My life as a reborn monster

----------Sondar POV----------

I woke up on on the floor of our base camp with my whole body aching. I looked around and could see that the others were gathered around me looking down at me.

"Your awake, finally, we had been worried sick since you groaned in pain and were unable to wake up for the past 2 days."

Sylvania was the first to speak after making sure I wasn't injured and also that I was still mentally there.

While she was looking me over I raised my hands in disbelief. "Wait hold on, hold your horses, you mean to tell me that I've been passed out for 2 days? What has everybody been doing for those 2 days? Have people gone hunting? Have the equipment been managed? Fill me in."

"Oh, will you hush and just let me finish, Since you decided to uppercut our main healer, he isn't in the mood to treat you so now that job falls to me because he's off in his own depressive world. Just look over there." She pointed behind her back towards a corner of the cave and there sat Shorunt.

He was huddled up against the wall with his arms over his knees and looking down at the ground. You could tell he was deep in thought but the aura around him would give away his thoughts. As soon as I walked over to him after Sylvania got finished I felt miserable, like a wave of self hatred just crashed over my whole body.

"Shorunt." I said kneeling down to him. "Hey, Shorunt can you hear me?" I asked while grabbing his arm and shaking it a little. He didn't respond again but his eyes were open and he looked at me slightly before resuming his glare at the ground.

"Shorunt..... I'm sorry for what I said a couple days ago. You weren't the only one that was effected by what those goblins said. I had no right to treat you the way I did, but I was just so angry that I acted without thinking. We can work this out and still save Vexsus, but I need to know that you are still capable of doing your job. I know I said some harsh things to you, but Vexsus still needs our help to rescue him. We can work on our problems later but right now we need to get back to saving him."

He blinked before staring up at me. His eyes seemed distant and glazed over but I could see a faint spark coming back to life in them.

"Do you really think he would still trust me Sondar? My loyalty wavered after staying strong for a whole year. I'm not worthy to be his second." He said before looking back down.

"Hey Shorunt, this is pity party time. It's get off your ass and rescue Vexsus time. Me and Liosa have been scouting out that trading area these past 2 days and neither the goblins or the ants have been back to that place. Either we take this opportunity now and go deeper or we might aswell just give up on Vexsus and cut our losses. I want to believe he is still waiting for us but the deadly auras that we kept feeling further down are getting closer and closer. pretty soon we are going to be forced into a confrontation with whatever is emitting it."

Howy finally spoke up and said after getting fed up with how he moped around the past 2 days. Liosa came up and smacked his arm.

"Don't talk to Shorunt like that Howy, and even if you felt like leaving, I couldn't leave my master behind even if you begged me." She said before turning back to Shorunt.

"We need to go Shorunt, It's time."

He looked up at her and after a few moments he nodded and I helped him up. I handed him some meat that had just finished cooking and his staff before turning to the others.

"Ok everyone here's the deal. This is the make it or break it situation. It's time we go all the way and don't stop until we get to Vexsus. We need him as our leader, Yes it's been a whole year, and yes me and Sylvania have done an outstanding job of being the team leader. But we are only filling in the position until the real leader gets back. I for one am not cut out for this leader shit, I swore to be Vexsus' Sworn Brother and shield. I will not leave that position for anything in the world. You hobgoblins are his minions that he shared a part of himself to make you the way you are now. He didn't have to take you in but he did, and he considers us all his family, even the ex prisoners that had left us were enough to make him sacrifice himself. Now let's pack up and go."

I finished the impromptu speech and packed up a sharpened ax that I guess they had looted from some goblins. It wasn't the best but with my strength and some magical enhancement I was positive it could be deadly if used correctly. The raccoon brothers were fitted in ant shell armor that I guess Hannah had spent the last 2 days crafting. I was a bit overwhelmed by how skillful she was becoming, First it was Necromancy of a sort, now its non combat trades like crafting and cooking.

'Vexsus, your daughter has become a great companion. Now just come back to us and get to know her yourself.' I said hoping to send that thought through what little connection I still felt. I remembered that I had gained new skills but  those were not the priority right now.

After we all packed up and headed towards the trading post I had the scouts go and make sure no unexpected surprises were in store for us. After they came back a few minutes later they gave the all clear and we headed into the trading post. We didn't pack up any of the loot from the last time so it was all still there, although the cave now had spiderwebs hanging from the crevices and the dust from all the fighting had settled onto what laid on the ground. But what I found suspicious was how the bodies had disappeared, the blood was still staining the ground but the bodies themselves were gone.

"Howy, Liosa, Where are the bodies?" I said making sure to keep looking around and keeping my senses on high alert.

"We don't know, when we came to scout earlier they were still here. It's only been a few minutes since we left." Howy said as he and Liosa started to scan the cave.

It wasn't until a couple seconds later that I felt a weird vibration in my head. It seemed like something was pulling my attention to the ceiling. As I looked up I went wide eyed with horror.

There on the ceiling was a huge purple scaled ant/lizard. It had the body of a four legged reptile but it was covered in scales that seemed to merge together and was segmented in some places. Its head had a reptile like snout but each side would seperate vertically with a pair of hidden mandibles that would snap out and pull in another goblin body that it was holding using a pair of shortened arms with long vicious looking claws at the ends. They were situated to act more like secondary arms than legs.

Some of the others noticed where I was looking and as they saw what I did they all collectively gasped. That ofcourse stopped the thing from eating and looked down at us. It stared with an intense hunger down at us with red slit eyes that seemed semi intelligent even with the hungry look in its eyes.

"You....You look familiar..."

We were all shocked by the thing speaking, but I quickly shook off my amazement and spoke.

"How do you know us, We have never seen a creature like you before. Can you come down here so we don't have to look up?"

"I..... We have never met you, but our blood recognizes you." It said ominously.

"Your blood? What does that mean?" Sylvania askes before Kitsoma leans in and whispers.

"Hey didn't the queen ant say something about her giving birth to some king of Vexsus/ant hybrid? Do you think that his blood somehow remembers us?"

The thing apparently heard her whisper as it spoke up.

"Yes.....Fox lady.....Father made us... in his image.... We remember.... what he remembers."

"You mean Vexsus is your father? Where is he? Can you take us to him, we are his family and we miss him." I said taking a step forward.

The thing mistook me stepping up as a aggressive action as is hissed and jumped to the floor and glared at me.

"I have my fathers power, Do not mistake my earlier responses as me having lower intelligence. I was just under the influence of Fathers gift. I can wipe out whole hordes of goblins and am my fathers 1st successful offspring and the most powerful." It said as it slowly started to look at the group to determine the threat level.

"Holy shit it can speak like a normal person. Does that mean that Vexsus is still mentally sane?" Howy said as he looked between us and the lizard ant.

"No.... he is not completely sane. He goes through weeks at a time where he is nothing more than a feral monster that only knows how to kill and consume. But there are some days where he awakens and can speak. That is how I came to possess a name, and How I learned of what I can do. He trained me and my brothers and sisters on the days he was awake. But when he was turning back to the monster he said he could feel something taking over his mind and he would have us leave and lock him up in the arena to be tormented by the mole man."

"Me and my siblings have spent the last months training to grow strong to help him, I decided to try and find our mother but my last attempt at speaking to her ended in failure as she couldn't see me as her child but only as an abomination and a burden on her mind as she was forced to lay with father while he was feral."

'Oh god now this is some shit I never would have expected. So does this mean that literally everybody hates Digger? This could work to our advantage if we had Lizard... Well better yet I guess they are kinda dragonish, So anyways if we had dragon ants on our side, wouldn't that make this upcoming fight even better. And if we are lucky and Vexsus is awake and not feral it would make this an even easier rescue.'

I thought quickly before nodding to myself and looking up at the thing.

"Ok so I have a proposition."

I felt a hand grab my arm and turn me around. "Hey what do you think your doing. How do we know that this thing is telling the truth. It may look like a dragon/lizard... whatever but why should we believe that its what it says it is?" Kitsoma said as she said with a bit of disbelief in her voice.

"For the one who wants to rescue him probably even more than I do, You sure are doubting our best possible chance to increase the odds here. I mean you may be right, but what if this thing is actually an offspring from Vexsus and Antasia and is intelligent enough to know that what Vexsus is going through is horrible. Maybe it wants to rescue him aswell. Then we could team up and work together."

"I DO NOT WANT TO EVEN SEE THIS ABOMINATION. YOU FOUL THING GO BACK TO HELL WHERE YOU CAME FROM. I REFUSE TO ACKNOWLEDGE YOU AS MY SPAWN." Antasia said as she finally had enough of hearing what was being said and stepped forward.

"But mother, please, father is in trouble, we just need help to get him away from that horrible mole man. He has taken away 2 of my sibling... your offspring... and has conducted experiments on them. They have been taken away so many times and each time they come back they are missing more and more of the light in their eyes. Please mother help us."

It said but it all fell on deaf ears as Antasia only looked at it with disgust.

"I do not ever want to help save that horrible creature. The only reason I'm here is because these people said that they would take care of Digger if I helped them. You on the other hand are nothing more than a foul thing that spawned out of me. You may have a part of me but you'll never be my spawn."

The thing looked down in sadness. Even if moments ago it was voraciously eating the leftover bodies I still couldn't just stand there and listen to this.

"Hey what the hell woman. You think you can just stand there and talk to him like that and think that I'm not gonna say anything? He came from you, he is your offspring whether you like it or not. You may have been forced to make him but he was forced to go through everything that bastard Digger put him through. I'm guessing that as soon as him and his siblings were born Digger took them away and experimented on them right? Well they are going through the same hell that you were. No actually they had it even worse because their own mother wasn't there to help them cope with it after Digger was done with them. Their only parent that acknowledged them was a feral monster 90% of the time. But when he was lucid he cared for them. Whereas what did you do huh? You forsake them as nothing more than a stain on your body. From what you described him and his siblings should be nothing but mindless creatures, but look, here he is asking for his mothers help like any intelligent creature would when they need help. Our deal is off goodbye."

I was so heated from seeing that exchange. I couldn't resist but end the deal I made with her. If she was going to treat this thing like that even if she was ashamed of it, that made no excuse, they were going through hell but they had to deal with it all on their own with nobody but themselves to rely on.

I walked towards the dragon ant and kneeled down.

"Hey whats your name kid." I asked, I couldn't necessarily just keep calling this kid a thing now can I.

"My father gave me the name of Michael.. He gave all the surviving dragon ants names. I came to try and beg for help from her, but if you can help me rescue my father than will you? Please?"

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