Sleeping on the Couch

The sight of a beautiful woman speckled with blood and a bit of brain was a surreal sight, although Autumn made it work and then some. The blood, combined with the dark nebula of Destructive energy still spiraling around her body and the black, form-fitting armor that adhered to her womanly yet muscular physique, gave her the appearance of a fallen Valkyrie fresh out of battle.

She walked down the steps with a pep in her step, glad to finally be able to leave the musty old catacombs. "Too bad we aren't sentimental like Fate," she said when she rejoined them.

"I think Maya would've given in," Nikolas said, dodging a swat from the irate Emotional Embodiment. "Also, Autumn?"

"Yeah?"

"We needed his ear."

"Oh." She turned back to the corpse up the steps, the body having conveniently collapsed so they could see Skull's bloody neck from down here. "I don't think that's going to happen. You think blood will work?"

Nikolas sighed. "It better. Otherwise, I'm docking your pay."

"You can't do that! I did most of the work down here!"

"It's fine, Autumn. You can have mine. I didn't do anything to earn it anyway," Maya told her.

"Not necessary," Autumn insisted. "He wouldn't dare dock my pay. I know where he lives."

"And I know where you sleep," Nikolas said. "Geez, neither of you can take a joke, huh?"

"When you're so monotone and bored-sounding all the time, it's hard to tell what you mean," Maya said. "That's on you, not on us."

"What do you mean? I sound normal." Nikolas frowned.

"I sound normal," Autumn repeated in a dull, emotionless voice. "I definitely don't sound like a robot that stole a human's skin."

"At least I'm not a muscle-brained hulk like you," Nikolas jabbed, crossing his arms. "You know that's not attractive, right?"

"I've seen your search history, Nik," Maya said quietly. "We both know you're lying to yourself."

"So I don't have any privacy in this family, got it."

"Hey, you're the one that searched that stuff without clearing your history. On the family computer, no less. You should've at least used incognito."

"I thought I did! You know what, let's just bring find a jar to stick this bloody puddle in and get the hell out of here. It's way too dry and my lips are chapped."

"Look at that, you managed to sound like a human!" Autumn said with a grin.

"Fuck you guys," Nikolas replied, trudging up the steps. Despite his best efforts, he couldn't hide the smirk on his face from the two ladies, whose own grins widened when they noticed.

"I specifically asked for an ear," Peton said, unamused. "This is just a skull filled with blood. And why is it in a skull?"

"That's all we could find to put it in," Nikolas said, staring at the skull on the desk, which was dripping with crimson fluids. He sat across from the leader of the Moonlit Daggers in a brightly lit office. "We brought the body if you need that."

"But what could you possibly have done to destroy both ears?"

"You ever seen someone throw a rotten pumpkin against a wall?"

"I've never seen a pumpkin in person. I have heard that Gredourds are similar, and the kids in my hometown loved smashing those."

"That's what my friend did to Skull's head."

Peton's brows scrunched together as her eyes returned to the skull. "Skull was a Personification," she said confusedly. "His body should have been dozens of times stronger than a mortal's."

"So is Autumn, and she was strong from the start. But that doesn't matter; what does matter is that his ears are gone, but we have what's left of them."

"I don't see how she could destroy both ears. She hit him in the face, right? How would the damage have extended to the ears, especially to such an extent that they were rendered to scraps of flesh?"

Nikola shrugged, leaning back in his chair. "She does have the best Manifestation to do that."

"I'm going to have to submit this to the labs to confirm that this does belong to Skull, along with whether he's actually dead or if you just grabbed some blood and ran off with it."

"I have the body, don't I?" Nikolas asked with a raised eyebrow. "That isn't enough proof of his death?"

"Not in a world where Manifestations make anything possible," Peton replied. "I would've had to do this with the ear anyway."

"I don't recall you doing that for Edward."

"You walked out of his mansion with screams echoing out behind you," she told him. "Also, that month-long waiting period wasn't just for your Will Stone. We were verifying that you did your job."

Nikolas' Will Stone he received back then was currently hanging from a chain around his neck. It was a dark, round object that looked like obsidian and was the size of a quarter, and he kept it tucked underneath his shirt so people couldn't see it.

It allowed him to make tangible objects with his Manifest Power. Not just illusions that his victims thought they could feel and see but actual, corporeal objects that anyone can perceive or touch. It could only make things smaller than a two-foot by two-foot cube, but as he Leveled up it would grow stronger.

It also only worked for simple things like knives or food, with no complex or moving parts. Any food he made wouldn't fill the stomach, obviously, but it would make people think it did. And he now had an infinite source of ordinary knives.

One might wonder why he didn't use this during the fight with the Overbone, but what would thousands of tiny knives do against a giant skeleton with thick bones and metal plates? Autumn could do much more than he could, so he let her take the lead.

"So, how long am I looking at?"

"Two weeks for verification, then you'll get paid if this is the real deal."

Nikolas grimaced, checking the time on his Ex-Ear. It was a few minutes before ten p.m. "Any chance you have somewhere I can sleep until then? My ship only has two beds, and I'm tired of sleeping on the couch."