An Unwelcome Hero - shadow slave

Chiron nearly got knocked into a coma, but the special recruit he had gotten appeared next to him and held his head gently to ensure no damage happened. Said soldier tended to him, and the rest went out to hunt for food, per his instructions.

10 were sent to hunt animals, 4 were sent to pick grasses and leaves to create a temporary bed for Chiron to recover on, 2 of the 3 caretakers were assigned to skinning the bare and its cubs, while the third was tasked with being a temporary pillow for their master to rest on and take the load of pressure away from him, but the unexpected happened once again!

Chiron, having fallen unconscious, was unable to maintain his condensation, and his body began expanding rapidly. His muscles were the first to balloon up due to the sheer amount with which they had been compressed. His skin flew open, as the muscles burst out before the skin loosened up. His leg's skin was completely torn into patches of loose and gray skin.

His bones didn't expand at the correct pace to sustain the muscles, so the muscles pushed against one another, but the bones were too short and small to completely maintain them. Most of his muscles uprooted themselves as they dangled in the air. His bones were held so forcefully tight for such a long time that new cartilages had formed, permanently disfiguring them and necessitating surgical intervention to fix the damage.

Even after his body had exploded on a localized, part-to-part basis, Chiron did not awaken. His body was pleading for death. Even if he himself was unwilling, this body gave up long ago and refused to register the pain to make sure Chiron wouldn't wake up to force it to keep going again.

This entire tribulation happened within a single second, but no one panicked. Chiron still had his assassin's rags on him. The talented spearman quickly got to his body and inspected it within a few seconds.

It instantly noticed the metallic object, that had flown out of its master's arms and picked up the small spear like charm. It knew what it was and had seen how its master had used it, so the Echo directly picked it up and stabbed the small spear charm into his ribcage. His willpower seemed to have strengthened, as he looked over at Chiron and picked the assassin rags up.

He tried to cut the bandages into sections to use with the sword he stole from Assai, but he failed to cut the fabric even a bit and decided it was going to take too long. He directly tied it at one end of Chiron's palm and tightly bound it around the rest of his body.

With the miniscule amount of blood Chiron had left in his body and with his muscles clogging up his veins, almost no bleeding was happening. The only positive thing was, that his heart had begun beating on its own again. On the other side, his body was completely covered in bandages, from feet to the eyes and head to toes. The only visible parts of his body were his nose and mouth.

The echo had barely any knowledge or medical skills, as it was one of the more recent ones and the only one capable of learning new information, but it had a weird feeling about what he should do. He picked up his sword and began carving out Chiron's body. Precise, careful, and professional were absolutely things he was not, but he managed to cut out enough of the muscles to make Chiron's body look properly balanced, and that was the best he could do.

He tightened the makeshift tourniquet around the torn skin patches on Chiron's legs. All the skin patches and wounds were shut through the sheer pressure of the tight and unbreakable assassin's rags.

The echo labored tirelessly for hours while also commanding his fellow soldiers on how to set up a fire and get water. Soon they had 75% burned charcoal and 25% burned meat, but it was enough. They fed it to Chiron and used their stolen helmets to give him water they didn't know was even remotely clean or not.

Chiron awoke after two days of being completely unconscious. He felt like he had indigestion, diarrhea, worms, and his body was screaming all over in pain, and he had lost mobility in all but his left arm, the arm he used as a shield the most.

He wanted to look, but he felt a huge strain on his eyelids and dared not even open them. "Sean. Get me, Sean. I need to pass down my orders." Sean heard his words and didn't even hesitate to come and stand at attention. He tapped his master on the chest to indicate he was there.

Chiron smiled at the gentle touch. "Food. I need the other to get food. You, Sean. You are the only one who can do this for me. Go back, go back to Assai. Use the meat or leather or anything and everything besides food here to bargain for a wound dresser and as many different herbs as possible from Assai. Don't bargain, just give them everything you have and take 10 of each herb and come back! I need my wounds to heal."

A conversation, that should have been over in a minute took Chiron 10 to barely finish. His echo didn't disappoint either, as he picked up everything they had thrown into the corner and left in a hurry. *I hope they don't recognize him and he can get me some herbs. Don't want to have to waste another soldier on such a stupid thing. I don't know what happened to my body, but from what I can tell my bones no longer have the option to expand. It's either this skeletal structure, or all of my bones break on an individual level.*

A sudden sting reminded Chiron of something *oh yeah. The spinal cord the archer c"not cut. If I ever go back to full size, I will probably never be able to move again. I ain't complaining. Several hundred memories, an Echo like Sean and 19 humanoid echoes and unlocking 99.9% of impatient's full potential, all for the price of a couple sensory nerves, some limbs, and a long recovery time... Of an illusionary body. I'd say I'm WAY up, bu"t F"ck does everything hurt!"

*Thank you once again, Ron. If not for you, I'd probably have died from my several moronic decisions. I REALLY should not be gambling as often as I do with my body. My enemies will be ready for me the next time and my muscle mass has probably been hacked and slashed down to 20% of what it used to be.*

Chiron began inspecting his body. A bit hard not to with the amount of pain feedback he was receiving *I'll need to force my skin shut and cut the loose parts, but I will survive. I might be unrecognizably disfigured, less than half my previous towering size, with barely any combat abilities and a lot of PTSD, but impatient is all I need! It doesn't matter how powerful Elbaf thinks he is, it doesn't matter how many enemies I have, it doesn't matter how weak I am!*

*I have an army now! We will march! We will destroy! And we will grow! I will end him and I will tell this nightmare spell to suck my knob, as I massacre the entire population, village by village, town by town, city by city, fortress by fortress and then march east! I will keep killing till I have an army of thousands of echoes! Till we can create a COUNTRY of our brother! YOU WILL ALL SUFFER ME NO-*

Chiron felt a bit lightheaded from riling himself up. *Calm yourself. This isn't vengeance, this is just business with pleasure on the side!*