Silhouette

James was wandering around in their little lair, pondering about the implications of his ability to read binary.

I know for a fact I couldn't do that before, so why can I now? What changed? Well, the most obvious answer would be...

His body. His new body, the one he gained after reincarnating or whatever it was that he went through. The only possible answer was this. But what? And did this only apply to binary? Could it be that... Which language was he actually speaking? A quick search on the internet with a few different words from the languages he knew showed that yes, this translation applied to everything he read, as well as everything he listened to.

In fact, this translation appeared to operate even when he was writing. He quickly found himself at a loss when he realized he could write an entire sentence in Portuguese despite knowing only a couple of words. And, after a few tries, he realized it also applied to speech. He wasn't even aware of changing languages, it was only thanks to the ratlings' remarks and his phone recording he realized it. In fact, he realized something even weirder.

There are small differences between the languages I know from my last life and the ones this body knows. Small, insignificant stuff, but enough to be noticeable. Words that aren't pronounced the same way, the exact shape of the letters, or even proper names. I should have realized it earlier really, when I did that research on gods, for example with Greece becoming Grellasia.

Why did his body know all of these languages though? If he hadn't woken up in the sewers he might have thought his body was... Artificial. What a silly thought. If someone spent time and effort making something, surely they wouldn't have left it alone in the sewers, right where enormous monsters could have found and eaten it. Unless that thing had escaped, which meant it had a will, a will that had existed before James and he didn't want to think about that. If his body had had a will before him, then...

Where did that will go?

Nope, I'm not going to think about it. Besides I don't have the time to be paranoid, I have to go meet Barry and Larry. Or Larry and Barry? I should probably ask them.

And so he went, distracting himself again from the inner turmoil that always plagued him whenever he thought about the mechanisms behind his new existence.

Larry and Barry walked down the sewer tunnels, again, and frankly, Barry disliked it very much. Were it not for their brand new boss he would have preferred never to see the sewers again after their latest stunt. At least this time he knew that their gun was useless. Not that he had gotten rid of it, mind you. A gun was a gun, even if it was defective, and most people in the slums knew better than to bet on whether or not a weapon was real.

"So, what are we going to tell him?"

"The latest news."

"Which are?"

"Larry, you know what they are. You were right next to me the entire time."

"Fine, I just like how you explain things."

"Larry... Fine, I'll do the talking when we meet him."

"Yeah!"

Barry rolled his eyes. Honestly, what would Larry do without him?

Not that Barry would do much without Larry.

"So, do you think he'll tell us his name this time?"

"Maybe? I don't know, why would he? He needs grunts, not conversation partners."

"You don't know that!"

"I mean, sure, I don't, but it seems really likely."

Larry pouted, prompting another eye roll from Barry.

This time they took care to properly look around them and stop every so often to listen to the noises that occasionally popped up. They didn't want to get caught off-guard by another giant monster attack, thank you very much. One was more than enough. At least the path they had to take wasn't that confusing, they had to mostly go straight ahead with only a couple of turns to left or right here and there. Their first encounter with their boss had occurred during their first exploration of the sewers, after all, and they had made sure to pick a path easy to remember and travel.

Sadly for them, all of their checking around ultimately didn't amount to much, judging by the fact that a weird mass suddenly dropped down from the ceiling right in front of them. Both of them nearly jumped out of surprise and fear, but Barry quickly gathered his senses. After all, they knew one formless mass of horror and it was exactly the person they needed to meet.

"Oof, please boss, please don't scare us like that. Larry and I aren't used to things down here and it'd be really nice if you-"

"Barry, that's not the boss."

"What?"

Barry turned around and examined the mass more precisely. And that's when he noticed it. He thought it had been black at first, but looking closer those were clothes. Leather clothes.

Black leather clothes floating in a greyish slime with some darker things inside.

"Soluble."

The mass on the ground shifted and quickly took a humanoid form.

"Barry, Larry."

Both men turned around and tried to run away but out of nowhere a lizardman and a bipedal rat stepped in their path, blocking their escape.

"Hi, guys!"

"Ssso we meet again, idiotsss."

Barry and Larry took a step back from the mutant pair, paying close attention to their claws and fangs as they whispered to each other.

"Larry, how did you miss them?"

"I told you before, Soluble's weird. They just smell like chemicals and rot, nothing unique. And it's strong enough to cover the other two's."

The lizardman rolled his neck, making a small popping sound as his bones settled in place.

"Larry, Barry."

"Mark, Jeffrey. How nice of you to drop by."

"Oh, dropping by is more Soluble's thing. Mark and I prefer to scurry along."

The lizard nearly facepalmed before catching himself. Now was not the time for that.

"So, Barry, Larry, now that Pete isn't here to save your hides... How about we talk business, eh?"

"Soluble, you know very well we don't have the money-"

"Oh really now? Why, I thought you had finally had some luck, and found an idiot to call your boss. Someone willing to hire you has to be stupid, after all."

"And we heard you paid the Black Bank a little visit yesssterday, after our run-in."

Barry narrowed his eyes.

"Who told you about any of that?"

The semi-solid leader of the band simply shrugged.

"A little birdie told me."

"She's even an actual bird too!"

"Jeffrey, shut up. Ssstay sssilent, forever."

Soluble simply stared at their two friends-slash-underlings before getting back on track.

"Anyway, as I was saying, you're going to pay."

"Well, okay, we have some money, but as you may have guessed we left it all at the Black Bank."

"Oh Barry, you should know. I don't trust any word that comes out of your filthy mouth. So, either you cough up our money now..."

"Or I'll have the pleasure of ssskinning the both of you alive, your blood freely flowing from patches of flesh left ssskinlesssss. It will be... My magnum opusss."

"That seemed unnecessarily gory, Mark."

"Jeffrey, sssilence is a virtue. It should be yours. I insssissst."

"Will the both of you just SHUT UP!"

The mutant pair looked at their slimy boss with widened eyes before falling into line, dropping into more battle-ready stances.

"Now, as I said, give us our money. Now. No excuses."

"I told you, we-"

"No. Excuses. Unless maybe... Correct me if I'm wrong, but you're the one with the brains, Barry, right? We probably won't need Larry."

"Don't you dare!"

"Oh, but I won't. My friends on the other hand..."

Mark and Jeffrey grinned menacingly - badly in the case of Jeffrey, but all parties involved chose to ignore this detail.

As Soluble was about to keep on threatening the dastardly duo of Barry and Larry, a sound broke the silence of the sewers.

A slow, sarcastic clap.

"What an impressively cliché set of threats. Truly, I have never in my life met anyone who genuinely spoke this way. How wonderfully mediocre work."

Mark and Jeffrey looked around, trying to find where this voice had come from. Soluble, on the other hand, saw how relieved Larry and Barry were to hear this voice.

"You're one to talk, mister sophisticated words. I'm guessing you're the idiots' new boss? Show yourself, coward."

"I'm not the one who had to ambush their opponents."

Soluble narrowed their eyes - or at least the slimy surface that they used to perceive sight. Right there, further down the tunnel, a humanoid silhouette had appeared and was approaching them. The silhouette was tall, not inhumanly so but enough to be remarkable. Their shoulders were weird, a bit too high, too wide and pointy, it felt... Unnatural. Soluble couldn't get a good look at the face or the feet yet but there was no need to.

"You're not human, eh? That's why you're hiding down there? Afraid to be a freak? Pah, weakling. Don't you get it? They must be afraid of you, not the other way around."

"Who said I was afraid?"

"I just did-"

Something was off. What was it? Wait. The silhouette wasn't here anymore.

Jeffrey never stayed quiet this long.

Soluble turned around, just in time to see Mark's hand getting dragged by black tentacles in a narrow tunnel they hadn't noticed until now. Jeffrey was nowhere to be seen, Barry and Larry, however...

The pair of idiots they had tracked down the sewers was looking awfully smug, but also somewhat on edge. They knew what was going on, and as unsettling as it was they were glad it was happening.

Soluble didn't bother trying to save their underlings. Sure, Jeffrey and Mark had been their friends in a way, but they could easily be replaced by other, more competent underlings. Ones that weren't incredibly stupid or obsessed with turning people into coats. Soluble's own life, on the other hand, was very important. And what was the best way to guarantee someone wouldn't kill you right where you stood? Hostages.

Soluble rushed, their slimy body melting in some parts to make movement quicker while still making sure to entirely cover their black skeleton. Before either Barry or Larry had the time to react, Soluble already had their arms wrapped around their necks...

At least they thought so until black tentacles threw their arms off.

Soluble took a few steps backs, pushing energy into their slimy mass to amp up its acidity. As the leather of their clothes began to bubble and sizzle, Soluble finally got a good look at their opponent. To say they weren't human was an understatement, at least Soluble had a skeleton, but this thing... This thing looked like a living shadow, rising straight from the ground, somehow present and solid yet not fully there, as though it could disappear in a blink of an eye.

Good thing they didn't need to blink.

"What the hell are you."

"Oh, just someone with a lot of free time. You, on the other hand, have a fascinating constitution. Is that acidic slime? I'll assume the skeleton is yours, and this is the result of a mutation. A Body Aspect, then."

"Oh, you think I'm fascinating? Go ahead, try to touch, I insist."

"So it is acidic. Or maybe basic? Impossible to be sure without a sample and the appropriate equipment."

"Leave me alone and I won't burn your face off."

"Oh, I'm sorry to say there isn't much to burn there. Besides, you're the one who attacked my employees. As their employer, it's my duty to ensure their safety and survival."

"I'm not afraid of you."

"Oh, really?"

The dark creature sprouted dozens of tentacles out of nowhere.

"Let's see if you have what it takes to back up your bravado."

I have absolutely no idea of what's happening.

James hadn't expected his meeting with Barry and Larry to start with a fight. Alright, in all honesty, he wouldn't have been surprised if they had been attacked by some kind of monster but not people. Especially not a rat person, a lizard person, and a slime person. According to their little banter, his two helpers knew the trio of mutants, although their relationship didn't seem that friendly. Go figure.

He had tried to make things easier for him by distracting the one who was clearly the boss and the most dangerous so that he could take out the other two discreetly and quickly. They hadn't expected tentacles to pop up out of the ground - or more accurately a shadow on the ground - and to bind and gag them. Luckily for James, it appeared their powers if they had any were purely physical, which meant making it impossible for them to move pretty much neutralized them. He still took the time to bash their skull against the ground, for good measure, and so that he wouldn't have to keep them out of commission during his fight with the leader.

Fighting while holding a pair of deadweight seemed like a bad idea, for some reason.

James made sure to keep track of Larry and Barry's retreat down the tunnel where he had stored the other two ruffians' unconscious bodies as he took in his opponent's appearance and began to strategize. Frankly, he didn't want to touch acid if he could help it, but his arsenal was severely lacking in long-range attacks.

"Once I'm done punching you out of existence I'll make sure to take my time melting down these two idiots."

"What is your grievance with them, exactly? You didn't make that clear."

"They destroyed our home with a pack of deadly monsters!"

"... Ah. I see why you are doing this then."

I'm starting to think hiring these two wasn't such a good idea...

"At least you're not as stupid as them, then."

I'm going to ignore that. Still, I can't exactly let him go, he would probably just track them down and try to kill them again... What to do, what to do...

"You were looking for a peaceful solution earlier, were you not? Here is my offer, you leave at once with your two friends and never bother my employees again. In exchange, I'll make sure they won't trouble you anymore. If they do, I'll pay for any damage caused. I could even offer compensation for past grievances if you are willing to talk things out."

"Eh, too late big boy. I'm going to beat you up and take my money."

"I see."

James pulled out the gun he had infused with shadows in the past from his body and aimed.

"Here is another offer."

"Ah! A gun? Those are useless against slime-"

James fired.

The bullet flew.

It entered Soluble's body.

And Soluble turned black.