his thoughtenergy waves could penetrate the murk while returning any useful information.

The further he ascended the smaller his sphere of perception grew. It shrunk at a steady rate, like the myopia that advances with age and gradually blurs your landscapes in. The ear had learned how to remain faithful, but the sea had always known how to present a numbing landscape. All the hearts, and the breaths, all the pants, all the licks. The constantn ruckus that concealed the soft presence of nearly-silent assaulters.

But the other sense he had retained its high fidelity. Touch. Maybe that was what endowed every little thread with this baleful air: That the all-encroaching blindness was too much even for a mutated creature. A creature the eye of the reaper hadn't detected yet.

What that eye didn't see, could not be there. But could the eye lie? What guarantee had the sea ever given him., besides pain? The powers he had borrowed could turn against him any moment now, couldn't they? If even the metal of his bones had committed slight betrayals in the past, back then getting slightly hurt didn't matter. And he had a full family to help him with reparations, back when he left broken parts on the platform of Leptos spire, always wondering but never asking how he managed to repair them and leave them looking like new, despite feeling as old as they had always been. Nothing had a guarantee of working, not there, not now, not over yonder and not since he had been born.

But this was also the state of his enemy. Victory was just the noun chosen to excuse a belated failure, and sometimes it meant the same as fate. He needed a plan. He needed something to erase the quietude all around while drawing the attention away from him.

Leaving behind a sound clone could work if the thing was deafer than him.m Fat chance, though: whatever it was now, it had been a dog. A dog that had lost some things, and gained others. But of the all the things it could lose, he wouldn't bet it had lost hearing, not yet.

Of course the discrete nature of Cynothalassa meant he could always catapult a dog into some threads and watch. It wasn't the sort of solution Leptos would vouch for, but after coming this far, he realized he was stopping to care. He would never see Leptos again. Nor Morbilliv. Nor Babesi. The only one he expected to meet face to face one more time was Lyssav. At the end of it all their eyes would meet, either as the world ended, or as the Time to Move did.

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Three hands, fingers digging in the fur of Malamutes that anxiously stared at him with whale eyes, the humble light of his core reflected on the membranes inside the eyes of animals, that returned deep blue and green stares at him. Good doggies served their master, and Dirofil's cause ought to be the cause of the whole world. Or at least, he felt such a shitty justification for his actions had to suffice.

But the damn dogs started to whine as he pulled on the loose fur of one of them. Whines, maybe the creature ignored such a common sound. Or maybe it was like a creaking branch, the sound betraying the presence of the monkey that merrily clung to it.

He immediately aborted his plan, frantic glances from the eye of the Reaper checking for incoming danger, only to find none. None above, none in front, none behind, none below.

Where? Where?! It was unwise to shout out for his stalker to reveal itself, but he was beginning to fear the idea of there being no stalker at all. Of being reeled up by mere traces of rivals long gone. "I'll murder you, whether I can see you or not. Wheter you are or not, you belong to me, weaver." He whispered, the ripples oif his voice coursing through his flesh making him realize he needed to consider a form of attack he hitherto hadn't.

Could the creatures of the sea mess with his mind? The sole idea was about to send him reeling down, fallen with broken and battered wings. Losing his grasp on reality would be the last straw, a thoughtlessness sentence unlike any other.

Yet the ears came to his rescue. Not a sound but rather a bubble of silences looming nearby. Behind and to his left, the pants ahd stopped, the eventual whines had died out, and the hearts had decelerated.

The gloom prevented him from seeing, so he poured the life of his core out in the atmosphere, letting it bleed over whatever there stood.

And something stood. Using its dozens of appendages, the huge ball of spikes, reminiscent of a sea urchin, held onto thin chains of cold, the same that Dirofil had so far recognized as a sort of web. At the end of each spike some organs seemed to slowly churn out the substance, a subtle mist emanating from the freshly produced links of the chains.

And how clearly they stood as chains in the light. What the psycholation had failed to pick up due to the interference, his eyes perfectly could. All the beauty of the threads contrasting with the horrible figure that from them hung.

"Your hideousness is becoming of these depths." He greeted the creature as he wrapped himself in his cape, dressing himself in thorns to somewhat mimic his interlocutor.

From lined-up openings on the sides of its body the creature exhaled a gust of frosty air, minute particles of ice glistening like star shards in the gloom. Dirofil spotted no eyes on the thing, and it wasn't getting any closer.

"Is our rendezvous destined to become a brawl, creature? Are you peaceful?" Dirofil asked, knowing that the monster wouldn't answer. "I do not need to kill you yet. May this be our status quo, yes? It is desirable to avoid conflict." He addressed his latest words to the beast within, the one desperate to cross the sea and meet Shadiran, rather than to the one in front of him. "Peace, dog. Pace over every back and spine and belly and leg and head of this sea and find me an ounce of peace of mind. There's none. I want to get out. I want to end this."

His right hand found the stalactite of Malamutes and sunk into the fur of one of them. "I want smooth surfaces. Cold stone and floating spheres of crystal with unchanged, predictable orbits. Stasis, dog. It's movement that causes suffering. It's change that drives us insane and turns us into the terrible things we are not meant to be. You, that changed too, could understand me if you had the capacity to. But I doubt it, thing."

He dedicated the monster a glance with the eye of the Reaper, and now that he knew where it was, he could detect a faint outline against the background noise that had begun to appear in the eye's vision as he ascended towards the source of psychic interference. "Wonderful setback."

A part of him was pushing for an attack. The thin chains of cold seemed like they could be of use. Of use to climb, of use to bind, of use to rain, of use to kill. But he needed to show restraint. The creature surpassed him in size and weight, and it was an unknown quantity when it came to speed, reflexes, and battle prowess in the wider sense.

And besides, being useful didn't mean it was necessary. The fight, even if won, would take a toll on his energy reserves. He was well past the moral conundrum, but not above matters of efficiency and taste. Yes, taste, because every assimilation spelled atrocity.

Mobility issues had been covered by the wings, at least whenever he could trust the flaps to not drag any unwanted attention. Defense needs taken care of by the lungs and their sound armor. The explosions could have some offensive potential too. And offense against those that bled could be covered by his natural appendages and the hybrid-model tail.

But cold chains meant condensation. Cold chains meant droplets. Cold chains meant a weapon against she who would never bleed.

How wise was to bother with acquiring this weapon against Lyssav? She could probably close the gap between them both in a matter of hours, if not less. He could wager on his fairly unpredictable sister lounging in the ship for just enough time for him to reach Shadiran at the Zenith, or he could be prepared to defend himself if she decided to come out and hunt the ass he didn't have down.

"One of us is hunting. I hope it is you. I hope that when Shadiran questions me, I could say I only acted in self-defense. And I guess it is only proper to apologize preemptively. " he dislocated two of his toes and began dragging the long claws up the flesh of his legs, swapping them with the tip of his middle fingers. "It is desirable to avoid conflict. I do not have to kill you yet. But you had to be useful! You had to ignite the flame of need, the comfort of a little certainty in my soul. I wish for peace, but the world doesn't offer it to me, nor to you. Stay still, and maybe you'll end just mutilated enough for me to get that which will make me feel slightly less paranoid about her."

Wings flapped, a core shone in dark, talons slicing through the air as Dirofil navigated around the sky-blue threads with unmatched dexterity.

A spike like a pillar twitched, the slime of a thigh ever so briefly contacting a chain. The would be prey stirring to life. Wounds opening all across the skin, little holes with small hairs protruding from them. A second after, a sudden rearrangement of the weaving appendages attempting to tangle Dirofil's wings, a quick cry and a small explosion of a sound clone at the end of his arm confusing his opponent long enough for him to drop out of range and glide and cling to a nearby stalactite.

"Maybe I do reek," Dirofil whispered, planning how to step up his game. He wanted the chains of cold, and he would get them. By the cruel creators, he would get them now!