The Lone Wanderer

Chapter 595 – Constellations (3)

Percy’s flesh squirmed and his organs shifted inside his torso. They expanded, shrank, split apart and merged again like nobody’s business. Thankfully, there was no pain, but it was still quite a disorienting experience.

A few seconds later, the left side of his body separated from the right, the two halves transforming into different shapes as they regenerated their missing parts. At the same time, Percy lost awareness of his counterpart, his half swiftly adopting his human form, complete with clothes and mutated eyes.

Meanwhile, the figure across from him remained a Huehuan – bare-chested, four-armed, beak-faced and covered in tribal tattoos from head to toe. The changes extended beyond the avatars in the mindscape, however.

Percy suddenly identified several gaps in his memories – or rather, those he had previously inherited from Micky. Most of his friend’s memories were still there, but some felt blurrier than the rest, certain details difficult to recall.

He obviously couldn’t say much about the memories that had been removed entirely – that was the whole point – but he naturally recognized the fuzzier ones. They were the same memories that he had just spent the past several hours modifying under Phoebe’s patient guidance.

Finally, he identified a few deeper changes after the acquisition of the mindset. Most notably, he felt less connected to Micky’s family, and somewhat numb to the hardships his friend had endured during his captivity.

It wasn’t like he’d stopped caring about Micky’s suffering entirely, but he only felt sympathy towards his buddy, rather than having a personal stake in those matters. While he couldn’t easily access the Huehuan’s mind anymore, he imagined that he had experienced similar changes with regards to Percy’s own goals and relationships.

Overall, the separation had left Percy extremely dizzy, but he guessed that he would feel better after resting for a few hours. All things considered, he was quite pleased with the result.

“Success!” he exclaimed, punching the air, though his excitement dimmed once he paid closer attention to his friend.

Micky was staring back at him blankly, his eyes glassy and his expression sour. Percy had no idea why, but the Huehuan clearly hadn’t taken their abrupt separation nearly as well.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, a tinge of worry creeping into his heart.

Fortunately, his friend wasn’t entirely gone. Percy’s words seemed to snap the four-armed man out of his daze. “Uh… sorry Percy… this is a little weird…”

Percy frowned. “Weird? How so?”

Micky blinked tiredly before replying. “I’m not sure how to explain it. I guess I’m feeling somewhat lost. Empty, maybe? Like I’ve just lost my purpose in life.”

“Your purpose? Didn’t you want to free your people from Rhaziel? To find out what happened to your dad?” Percy asked. “Don’t tell me you lost your memories again…”

Micky creased his brow. “Well… not really. I still remember everything – from both lives. And my brain is telling me that I should care about all the things you’ve just listed. I’m just struggling to connect with all of that… emotionally… for some reason. As if there’s no point bothering.”

Percy raised an eyebrow. This sounded like good old depression – not something magical – but he didn’t think it was a coincidence that it was happening now. Hoping for some answers, he turned to Phoebe’s projection who had been observing them silently.

“Any idea what’s wrong with him? Did we make a mistake while modifying his copies of the memories or something?”

The titaness shook her head. “You did everything correctly, though his situation isn’t exactly unexpected,” she replied, before elaborating. “You have to remember that Micky’s starting point was very different from yours.”

“What do you mean?”

She shrugged. “You’ve lived a relatively continuous life – like most people. Sure, your clones occasionally brought you random bundles of extra memories, and you did just spend the past couple of years sharing a mind with Micky. Still, for the most part, Percival Avalon’s life could be likened to a single block of stone spanning several decades without interruption. Meanwhile…”

Phoebe didn’t complete her sentence, but Percy understood what she was trying to tell him. Micky’s past was fragmented. It had been so, long before their fusion, and the last two years had only made things worse.

The poor guy had died a total of three times, and practically lived just as many different lives – first as a native of Huehue, then as an amnesiac crow on Remior, and finally as a part of the Lone Wanderer.

Scanning the giant constellation of the bird looming over them, Percy paid closer attention to a detail that he had glossed over earlier. Unlike the grey constellation resembling himself, the crow’s colour wasn’t completely uniform.

Rather than a single bluish-green hue, it was more of a mixture of two different colours: a cyan glow that reminded Percy of the original Micky’s pure affinity, and the deep amber hue of beast mana. The two colours were still warring over the colossal figure, refusing to yield like all the other hues that had been eliminated before.

“But why is this happening? His memories should all be there, and we never noticed any issues before the separation,” Percy protested.

“Previously, the pieces of his mind stabilized themselves by latching onto yours, effectively using your personality as a crutch,” Phoebe explained. “Obviously, that is no longer an option.”

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Percy frowned, thinking back to the past couple of years. Now that the titaness had mentioned it, it did seem like Micky’s ambitions and quirks had taken a backseat to his own. At the very least, his friend’s more playful nature had been muted, and they hadn’t focused as much on their mission to overthrow Rhaziel.

At the time, it had made sense, because returning to Huehue was more of a long-term goal. They would have to grow a lot stronger before they even considered challenging a god, and they still had several more pressing issues to deal with on Remior, so concentrating on Percy’s dreams had seemed more prudent. However, it appeared that this wasn’t the only reason for the discrepancy.

Percy took a deep breath to calm down before speaking again. “How do we fix it?”

“There’s nothing we can do,” Phoebe said. Before Percy had a chance to argue again, she added, “or rather, we don’t need to do anything. Your friend will be fine on his own. He just needs some time to rediscover himself, but I don’t think that this is going to be a major issue.”

Percy relaxed slightly upon hearing that the problem would resolve itself, though the goddess’s reassurances hadn’t shaken his worries off entirely. “How long will it take?”

“Hard to say. It could be anywhere from a few days to several decades. It’s mostly up to him.”

Percy clenched his fists, but he knew that there wasn’t much he could do to help his friend. It was already a miracle that he’d managed to save him from beyond the grave so many times, and even given him a new, healthy body in the process. If the mind titaness didn’t have a way to expedite Micky’s recovery, he doubted that there was anyone on Remior who did.

“Don’t worry about me,” Micky suddenly said, placing a hand on Percy’s shoulder as he jumped into the conversation. “It’s like she said. You’ve already done more for me than I could have ever asked for. The rest is my burden to bear.”

Percy sighed, deciding to trust his friend. At least, this did seem like a relatively minor hurdle compared to all the obstacles he and Micky had overcome since their original meeting – his nearly destroyed soul, the missing memories, his insatiable hunger and his inconvenient body. The man was practically a single step away from being able to live a life of his own again, all thanks to Percy.

“Thank you for the help,” Percy told the goddess, trying not to feel too bad about the Huehuan’s situation.

“A promise is a promise,” Phoebe replied, her avatar dispersing into a swarm of crimson motes that faded away one after the other. Before the last one vanished from the mindscape entirely, her melodious voice echoed in Percy’s ears one final time. “It’ll be a while before we meet again. Try not to get killed by Machaon. Oh, and you should probably play around with your new mindset before you leave this place. You can wait until after you return to the real world but doing it here will give you a better feel for how the changes in the constellations affect your mental state.”

Listening to the deity’s suggestion, Percy flashed his friend a questioning look. They both already had an instinctive understanding of their new ability – after all, they were the ones who’d just connected the glowing stars in a certain manner, infusing the thin threads with their intentions. However, the goddess was right. It wouldn’t hurt to practice a little to get a better grasp on their new capabilities.

Micky nodded in silent agreement as they tried to merge their minds again.

The stars in both constellations vibrated violently, attempting to break free from their constraints. Their bonds held them in place for several seconds, though the stars eventually overpowered them, the colossal figures exploding as their components shot toward one another. A single, chaotic swarm formed – one that looked like it would take longer to settle than the previous shapes.

Micky’s projection shot toward Percy’s too, the two fusing into a single person once more. He didn’t even bother to examine which shape he’d assumed this time, as it didn’t really matter.

He was more interested in the changes to his memories. The gaps closed rapidly as the blurry parts grew clearer, soon restoring the Lone Wanderer to his previous state. However, he understood that this was temporary – it would only last for as long as he wanted.

Scanning the hurricane of stars, he realized that they had retained their colours this time. Half still shone in a grey light, the rest constantly shifting between cyan and amber. The strings that had previously linked them together were still there, though they had been stretched so thin that they were barely visible.

With a single thought, he willed the constellations to separate again.

Part of him didn’t like that. He now understood that Micky wanted to stay fused – almost like an addict that couldn’t bear to part with his vice. However, that was all the more reason to remain separate until the Huehuan resolved his dependency.

The glowing threads snapped back, pulling the constructs apart and back into defined shapes in an instant. Some of Percy’s memories faded away like before as Micky’s projection split off from his own.

“Nice. It’s easy enough to switch between the two states. I suspect that we should also be able to partially merge if we want,” Percy mused.

If necessary, they could bypass any feature of their new mindset. That included forcefully accessing each other’s memories – even the private ones – tapping into the other body’s senses, and possibly even swapping bodies entirely.

At the end of the day, the constellations were mere suggestions, not prisons. They were meant to softly guide their mind into a new default configuration – as long as it was convenient.

Another thing that Percy had noticed was that the Symphony had grown a little louder and clearer in the background after they registered the mindset. The spectres cried in celebration as the crows cawed gleefully, the winds howling fiercely, somehow, despite the complete lack of air inside the starlit void.

Percy had no idea why their boosting art appeared to have grown stronger. Shouldn’t the opposite have happened?

Their Extreme spell was the culprit behind their fusion, and they had just taken a step back from that by splitting up. Why did their Ultimate Art feel more powerful than ever before, even in its dormant state?

‘Maybe this is closer to how it was always meant to be,’ Percy guessed.

After creating the spell, their Status had renamed them into the “Lone Wanderer”, but it had also introduced a brand-new section in the page to list “Percival” and “Mictlantecuhtli” as his aspects. If its intention had been for them to lose their individual identities completely, then why had it bothered to differentiate them like that?

Percy knew that Phoebe’s Decree only reflected his own subconscious thoughts – it would never force him onto a path that he fundamentally disagreed with. Viewed from that angle, perhaps the Symphony of a Dead Winter had always been meant to be complimented with something like the mindset that they had just created.

Admittedly, most of this was speculation, but he felt confident in his assessment.

Scanning the constellations one final time, he marvelled at their majestic forms as they floated in the void. The stars comprising them shone in specific colours and were arranged in orderly shapes, painting a stark contrast against the rest.

Around the colossal figures, an ocean of stars stretched as far as Percy’s vision – farther, probably. Those didn’t have a uniform colour. They were the shared memories that Percy and Micky hadn’t seen fit to claim exclusive ownership of.

“Are you still fine with delivering the affinity-changing treasure to Nesha?” he asked his friend.

Okay. He had to agree that it was a little strange to talk to what had been a part of himself until a few minutes ago, though he understood that this was how things were supposed to be.

Micky hesitated for a second, but he nodded eventually. “I’ll do it. Getting some fresh air will probably help. As will practicing my shapeshifting.”

With that, Percy and his counterpart willed themselves out of their mindscape, each returning to his own physical body.