The remainder of that day was pretty boring, as was the next. I spent most of my time researching Anathema, boring 'so you're a Guardian now' shit, and eating a bunch of different materials that really had no business going in my stomach.

  I really could eat anything, it seemed. Wood, stone, glass, metal, plastic, it was all game. I even got a little adventurous and cautiously tried drinking household bleach. Okay, maybe I wasn't really as cautious with that one as I should have been. It was a useful experiment, though, because it demonstrated there was a subtly nuanced, complex relationship between what Anathema could eat and what could hurt us.

  I learned the hard way that drinking bleach and other chemicals could still hurt me. I wasn't suddenly immune to any and all kinds of corrosion and toxicity, yet in some sense, I could in fact eat it. There was a certain point at which anything I ate sort of just—vanished, and that was how I was able to eat several times my own body mass at two different points during the incursion. It also meant anything that made it that far stopped being able to have any negative effect. It wasn't a specific, physiological region where all the mass disappeared at once, though—by 'reaching a certain point,' I was describing a stage of a process, not a location in space.

  I also had the benefit of supernatural strength, toughness, and regeneration. Much in the same way that my Anathema body made munching on pieces of metal a reasonable proposition, it also made the bleach more tolerable while it was still going down. Not pleasant, mind you, but it wasn't too different from trying to choke down a shot of whisky—just, slightly worse.

  Along with getting a better understanding of what I could eat, I also started to get a feeling for what I would want to eat. With the exception of the bleach, none of it was unpleasant, but different materials turned out to be orders of magnitude more or less appealing. Out of everything I'd tried so far, the literal rocks were the most worthless, the equivalent of unsalted and dry oyster crackers, except without even the potential to be filling.

  The best stuff was metal and wood. I had a working hypothesis to explain the reason for that, and it attributed the relative tastiness of those two materials to two different reasons. The metal, I theorized, was tastier than most other inorganic stuff due to my specific nature as a chamelium. I was already starting to turn into the stuff, so it made some amount of sense that metallic materials would be extra nutritious.

  As for the wood, I expected it was because it was effectively pieces of a dried out corpse. It was hard to forget the drive all Anathema had to hunt down living things. Humans tended to be the highest priority targets, followed by wayward pets, wild animals, and after that, plants. That drive was so strong that Anathema would charge into certain death just to chase the possibility of devouring human flesh. Why do that instead of running away and living off dirt?

  Because flesh tastes so much better, I knew, and they're too impatient and foolish to do anything else. Granted, that was just kicking the can down the road. I might as well follow that up with the same question in a different wrapper—what made them so much tastier? What was the material incentive that would lead to such an insane instinct? I had no idea.

  Regardless, I also remembered that dead things still tasted good, but not if they were Anathema. Other Anathema only tasted good while they were still alive—as soon as they died, they became about as tasty as a sack of rocks. Wood, however, had come from a regular tree. It wasn't as tasty as fresh leaves—something I also tried, actually—and probably less tasty than animal bones, but it was still formerly-living material.

  Unfortunately, my research into chameliums wasn't nearly as productive. All I really learned was that I was probably Tier 3. Being an Anathema, that puts me at the equivalent of a Tier 2 Guardian, at least nominally. The tiers weren't an arbitrary ranking based on some kind of observed 'power level,' but instead represent something more intrinsic to Anathema and Guardians both. I didn't understand the details, but both Anathema and Guardians would quite literally 'tier up' upon accumulating a certain amount of—well, I wasn't entirely sure.

  Regardless, it meant that tiers were only a loose way to gauge strength. Different kinds of Anathema in the same tier could pose a wildly different level of threat.

  Fortunately, it was easy to remember the relationship between Anathema tiers and Guardian tiers. They were always offset by exactly one, with the lower number going to the Guardian. This wasn't because Guardians were fundamentally stronger or something—it was actually just a classic off by one error that persisted as a holdover from the way people had misclassified things at the very beginning. It was already something I knew about—it was basically common knowledge, if you cared about that sort of thing.

  Anathema and Guardians both started at Tier 1, at least nominally, but that wasn't really correct. In terms of the underlying mechanics the tiers were based on, Tier 1 Anathema and regular, non-Guardian humans should both be Tier 0. Alternatively, they could have both been Tier 1, which would result in any new Guardian automatically being Tier 2. No one liked that, though, and by the time the eggheads got to work and discovered the error, it was too late to try to re-label everything.

  All that aside, I felt like it was safe to assume that I was currently a Tier 3 Anathema or Tier 2 Guardian. Ostensibly, of course, I was Tier 1, and I realized I'd need to start thinking about how to present my abilities and what kind of strength people would expect. That included literal strength yes, but also things like regeneration, durability, and the extent of what I could do with my esoteric abilities. The way I present that last part was also a concern. So far, I was crazy strong, decently difficult to hurt, had super fast regeneration, and had a limited ability to sculpt some kind of metal around myself. I still hadn't been able to recreate the full armor that formed at some point during my fight with the titan.

  This was where existing information on chameliums should have helped me. Most sources described them as a 'fairly rare, mid-tier Anathema' with a 'moderate to high relative threat level' and 'limited esoteric abilities at close range.' That was all well and good, but it didn't help me much with figuring out what I should be able to actually do. There was a little bit more information than that, thankfully, and it wasn't completely useless.

  The best source overall turned out to be just the regular online encyclopedia. There was a surprisingly good picture of something that looked a lot like a cast-iron sculpture of a winged, six-legged lizard thing. It was clearly no sculpture, though, as it was far too lifelike. Slit, golden eyes observed the viewer, and the claws or talons tipping each of the six legs were glowing almost yellow-hot. The whole thing was flecked with similar gold-colored flakes, reminding me very much of my own mouth and claws.

  The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

  The super-heated claws fit with another useful detail the article provided. It described their—our—esoteric abilities, as well as base biology, as typically revolving around concepts of heat, metal, and air. The metal part was already exceedingly obvious. As for the other two, I was confident I hadn't experienced any relationship with either yet—up until I read more, particularly in the 'hazards' and 'behavior' sections.

  The article described us as 'uncommonly observant and conniving' and 'notably more cautious, recollective, and persistent than most other Anathema at similar tiers,' while still emphasizing that we were, quote, 'nevertheless as pointlessly aggressive and lacking in self-preservation as all other Anathema.' Rude.

  I had to wonder if there was a connection there to why I ended up being a chamelium, of all things. If my Dad had any choice in the matter—and I was willing to bet that he did—then it made a certain amount of sense to concentrate on whichever kinds of Anathema naturally showed any signs of cunning. That being said, nothing in the article, or even in any other sources, mentioned anything like taking on a convincing human appearance. Even when I was completely encased in metal, I still had the usual four limbs and an upright posture.

  Like, seriously, how does any of this work? I was pretty sure you couldn't just stick an Anathema seed in a human infant. Even if you could do that without instantly killing either of them, wouldn't the seed just sprout and consume the human host like it usually did? How do I know he's even the one who created me? The more I thought about it, the more it sounded like the kind of experiment that would take years and years of expensive research just to get even this far. Surely there had to be other people involved—but I had no idea who. Other Star Guardians sounded likely—as crazy as that was—but that wasn't the only possibility. I wish he would just tell me.

  Regardless, this was where I learned that I'd already been using an ability that fit into the 'air' concept. Unlike being able to take a human form, my weird, church organ, additive synthesis voice wasn't something that was unique to me. In fact, it sounded like I was still completely crap at using it. Both the wiki article and literally every other source devoted a decent amount of attention to the way chameliums were known to precisely and accurately mimic sounds.

  During the incursion, I'd assumed the 'chameleon' part of the stupid 'chamelium' pun was about shapeshifting, or at least some kind of visual camouflage. Actually, it was more about sound—I really felt like there was a different animal they should have used, but I supposed whoever first coined the name hadn't been able to come up with a good parrot pun. Name aside, the point was that the most defining feature of chameliums was not the metal body, but rather the tendency to convincingly mimic anything from gunfire to full human speech.

  Everything I read made it sound like the mimicry was almost perfect, and that the only way to tell—assuming you couldn't see what was making the sound and realize you were being tricked—was if it logically didn't make sense. Despite being able to replicate full sentences—sometimes in the voice of specific people—you couldn't exactly hold a conversation with one. They didn't understand any of it, beyond maybe the fact that it was some kind of communication.

  I did, though, and what was more important was the confirmation that I was right about the potential to create all kinds of impossible sounds. It also meant I could learn how to speak completely normally again—it would just take dedication and practice. After reading everything else I could about my kind, and there wasn't much, I spent most of my free time working on the mimicry thing.

  I actually didn't start with my speaking voice. Human speech was complex, and I could already do it—the only problem was that it still had an artificial quality. Instead, I decided it would be more productive to start with a wide range of basics. That's how I ended up spending several hours replicating the sound of single notes on a bunch of different instruments. I'd find some sound samples, try to imitate them, then record myself and compare. It came shockingly easy, and within the first half hour I had basically mastered it.

  Knowing it should come naturally from my reading didn't make it any less surprising to replicate a trumpet blast with perfect fidelity. From there, I moved on to noisier, more inharmonic sounds, especially ones with sharp transients. Drum hits, metallic bangs, the sound of my wallet smacking against the table—it was a lot harder to get my head around, at least initially. Eventually, though, something just clicked, and I was well on my way to becoming a drop in replacement for the entire percussion section.

  Making dumb noises was a lot more fun than getting my shit together with respect to starting my career as a new Guardian. It was important though, and David couldn't do everything for me. Pretty much every guide and resource started with the same first step—get in touch with an appropriate legal specialist.

  The reason for that wasn't really about making sure random people didn't start suing you. It was more about making sure everything that needed to be handled was handled, and that you were starting things from a good place. That included the usual heap of bureaucracy, but there was more than just government red tape. The specific could be highly circumstantial, and that's why everyone wanted you to effectively lawyer up.

  There was a lot of information on how to still do that if you weren't in a position where you could handle standard legal fees, but fortunately that wasn't something I needed to worry about. What I did have to worry about was what I could and couldn't say when I met with whoever David ended up arranging for me. It was usually a bad idea to lie your ass off to your own attorney, but I really didn't have a choice.

  There was no legal counsel for Anathema. The concept of mandatory reporting applied in full force, here, and it applied universally. It didn't matter what the context was—medical professional, social worker, priest, lawyer—there was a strict responsibility to disclose any and all information related to an Anathema threat as soon as was reasonably possible without critically endangering oneself or others more than you already were. From what I'd heard, most countries had something similar, and I definitely knew that the United States didn't fuck around.

  Even someone who was only infected—once confirmed to within a small amount of doubt—was executed with haste. There was no trial, no rights. There was only one necessary recourse, there to prevent the obvious potential for deadly abuse of authority. If someone was executed for that or a similar reason, whatever remained had to go through additional testing, and there might also be audits on the persons and organizations involved. There had already been cases of deliberate and wrongful execution, and that's when things got messy with additional criminal trials or civil lawsuits.

  What that meant for me, then, was that no one could know. I was going to have to start bullshitting from the very beginning, and with the guy who was supposed to help me through it, no less. God. What a massive fucking headache.

  Needless to say, I did not feel prepared when Monday rolled around and David dragged me out of bed to go meet with the fancy Guardian Law specialist he'd gotten referred to. I had no idea what part of his professional network he ended up going through, and that was because I wasn't really listening. I was too focused on not shitting ingots as we parked and entered the law office.

  Here we go, I reassured myself, just don't say anything blatantly incriminating and it'll be fine, right?

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