The back of Walker's neck itched, like someone was talking about him. He shrugged and tried to ignore it.

"Now, It feels like we're definitely ready for more monsters. I think we may be at the point of really pumping them out with our two evolution chambers. What do you two think?" He asked of the two squirrels.

"We could do a mythological entity, just to see what they're like." Rimi said, but his tail was swishing hard enough that he could get a side job as a propeller for a small boat.

"Mmmmm." Walker mumbled, looking at the excited blue squirrel. "I see what you're doing. You just want to see them and tinker with your system. Why don't we place some standard monsters first, then put a mythological one in? This way, we have a chance in the next battle in case it tries to kill everything."

"Okay." He said, tail slowing to a stop.

Walker clicked on Entity and looked through the list. He had the Battlefrogs, but now he also had regular food for everything. Plants, bushes, fruit trees, and basic prey animals of course. He knew what could survive the desert and that would be easy enough to do. Walker selected a series of scorpions and placed them into space, killing them. Then, after speaking with Virgil, selected the Egyptian Sand Scorpion from the list and placed it into evolution chamber number one. He asked Virgil to make it only a little larger and give it a kernel, as it was already rather powerful with its potent venom and survival instincts. Virgil agreed as he told Walker what they liked to eat, so Walker exploded some of those and they began all over again. Walker placed eight of scorpions in the desert at a split gender difference, as well as a few hundred beetles and bugs of differing genders which Virgil had asked him to prepare.

"Fuck me, I had hoped to make a world with no bugs." Walker said.

"You did not place any mosquitos or flies that I saw. From your memories, they seemed to annoy you the greatest." Virgil countered.

"True, I don't know. Snakes, bugs, spiders..."

"The cirrrcllle of lifee." Virgil said as he made his first attempt at singing. The problem is, it came out more like a scream than anything else. "If you want birds, you will need larvae and other insects. If you want scorpions, you gain bugs in the desert. There will also need to be an oasis or watering hole in your desert, as otherwise, your entities will not have enough water for them to survive."

"I never thought I'd hear you sing. In fact, it was less of a thought and more of a hope." Walker said with a cracked smile as he went into the world editor, and cut a decent-sized divet in the sand. He looked at it from different angles to find the right path to the water, moving the monitor in a quick fashion due to their time constraints. To get the kind of pressure he wanted, he was forced to cut a deeply angled hole within the side of the sand landmass and direct it straight to the divet. It drained some of the water out of Symphony's burgeoning sea, but he had plenty to spare.

"Perhaps you are rubbing off on me." Virgil said, picking up on their conversation as Walker stepped out of the system.

"Better than rubbing you off. Hah! I'm with Rimi in wanting to see what the mythological creatures are like, but let's add a few more standardized monsters first. We have frogs in the crater and scorpions in the desert. Now what?"

Rimi raised his hand so Walker pointed at him, "Yes, we have a volunteer."

"Can we please have a large squirrel?"

"Why?" Walker asked while looking at him.

"To protect the Mana Trees so they can't be destroyed along with the rest of Symphony if something scary happens."

"Huh.....huh.....that's not bad. Also, it would be a bit of an homage to you two, wouldn't it."

"What's that word mean?" Rimi asked.

"It's like a special honor or tribute to someone, and that seeeealls the deal!" Walker said, excited at showing his two assistants how much he appreciated them.

Without thinking, Walker exploded a standard grey squirrel.

"MY BROTHER!" Rimi screamed as he saw pieces of it fly into the void.

"Oh man, I did not think about that. They weren't part of our exploding time earlier."

"Indeed." Virgil said nonplussed.

"I'm sorry Rimi." He said, placing a hand on his small furry shoulder. "I wasn't thinking."

"It's okay.....I guess...He wasn't really my brother, but he just kinda looked like me."

"I know buddy, I'm sorry." He finished as he put one in the evolution chamber. The three of them got together and started planning out the Grey Squirrel. It would be a protector to the Mana Trees, so they wanted it to intrinsically understand to not hurt the tree, and also to guard it from those who would seek to do it harm. That also meant that each time Walker created a landmass, he would have to make two Mana Trees, and then two squirrels to guard them from outsiders. This made creating new locations a little more routine and less random. If he was being honest with himself, he didn't mind it. Routines were a form of safety to him.

The first step was to enlarge their first protector, so they went with Gigantify. Virgil looked it over on his screen and said it should come out to about six feet tall, then he made an empty space in the middle of its body and added a kernel. He also said that this meant that, as the squirrel would always be with the Mana Tree, its attunement would always be pure. That meant its magic would always seep through any barriers that evolutions later gave.

"That seems a bit overpowered if I'm being honest. Are all pure attunements going to work that way?" Walker asked.

"Yes. Pure magic is unattuned and thus does not have the same counters that others would have. Ice loses strength against fire or extreme heat, and water gains strength against magma. Essentially, rock-paper-scissors from your homeworld. Because it is unattuned, it will instead bypass any potential counters that may appear, and deal damage or effects directly on the intended target. You wanted a caretaker for the trees, well, this will give it a fighting chance against anyone that approaches it with intent to do harm."

"But, won't that just make every mana tree have a Tier five that's a squirrel, because nothing else can come close?"

"That is an excellent point Walker." Virgil said, placing a paw against his chin in thought.

"Oh, oh!" Rimi said raising his hand. Walker called on him without thinking, feeling his teacher instincts kick in. "What if we just block Squirrels from reaching Tier five? That way, when they sense an undefeatable monster coming, they'll just leave."

"Can you do that?" Walker asked him.

"Yes! I can put in a special restriction that these guardians cannot move beyond the Pinnacle stage, and The Monster System shouldn't have any problems."

"Go ahead" Walker said, waiting as Rimi fiddled with his screens. A few moments of concentrated looks later, Rimi gave the thumbs up.

Moving on, they started to work on their base-model entity again. They wouldn't have to modify the squirrels a great amount for each Mana Tree, as the exact location each would be placed was also their home, but it was still a good idea to make sure they didn't have any issues with their initial seeding. Walker watched as Virgil zoomed in on the squirrel's brain and began tinkering. He had no idea what was happening, as he had neither the assistants's advanced knowledge nor an idea of how brains work, but Virgil assured him it would enhance the intelligence of the squirrel quite a bit. He named the modification Enlightenment and added it to their prebuilt modification list.

Whether that created an intrinsic need in the guardian to protect its Mana Tree or not was yet to be seen. Walker believed it would, and that was because the squirrelly monster would sense that the Mana Tree was the source of its power, and it would protect it at any given moment due to the symbiotic nature they were creating. To keep the squirrel seated where it was and not running off to find food every few hours, Virgil gave it a slow metabolism by stretching out its digestive system. He then connected, with a single thread from the mana funnels they'd made for their original Mana Tree, its stomach to its kernel. This meant that eating the Mana Tree's leaves would also be possible, and the squirrels would gain power at a much faster rate. Virgil nodded his head once, aged the squirrel two years from Walker's already depleting resources, and asked Walker if he was ready.

"Ready enough, lets do this." Walker said with excitement. This was the first really modified entity they'd created in a while, and he wanted to see what results would come of it. He pulled up the monitor and zoomed in on the first Mana Tree they'd placed, deep in the center of Symphony. Walker placed the first guardian and his overlay lit up.

 

.....Scanning.....

- - -

As your entity is modified from its original form, please name it.

 

Walker believed simpler was always better with names, so he typed it in.

 

Entity: Guardian is named.

.....Analyzing.....

Entity named Guardian analyzed.

Size: Large.

Entity category: System Monster.

Organism type: Animal.

Modification: Very High.

Ability to evolve: Yes, system-bound. Restricted.

Age: 2 Years.

Grade: B+

No extra marks earned.

Rewards calculated.

- - -

 

Considerable reward for completion of a B+ grade entity:

Congratulations Dante! You've gained an allocation of rare resources!

Temporal resources allocated. Rare metal allocated: Faer.

 

"That's less than I expected." Walker said after looking at the rewards.

"Not quite, Faer is a more useful metal than steel. A little more durable than what you know as Titanium without some of the inherent flaws. The temporal resources are a nice addition as well, as we were running a little low at the moment."

"Oh my god! I could've used Titanium on the metal core of Symphony."

"No, you made the right choice. While Titanium is indeed a stronger material than steel and would absorb the root's magic more easily, it is also flexible, which could lead to parts of Symphony bowing. The weight and pressure on top of the planet could press down, causing the world to become destabilized."

Walker thought it over with a hand to his chin. "You don't think we should use titanium anywhere on Symphony?" He asked.

"I did not say that, but with Faer metal at your disposal, you will do quite fine. It is a rare resource, as the protocol stated, and now that it is within your resources, you may place it at will."

"Nice! Okay, that is a solid reward." He clicked the monitor button and they looked at the two-year-old squirrel in its new home. It was already jumping around excitedly, chittering in that cute language they all seemed to have, on the dark blue branches filled with cyan-colored leaves. The squirrel stood just over five feet tall, Virgil's estimate being wrong for once, with a grey coat of fur and a bushy tail. It seemed quite happy, and Rimi was jumping up and down and pointing at it.

"I wish I could go say hi." He said mournfully.

"You realize you are not a squirrel, correct." Virgil replied with a hint of reproach in his voice.

"Yes, but still, this is the only form I've known. It is mine." Rimi replied back, standing with his shoulders pulled back.

"Fair enough." Walker said, verbally placing himself between them before their first fight could happen. "Now, we need to place these suckers all over the map." Putting action to words, he started to seed a Guardian for every tree. They sped up a little as Walker found he didn't need to modify them after all, and soon, every Mana Tree had its own protector. Each Squirrel took to its new home well and seemed quite excited, but Walker found a problem. "Won't these die over time? Then we'll have to replace them and make sure each is doing their job."

"I have a solution!" Rimi said. "This was bothering me earlier with the Battlefrogs. We can choose a specific evolution for every monster to gain at different tiers. Why don't we make the tier four evolution always increase their lifespan? That way, every tier four monster has more time to gain their next tier, and the squirrels won't have to be replaced that often."

"It will not work." Zeus said from near the tree. "Not unless you have some kind of immortality gene."

Walker snapped his fingers, "The jellyfish!" Virgil started nodding, understanding exactly what he was talking about, and began staring at his screen. "The immortal jellyfish from the earth. It sheds its skin and....uh." Walker paused, trying to remember the documentary he had watched on them. "It uh...does something or other, I uh...don't know."

"Turritopsis dohrnii," Virgil said while still tinkering with his overlay. "That is not how it works Walker, although I appreciate trying. Let me explain for the betterment of all. You are looking for a specific evolution, that we can pull from a basic modification. That is a plausible situation and could come with its own reward from the protocol, thus I am in agreement." Virgil closed down whatever he was looking at and started pacing back and forth in front of them.

"The Immortal Jellyfish is a Cnidaria on Earth, which reverts its cells back to a polyp stage by transforming old cells into new ones. It doesn't do this actively, but with a passive and unconscious instinct it is born with, which has evolved over an extremely long period of time. Lucky for us. With the addition of magic, and guided by the primordial energy of creation, we should be able to allocate this to each tier four monster. Also, every evolution that the protocol divests into creatures during each rendition, was originally a unique modification by a Creator. By adding your own evolution into the mix, you will not only be able to use it with The Monster System, but should be granted a substantial reward based upon the value the protocol gives to your new addition."

"So we are in agreement?" He asked Virgil, but Zeus was already stomping over to them with a thunderous expression.

"You CANNOT just give immortality to creatures. It is earned by accessing the soul and through an excruciatingly large amount of pain and suffering. Every step and growth each awakened gains is from their own hard work.It...is not a gift to be handed out at no cost."

Walker had an easy answer to this, "Virgil, Rimi, excepting the Guardians who will be accelerating through the tiers, how long would you estimate the time it will take a standard monster like the Battlefrog to reach Tier four." He pulled up the monitor and zoomed in on the original's kernel so the large assistant could look at it.

Virgil and Rimi formed a small huddle in front of the monitor, speaking quietly with a few head nods and one helpless shrug from the blue squirrel. They turned around and Virgil said, "Based upon the current kernel speed of absorption, how it has slowed due to an increased population around it, and the expected reproductive rate we believe the Battlefrog will have, we expect it to take close to twenty years before we see the first Tier four. Two months instead of the previously stated one month for tier two. Around three years for tier three, and seventeen after that for the largest jump to tier four. Should it find the Mana Tree, understand what it is doing, and defeat the Guardian, that time will decrease exponentially." He looked at Rimi again who gave a small nod in agreement.

"Will it have to fight as new monsters and classers are added over time?" Walker asked.

"Of course." Virgil replied.

"Will it suffer and feel pain in those twenty-odd years."

"Indeed."

"So reaching tier four." Walker said, turning and looking Zeus in the eyes. "Will include pain and suffering."

"That is a certainty unless they are very lucky."

"Thank you, Virgil." Walker said, and Zeus glared at the large squirrel for a moment, before giving a shallow nod and walking back toward the Tree of the Gods. Walker rolled his eyes. He pulled up the immortal jellyfish in the entity subsystem, and blew it up hoping it didn't truly live up to its name........it didn't. Then, he put one in the evolution chamber for Virgil to dissect and extract the needed modification. While Walker waited, he looked at his resources. He was low on Steel, but still had a little bit of extra granite and water. He now had an even sixty years from his reward's addition, giving him some wiggle room for advancing his world before the battle. Stepping into the World Editor, he added water to his landmass near the swamp he'd just placed, connecting it to the water route winding throughout Symphony, then stepped out again.

"Complete." Virgil said. "I have added the extreme modification for self-regenerating cells to our bank of modifications. This will allow for easy application on entities in the future. The next time you work in the evolution chamber, I suggest you take a look at the list already presented."

"Will do, and thank you. Now, how do I go about adding this as an evolution to the protocol."

"That is for Rimi to do."

"Hello." Rimi said with a wave by Walker's leg. He was so quiet and small that Walker hadn't noticed the tiny blue creature. "Please connect the evolution chambers to the Monster System."

Walker clicked on the appropriate systems. "Done."

"Updating the Monster System, one moment please."

"You sound like Virgil." Walker commented.

"I take that as a compliment." Virgil replied.

"Excuse my interruption, the process is complete." Rimi said with two thumbs up.

"Sweet, now we'll just-" Walker was interrupted by his overlay lighting up.

 

.....

.....Scanning.....

New evolution found.

Analyzing self-regeneration cells

.....

Analyzation complete.

New evolution is gifted by Dante.

Extreme longevity identified.

.....Analyzing.....

.....

.....

.....Analyzing.....

.....

Forwarding to Alpha Protocol Council

.....

.....

Missing evolution identified. Reward upgraded.

Reward upgraded from A+ to S level: Monumental

Rewards calculated.

- - -

.....

.....

Private message from the Alpha Protocol Council detected.

.....Retrieving....

Congratulations child, you have found what we've sought for more of your years than you can imagine. We will give you two gifts for providing this grand boon. Continue, keep working, and perhaps one day you may join us yourself.

- - -

 

Monumental reward one of two for gifting the Alpha Protocol a missing evolution:

Congratulations Dante! You've gained the Avatar ability!

Step into your world at any time, in any place, and continue to receive the protections of the alpha protocol. Gift your entities any of your self-created evolutions as you see fit, and bask in an ability less than a dozen creators in all of the protocol have ever received. You have earned it.

 

Monumental reward two of two for gifting the Alpha Protocol a missing evolution:

Congratulations Dante! You've gained three upgraded evolution chambers! Previous evolution chambers are also now upgraded!

Go, create, flourish. You have now gained the eye of the Alpha Protocol's Council. We expect great things Dante. As it is your wish to no longer destroy your entities upon first placement, you may now place them within the upgraded evolution chambers. Continue on your unique path, and see greater advantages fall to you.

 

"Wow." Virgil said. He was standing next to the upgraded evolution chambers, which looked the same with the exception that they were twice as large as the previous ones. "Even I did not know it was one of the missing evolutions. I had assumed, after so many renditions and creators, that at least one had created some form of immortality evolution. This is, apparently, a first. Now I understand why the seats on the council have changed so often. They were either retiring or dying. Walker. You just gave immortality to all of the renditions in the multiverse."

"Say what now?" Walker asked.

"Now that they know how to do it, Creators from older universes, with enough power and connections to those who run the protocol, will have access to the self-regenerating cells evolution we've created. You've just gifted the multiverse one of the greatest evolutions in the history of the protocol. A missing evolution."

Zeus started having a screaming fit with Echidna near the tree after Virgil finished speaking, but Walker stood silent. Did he just make a huge amount of uber-powerful people essentially immortal? How was he supposed to feel right now? He wasn't sure. He kept trying to analyze it, but even Virgil didn't know that this was going to happen, so how could he? He leaned on his memories. When the unexpected happened, he knew what to do. This wasn't his fault. He'd injected it into the protocol, but sooner or later, someone would have. It was always a matter of time, of more renditions. Was this the alpha protocol's true purpose? To empower these old worlds and creators? But, the alpha protocol already gave immortality? They said he would live forever. Was that a lie? Walker's thoughts kept stewing and bouncing, seeking each other only to fly apart again. But, since he'd become awakened, they were faster and seemed to coalesce more, forming a clearer picture of what was happening. So, right now, he did nothing.

"Nothing I can do about that now." Walker whispered to himself, hoping this wouldn't have further repercussions for Symphony. "Hey Virgil, you said I was going to live forever at the start, right?

"That is correct." Virgil confirmed.

"So then the obvious question is, why is this a missing evolution?"

"Because it is the power of Creation that keeps you alive. If you chose to somehow interact with your entities or world, and have children, they would die over-time. Also, you cannot join the council and remain a Creator. That implies that those who join the council were either never creators in the first place."

"Or were creators who chose mortality."

"Just so."

"And we just gave the a form of immortality."

"Only if they connect themselves to their own world and the rules they've applied to it. You are not the only one to design systems that bind your entities."

"So, I can do that. I can make my own kernel and stick myself into Symphony's system."

"If that is your wish, yes."

He thought it over seriously, spending several minutes staring at his green world. But, in the end, the system wasn't ready. Maybe in the future he'd be just another citizen of Symphony, but not now. "What's this Avatar ability?" Walker asked, pulling it up in his overlay.

Virgil accepted the change of subject with grace. "I do not know. They never gave me any information on it." Virgil said helplessly.

The two assistants and the Creator of Symphony stood looking at the evolution chambers for a moment, with Walker planning out how the new changes would affect him and still considering all of the information he'd just received. It didn't overwhelm him like it used to. He looked at his countdown to Battle #2 and found twenty hours remaining. He needed more monsters, more....ummpfh. They had the Battlefrogs, Scorpions, and Guardians now. It was time to go mythological.

"Virgil, Rimi, which mythological creatures were you looking at?" Walker asked.

"Oh, oh!" Rimi said with a hand raised. "I want the Manticore."

"Isn't that from Greek mythology?" Walker asked Virgil.

"Indeed."

"What is a manticore?"

"I can answer that." Zeus said from near the tree. "In fact, I'll give you a task for it as you seem to absolutely love throwing new offal into the wind before understanding what you're doing."

"Hey asshole, nobody knew that would happen. We didn't know that it wasn't discovered yet."

"And yet, you've upset the balance of the multiverse with one single act. You could have just replaced the Guardians as needed, but you were lazy."

"No, I was creative. Which is the purpose of the protocol....supposedly."

"And now, the unsouled have gained an advantage that has, as always, only rested with the awakened. You've upset a larger balance than you know, and I do not know what will come of it."

"Just give me the fucking task already."

"FINE." Zeus yelled, "THIS WILL NOT BE FOR THE LAZY OR STUPID." He began moving his hands in the air, as if he was writing something only he could see, and Walker's overlay lit up.

 

.....Scanning.....

Optional Tasks Updated!

- - -

New Primigenial task: Discover all of the parts of the manticore:

Figure this one out you son of a bitch.

Parts discovered: 0/5

Task giver: Zeus, King of the Gods

Reward for completion: Electricity Modification

 

Walker didn't say anything to the offending god, and just placed a baby manticore inside of the newly upgraded evolution chamber. Now, he could even start planting humans and get his civilizations going. He felt a large amount of relief, as he wasn't really sure if he could.....kill a child. It was too much. The Manticore was weird-looking, like a newly hatched bird, and he couldn't recognize everything going on through the glass immediately. Rather than strain himself, he advanced its age through his temporal subsystem by two years like Virgil had always done. He watched it grow within the capsule until it grew to an enormous size. Walker looked at Virgil.

"How tall is that fucker?"

"I would say around ten feet not counting the wingspan."

"Hrmm. Hey Zeus, for your task, do wrong answers fail us automatically?"

"That would be up to me, now wouldn't it." Zeus said with a smirk, finally having some of the power in their relationship.

"Alright, I'll do the smartest thing I can do here. I'll ask for help. Virgil, what is it."

Zeus recognized the problem and threw out a hand, beseeching this moment not to come, but it was already too late.

"An eagle's wings, a human face, shark teeth, the body of a lion including the legs and claws, and a scorpion's tail."

 

Primigenial task Complete: Discover all of the parts of the manticore: Part 1

Parts discovered: 5/5

Reward for completion: Electricity Modification

 

"Neat." Walker said with a smile, then he high-fived Virgil just to rub it in. Zeus, meanwhile, looked extremely offended.

"How dare you use outside assistance." He said with fury.

"You didn't put that in the rules brosky." Walker said, a smile still plastered on his face. "Thanks for the lightning modification, seems super cool." Zeus turned beet red and stomped away, back to his tree and the memory of his supposed superiority.

"Man did he forget about that immortality thing fast." Walker whispered to Virgil.

"Indeed." Virgil whispered back, while Rimi tittered in the background.

"I bet he doesn't understand 21st-century education. Wasn't it fairly rare in his time for someone to be well-educated?"

"Very much so. I believe your knowledge of the world greatly supersedes his own, including that of Echidna and Minos. Many of those in the Tree of the Gods will seem at about the educational level of an early teen."

"Hah, I love it. Idiot gods. Neways, let's look this thing over, we're short on time." Walker looked at the Manticore and realized just how vicious this thing would be. Shark teeth, fucked up lion claws, and a venomous stinger. "I know we need to win the battle, but this shit is ridiculous. Rimi, why did you want this so bad?"

"Ummm, I thought it would be more cute. Man-ti-core. It sounds...cute. Sorry."

"No it's fine, but I feel like...if we let this loose it's another Slicer. We don't have the class system working or anything to really balance it out. We need to modify it so that it won't destroy our world."

"What are you thinking." Virgil asked.

"I'm thinking we shrink it. Mini-manticore. Yah. That way we can still connect it to the Monster System, but they'll be smaller and hopefully won't rampage across Symphony."

"Okay, this will be my first time using the advanced evolution chamber. The protocol's records, which were hidden from me until we were granted access just a moment ago, say that this chamber is more intuitive. You tell it what you want, and it accedes to your wishes. The only difference is, it will be slower than the standard model we have been using."

"Yeah, but we have five now, so that means we can just start spitting out monsters pretty soon."

"That is true. But if you want to consider more of the evolution transfer rewards that got you these upgraded chambers, you will have to invent more new evolutions."

"Oh...I already have plans." Walker said with a nefarious smile. "How do I tell it what to do?"

"Click on it in your overlay and go to discovered modifications. You will find a list of standard modifications found within the upgraded evolution chamber at your convenience. You will also find all of the modifications we have already completed while being in the alpha protocol."

Walker found what Virgil was talking about in the chamber menu, and took a quick peek at all of them. Adding things like Venomous teeth or the Guardian's mana stomach were near the top, while size changes were near the bottom. Gigantify showed itself and Walker shuddered....even the thought of an even larger manticore was terrifying. He found what he was looking for and it came in ranges, from a twenty percent reduction in the minimize modification to a ninety-five percent reduction in shrink. Walker chose condense, making the Manticore go down in size by 80%. When it finished, a two-foot-tall element of nightmare fuel was asleep in the chamber. Walker selected Kernel from the modifications and added that as well. He felt it was a decent balance. They'd still be fast and venomous, but wouldn't have the size advantage of their ancestors. That was a decent balance. He asked Virgil the big question in his mind before he even thought of seeding it.

"This isn't as smart as a human right?"

"No, Walker. In fact, they will be more stupid than your world mythology remembers, as you have just shrunk their brain quite a bit. The human face...I do not know what the Creator of Earth was thinking. The choice, it seems, was focused on sowing terror into humans more than anything else. Its brain is closer to a tiger's than a human's. That Creator seemed to greatly dislike some of the entities on its world, based upon how it treated them."

"She was a right Bitch." Echidna yelled from the tree, and Minos and Zeus nodded along, although the bearded god wouldn't look Walker in the eyes.

"Jeez. I hope they don't think of me like that."

"Indeed. Let us seed it."

Walker zoomed the monitor over to the new forest he'd created and placed the Manticore there, then waited for a while......his overlay did not update.

"Son of a bitch."

"It isn't changed enough."

"I know! Okay!.....sorry. I know!" He punched the palm of his hand. "Always something."

They watched as the tiny golden-furred creature appeared and began to sniff the ground and move about on all fours. It was eerie watching a human face with such animal-like behaviors. Walker tried not to dwell on the comparison for too long. The manticore kept moving about until it found a feather from one of the birds Walker had seeded, and took off at a single step. It was incredibly fast.

"Well it's still a little overpowered." Walker said in thought. "We'd better just make one more so they don't have social issues. Wait, are they territorial."

"Gods, yes!" Zeus said from the tree.

"If you want to help, just get over here!" Walker yelled back.

"Fuck you!"

"Fuck you back!"

"Your mother!"

"Was a saint!"

Zeus went back to grumbling with his two primigenials while Walker watched the Manticore zipping about the forest. "How do we let these things make friends if they're territorial?"

"Only one way to find out." Rimi said while hopping up and down next to him. Again, Walker hadn't seen him arrive. "That is a female, let's just put a male in and see what happens."

"Experimenting with unknown entities is how we wound up with The Slicer, Walker. But, I do not see any other options with unknown creatures like these mythological creatures."

"We could just put it in a different part of the world. Maybe they're not social after all and would prefer solitude." Walker suggested.

"Just about every creature is social, Walker. Even octopi from Earth like to meet up from time to time, although their manner of mating is quite unique."

"Yah, they rip off their penises and throw them at each other."

"Indeed."

"Well....let's find out. I have my Avatar ability now. I'll just mosey on down there, say a quick hello to my little fellow, and see how it reacts."

"That's stupid!" Zeus said from the tree.

"Fuck you again!"

"He is right though," Virgil said. "You are not a Manticore. We won't know how they act with each other unless we put them together."

"FINE!" Walker said, printing one male up, bringing the monitor toward the Manticore, and slapping it down. He didn't like Zeus being right.

It was sitting in the forest, blue feathers lying around it splashed in shades of red. The original Manticore watched as a black version of itself appeared next to it with a tilted head.

"Girls are golden, boys are black. That's interesting!" Rimi said with a fist pump. When had he seen Walker do that?

The two manticores started to walk toward each other, and then began to circle one another. Their tails started fencing, slashing in lightning-quick movements as they glared and made hissing noises. Interestingly enough, their tails weren't really trying to stab one another, just slapping each other away...."Oh my god." Walker said in sudden horror. "That's a mating ritual. They both dropped in ready to have kids."

"That is one way to make sure they do not go on a rampage." Virgil said. "It is hard to go on a rampage while pregnant or caring for children."

"Fuck me." Walker said.

"Not likely!" Zeus yelled out, getting the verbal upperhand.

"Damn him," Walker whispered.