'Compatibility is key for a Take Over mage. The more compatible one is with their target, the more they gain from taking them over. And the longer. The increase in ability in their base states most Take Over mage's see in the process, does not last forever, and each person has a limit to what they can gain from their targets. Though, even when that limit is met, it is possible to continue further enhancing the Take Over form by hunting creatures of the same genus. The form can draw individually upon a target, or entirely, using one as a base and drawing smidgens of strength from the rest to increase the one. A warning though, the more powerful a Take Over form becomes, the more magic power it takes to maintain. Many have gained powerful Take Over forms they cannot maintain for more than a few seconds, and wasted all their prior efforts by not pursuing the magical power depths needed to use them.'

Brody frowned as he closed the book he was reading. A general study on Take Over magic he'd found at the library and added to his reading material over the last month since he met Elfman Strauss.

Though it did not contain instructions on how to learn or use Take Over magic, it did contain a general overview of how it worked.

'A limit, huh?' he mused inwardly, placing the book down on the table he was sitting at, besides his empty dinner plate. He was on break at the moment, but would soon get back to it.

That made sense, otherwise Take Over mage's would be the most powerful type of mage of all. There were herds of creatures out there that could number in the tens of thousands, like bison and such. Or even just cows.

While they were weak individually compared to most mages and stronger creatures, they were strong compared to a normal human. Adding even a tenth of a cows physical strength and such to ones self, ten thousand times over, would still create a powerhouse.

So yes, there being a limit to how much one gained from any specific Take Over target, on top of that limit being arbitrarily decided by compatibility with the target, really did make sense to him.

For most magical creatures, at least according to the book, the limit was one. The fact he'd taken over twenty six forest vulcans in total at this point in time, seemed to be nothing more than extraordinary.

And was probably because of how he he gained his magic in the first place. Because, he'd also got a book on vulcans.

Forest Vulcans as it turned out, tended to be the strongest of the few different species of them. And they all tended to live in herds. And usually, were not much bigger than a grown man, nothing at all like the ones he'd been dealing with.

Those were referred to as 'Gorians'. Forest Vulcans, and they were unique in that regard amongst the vulcan species, tended to every now and then have outliers that chafed under the leadership of another vulcan, and strayed from their usual target preference of humans for Take Over's, to their fellow vulcans.

They tended to backstab their own herd or pack members when the chance presented itself and used Take Over on them to get stronger. Usually, they would only manage to get a few though, before the whole pack turned on them and the strength boost from the betrayal while making them stronger individually, did not make them a match for the whole pack and they were driven off, forced to live in seclusion.

While he hadn't hit his own limit yet, he was sure he would at some point. Because not even vulcans themselves could gain infinite growth from taking over their own brethren, and the most talented among them generally topped out at around thirty, but those guys were super rare apparently.

Perhaps Rog was one of those insanely talented ones? He had been pretty damn big from what he remembered.

Well, either way, he'd find out soon he was sure. Because he'd also learned something interesting about Forest Vulcans. And it was that, they loved strawberry's, and in fact could smell fresh ones from near a mile away apparently.

…Brody wasn't sure how that worked when the book explained that their sense of smell wasn't much better than a normal humans.

It was probably magic bullshit.

"Baloo." a chirp in front of him brought him from his thoughts and he looked up to see Blue smiling at him, sitting beside an empty plate of his own.

"Enjoy that, huh?" he grinned at the spirit.

"Baloo!" Blue nodded happily, spreading his arms wide.

Chuckling, Brody placed his hand on his book and concentrated. It shimmered and disappeared a moment later as he stored it inside his Requip space.

It had taken him a full two weeks of effort, but he'd managed to get it down. It was a very simply magic apparently. Not quite as simple as Transformation Magic, which even after a month of trying to learn it alongside Blue, he'd only gotten to the Intermediate Stage.

…Where as Blue had reached the Advanced Stage and more or less mastered it five days in.

And to think Blue was supposed to be part of pretty much the weakest type of Celestial Spirits.

Shaking his head, Brody stood up, grabbing his bowl, alongside Blue's, while the drill nosed spirit hopped up atop his shoulder and made his way into the kitchen.

He found an elderly woman with long grey hair cleaning dishes at the sink inside humming a tune. Her back was hunched, and wrinkles crinkled around her eyes, but she looked pretty good still for a woman in her early sixties, and it was clear to see she was once a beautiful woman in the past when she was young.

"Hello dear," Enna, Garrick's wife greeted him with a smile, "How was your dinner?"

"It was lovely Enna, thanks." Brody replied, handing her the plates.

"Brilliant, it's always a joy to hear when one enjoys my cooking," she gave a dainty laugh, before looking at the blue spirit sitting on his shoulder, "And what about you cutie-pie?"

"Baloo!" Blue cheered back happily.

"Then I can go to sleep tonight a happy woman." she beamed, turning to deposit the dishes in the sink and get back to cleaning.

"Need a hand?" he asked.

"No, no that's fine dear," she waved him off, "Besides you have a lot of work left tonight, no?"

"It's not that bad, besides I have stamina in spades." Brody shrugged. It didn't feel right leaving an old woman to clean dishes for him, and Enna was a sweet motherly woman.

Who sadly was barren due to an injury she received in her youth and hadn't been able to have children of her own, and treated him very warmly.

"Yes, yes I'm sure you do dear, but off you go, go do your actual work." she snorted, and waved him out of the kitchen like a naughty child.

He snorted, but did as he was told.

"Alright monkey boy?" Garrick grinned at him as he entered the bar, getting a chuckle from one of the regular patrons sitting at one of the stools at the bar, Billy was his name, and actually the librarian at the Onibus library.

The furry green tail poking out of his backside wiggled as Brody rolled his eyes.

A partial take over. Something he'd taken to using through his days ever since meeting Elfman. He'd gotten the idea to use it to train his control with Take Over, but honestly, he basically just used it as an extra limb to help with work, it was like having another arm.

The boost it provided to his abilities compared to a full Take Over, was about a third at most, if that, but it was much less draining.

"Oh by the way," Billy pushed up his glasses as he spoke to Brody, "I managed to find that book you were looking for, you can come pick it up tomorrow."

"Oh, cool, thanks." Brody grinned. It wasn't anything special he'd asked him to find for him, but simply just a book with details on the kind of wild life around Mt. Hakobe and beyond.


The next morning, after his usual work out and breakfast, Brody went with his usual routine of heading to the East Forest as he did every day, to hunt forest vulcans and train.

Though, things were a little different today.

Because today, he was carrying a bag full of fresh, ripe strawberries. He wasn't planning on roaming around hunting the remaining forest vulcans in the forest.

He was going to set the perfect bait down and have them come to him. Sometimes, it was best to think smarter, not harder.

So that was what he did, making his way to his usual training clearing and taking a seat on one of the smaller boulders.

'God, Maker Magic would be hella useful right about now.' he mused. Stone make, or even some form of metal make, like Iron Make or something would let him create some great equipment to use.

He had no idea where to start on learning such a thing though. Maybe he could put out a job request for some guild mage to do it?

And he thankfully had a Requip space to store it, though it would probably be a tight fit. He wasn't exactly Erza Scarlet in capacity after all.

…Yet.

Setting the bag of strawberries down, Brody reached in and opened up the casings they were in, before reclining back on the boulder.

'It'll probably take a little bit before they come, assuming I've not hunted them all down yet.' he mused, he'd averaged one every two days or so for the last month, but it was taking longer and longer now to find them in the forest around Onibus.

Holding his hand out, he focused his attention inwardly, and a few moments later, the air rippled, a notepad and pencil case appearing in his grasp.

"Now…let's see." Brody mused to himself.

Blue, had been lamenting the fact that whenever he went out to hunt vulcans, he would send him back because the spirit was no use in a fight, even though he wanted to come.

So he was going to design him a form that suited him, a battle form, like Panther Lily's so he could fight in his own way.

And he had the perfect one in mind.

It was a big dog.

And it had drills too.

It was just a matter of if, his skill would be enough to draw it out good enough for Blue to get a good mental image.

It was a good thing he took art classes in school. Though, for the first two years of high school, it was actually mandatory where he had lived before appearing here.

Luckily for Brody, his art teacher had been very hot, so he'd made sure to take extra lessons from her, as a typical hormonal teenager would.

He was not proud of it, but for the him of twelve and thirteen years old, being around the older, pretty woman who tended to lean over his shoulder to see what he was working on at times, pressing her soft, lush body up against him, was a fun occasion.

He'd had to get pretty good at the whole art thing to get her attention at all. But, that was pretty much his thing. He'd never really been the most talented guy out there, as his attempts at Transformation Magic could attest to, but he was stubborn as all hell and could stick with something for long ass periods of time until he was satisfied with his ability.

So twenty five minutes later, he grinned down in satisfaction at the freshly drawn image that stared back at him.

It was a large, canine, more wolf than dog. With huge claws and razor sharp teeth. Fur of an ebony black, with almost like flame blue fur-design running mid-way up its legs and a long spiky blue mane. Its long tail was tipped with a silver drill, alongside a horn-like version atop its forehead, and two drills jutting from the outer thighs of its back legs. Twin blades jutted out from its lower back, while two spikes came from its upper back, almost looking like speakers, and where its chest started after its underbelly, a blade shone proudly.

"Not bad at all from drawing from memory." Brody chuckled to himself. Sure he'd changed the colour scheme up a bit. But it looked exactly like Dorulumon.

Well…if not a bit bigger. He'd drawn a reference to himself beside the massive canine creature as a scale, and made sure it was bigger than him, but not too big.

It needed to be big enough to give Blue a big enough physical enhancement to fight in, but not too big that it drained magic too quick and exhausted him.

But yeah, definitely not to sha-

"Outta way dumb Dog!" a stupid voice interrupted his thoughts and a second later, a forest vulcan came flying through the foliage around him, landing face first on the ground, a second one following with a powerful leap and delivering a smashing stomp into its back and driving the wind from its lungs, "Strawberry mine!" it beat its chest victoriously.

'…Dog?' Brody tilted his head to the side and just stared. He knew he'd joked about it, but come on.

"No you dumb, Gog!" a second similar sounding voice echoed as a third forest vulcan launched itself through the air out of the foliage and threw a huge fist the the still standing, second vulcan.

"Shut up Slog!" it countered, catching the punch with both of its hands and blocking it.

The two then proceeded to punch at each other wildly, all the while standing atop the first vulcan that got thrown into the clearing.

Brody stared at them blankly, idly storing his notepad and pencils away in his Requip space and just watched.

…Like, if they were going to do his work for him and knock each other out, then he was all for it.

But god were they dumb.

Apparently the ones who stayed in their packs, were a lot smarter, because, they y'know, socialized with each other, while these ones, the Gorians lived in seclusion and only ever fought each other if they met each other anywhere else.

Still, god were they stupid.

At least his plan worked though. A little better than he actually thought it would. Weird they turned up around the same time.

But considering they knew each others names and were already fighting…they'd probably ran into each other along the way as they madly dashed here and had been fighting all the way.

They hadn't even noticed him either. A whole minute passed as they flailed wildly at each other, punching, slapping and even biting at each other, and before long they were both pretty bloodied.

It wasn't long before a winner was decided.

'Dog' groaned underneath them and shifted, and 'Gog' slipped on its back as it did and fell. And Slog wasted no time in raising its huge meaty fists up into the air and absolutely battering them down in a rapid blurring barrage into its opponents skull.

"Slog winner!" it cheered when Gog went limp, skull cracked, near dead, "Strawberry belong to Slog!"

'Actually, I plan on giving them to Enna, she's fond of them or so she told me the other night.' Brody mused to himself.

He was just about stand up and put an end to this nonsense now that a winner had been decided, when-

"Kekekeke!" a demented giggle erupted from the foliage and a fourth vulcan made its way into the clearing, visibly smaller than the other three, but with smug look on its face, "No dumb Slog, you stooopid. Me, Clock win now, you beat up, can't win. Strawberry belong to Clock!"

…Weren't their names supposed to end in 'Og'. Because, he'd heard over twenty of their names at this point, and they all had so far.

"Clock have tiny peepee!" Slog shot back, nostrils flaring.

"Clock peepee just fine!" Clock howled in a rage, its 'calm' demeanour evaporating in an instant and the smaller forest vulcan launched itself at Slog, fists raised.

Apparently that was a sore spot for 'Clock'.

Brody watched with a dry gaze as Slog shot forward to meet Clock, ramming its shoulder into the smaller forest vulcans face and stunning it, before grabbing it in a headlock and proceeded to pummel Clock's face in its with free hand.

Crunch. Crunch. Crunch.

Before long, Clocks face was little more than a meaty pulp and Slog let go of it, letting the probably dead, if not, near dead forest vulcan drop to the ground in limp.

The last forest vulcan standing, proceeded to beat its chest in victory as it stoood over its fallen brethren, "Slog eat all three weaklings and strawberries, Slog da be-" Slog bellowed loudly, only to be cut off in the middle with a choked splutter.

Brody landed, arms wrapped around the throat of the huge green simian creature and dragged it down, forcing it to its knees, "No actually," he smirked, "Brody wins." he twisted his arms and jerked with all his strength.

And crack went Slogs neck.

The teenager unwound his arms from the beasts neck and watched as it fell to the ground limp, dead.

"Good try though." Brody crouched down and pat the dead forest vulcans head consolingly, before reaching over and ripping off its tail, and then doing the same to the other three.

"Well I can safely say, I'm stronger than ten year old Natsu, yay me." Brody chuckled to himself as he made his way around the four bodies, taking over all of them one by one,

Kid Natsu had struggled to beat a Gorian after all, and he could do it easily, in his base form now.

'Hmm, I got a boost from all of them.' he noted, feeling his magic power increase a bit more with each one.

So that brought his total up to thirty, and he hadn't hit his limit yet, interesting. Or maybe the thirtieth did it?

Well no matter, he'd find out the next time he ran into a forest vulcan.

Either way, with that taken care of, Brody grabbed the four tails that would work as proof of his kills and stood up, cracking his neck, "Right, should probably test out the increase in strength I have in my vulcan form now and-"

Brody's voice was drowned out as a massive, draconian roar echoed loudly through the air. It was so loud, it actually had him wincing a bit.

"…What the fuck was that?" he swallowed heavily.

A loud piercing scream followed a moment later, followed by dozens more. Brody's eyes widened and he whipped around to stare in the direction it came from.

"…That came from Onibus…." he realised.

What the hell could have made a sound like that? It had to be something huge and strong.

He tried to move, to head back towards the village. But his body wouldn't budge. And it was then he noticed something.

His legs were trembling.

So were his arms.

His whole body was in fact.

The instincts in his body, were telling him not to go near that. Not to go there. That if he did, he would die. Every instinct was telling him right now, to flee.

The tail of his partial Take Over form swished nervously behind him.

Shit.

Fuck!

"Stop!" he growled, punching his legs, trying to stop the shuddering. But, his body barely felt it, the adrenaline pumping in his veins and triggering his fight or flight instincts, hyped him too much.

And his body wanted to flee.

Screw that.

"Move!" he snarled at himself. He wasn't a pussy, he wouldn't run away just because of a massive scary sounding monster roaring. Even in the face of certain death when he first appeared here, he hadn't given up and pussied out, so he wouldn't now!

Gritting his teeth, Brody forced himself to move. Slow, hesitant steps, before they became firmer and faster.

Before long, he was dashing through the forest at blurring speeds, bag of strawberries long forgotten as he made a mad dash back towards Onibus Town.

It wasn't long before he reached the town and his eyes widened at what he saw. People running in fear in the streets, craters through the pavements, multiple buildings outright demolished.

And there standing in the middle of a ruined clothing shop, was a massive reptilian creature. It was at least twenty five feet tall, if not larger, with huge winged arms, and thick powerfully muscled legs with nasty razor sharp talons decorating its feet. Thick green scales covered it from head to toe, and it roared loudly, staggeringly, from a massive maw filled with razor sharp, shark like teeth.

It was a Wyvern.

A Green Wyvern to be exact.

One of the strongest magical beasts around.

The one species of Wyvern, that was totally carnivorous from what he'd read so far about various beasts around Fiore when he'd been thinking of targets to use his Take Over magic on.

Fast, strong, incredibly durable, with scales resistant to magic and physical force. It was a beast most mages couldn't hope to handle alone and only top tier mages could defeat one solo.

The only saving grace, was that its magic power went into protecting itself and it had no magical abilities beyond that.

For what little good that did him.

"…Shit." Brody grimaced.

It had to be a green one didn't it? Why couldn't it have been a white one, otherwise known as a Blizzardvern. They were omnivorous, but not as…blood thirsty as the green ones and would back off with a sufficient show off force.

The green ones would fight to the death for prey. And it looked like humans were on the menu. He'd decided ages ago, that he wasn't going anywhere near one for a long, long while.

It had just decided to come to him, huh?

Brody watched as drool pooled in its mouth as its beady eyes settled on a small girl running away from it.

He was moving before he even realised it, "Beast Soul: Vulcan!" he pulled on his magic and transitioned straight into the full form, going at maximum strength immediately.

He exploded forward, leaping through the air and just as it was about to lunge down and bite down atop the little girl it had chosen as its prey, his fist smashed into its jaw.

A thunderous impact resounded out.

And the beast staggered a few steps to the side, before shaking its head and whirling around to face him, rage in its eyes.

With a roar it lashed out, swinging a massive wing at him and forcing him to jump backwards to avoid it. But as he did, it turned, rotating rapidly and lashed out with its tail, a massive, jagged thing spiked at the end and shooting towards him so fast he could barely follow him.

Simian reflexes kicked in and his own furry green tail lashed out, swinging around and using the force to spin him out of the way just in time to avoid having his face stabbed right through and left with a gaping hole in the middle.

With a rage filled howl of his own Brody wrapped his arms around the tail and pulled with all his strength.

To his credit, the huge beast was pulled right off of its feet, right onto its back. but at the same time, as it did, it yanked its tail back and bodily lifted him into the air, dragging him towards it in a flash.

He let go of the tail, but it was too late, he was already soaring straight towards it, its mouth snapping out to bite down atop him as he came into range.

"Shit, shit shit!" Brody rapidly cursed. He couldn't fucking do anything while mid-air and not knowing any long range magic or anything!

The only thing he had, was his body!

"Fuck off!" Brody roared just as it snapped down, thrusting out both feet in a double mule kick and smashing them right up into its snout before it could chomp down.

The muscles in his legs screamed in protest, but he pushed through with a snarl. The force of his double kick, sent them both ass over head.

The wyvern tumbled backwards in a heap, while Brody with his simian reflexes, flipped mid-air and landed on the ground standing, a wince appearing on his face as he did, the muscles in his legs throbbing.

'No wonder…' he thought as he eyed the beast. With its sheer size, it had to weigh a couple tons at least and he'd just sent it through a backflip with a kick from both legs.

Not that it did any damage, as it merely shook its head and rose back up with another snarl.

Fuck.

Shit.

Cunt!

What the hell did he do here? He couldn't hurt it at all. 'Weaknesses, what kind of weaknesses do it have?' his mind rushed a mile a minute recalling what the book he read said on them.

Only the physically strongest could smash through their scales, and only strong magic could overcome their resistance.

'The only other thing is…' a grim realization set in as it roared and rushed him, powerful legs shaking the ground with each step.

Its insides.

That meant, either attacking from inside its mouth or, his eyes met its own beady eyes as it lunged at him.

He quickly backpedalled with a series of bouncing jumps as it crashed into the ground, creating a crater and sending great chunks of debris flying through the air, all the while its beady eyes stayed locked on him.

He was its prey now.

'It's kill and eat or be killed and eaten.' he thought as he landed in a crouch, before tensing his legs and springing forward.

And it had only one place he could reliably hurt it right now.

And luck was on his side in one way. Unlike the Blizzardvern that were much more intelligent.

Green Wyvern's were dumb brutes.

Incredibly fast, strong and durable dumb brutes, but dumb brutes nonetheless.

'It won't back down, it'll attack.' he thought as he shot towards it. And that would be his chance. Take one hit, to give one back.

It jaws snapped out, he lashed out with one arm.

He roared as one of its massive teeth punched right through his left forearm.

That should have been it.

But he had an extra limb.

His fluffy green tail hooked into it nostril, grasped the skin tightly and yoinked, pulling with the momentum of his own charge and the momentum slamming into him from its bite.

Instead of being dragged into its mouth and chewed to bites, his body rapidly flipped and flopped face first onto its snout, his arm still stuck to its tooth. His leverage was fucked, but he had just enough reach-

To last out with his right hand in a knife hand blow, driving it straight into the beasts eye.

The wyvern howled in agony as he gouged through its eye, blood flying from it.

Brody's eyes widened and he howled himself in pain as it thrashed around, tearing chunks from his arm pierced by its tooth. 'I can't reach its brain from here.' he thought blearily.

The wyvern reared up its head as it thrashed and Brody snarled, tearing his arm free from its eye and then smashing it again and again and again in a flurry of one handed punches, "Fucking die damnit!" he snarled even as it bodily threw itself down and smashed its head alongside him into the ground.

He saw stars as his head smashed into and through the ground, and felt his cheeks slit open as it continued to thrash and drag him through the concrete. Not for a moment did he let up, he continued to attack, tearing apart its eye socket with everything he had in a blind frenzy.

Finally, the stalemate was broken through as with a jerk, he was flipped back around and dangled from his mangled arm precariously right inside its mouth as it opened wide.

And prepared to bite down.

"You want to eat me!?" Brody bellowed, rage filled spittle erupting from his throat as he glared bloody daggers into its wide open mouth and razor sharp teeth, "Not if I eat you first! TAKE OVER!"

One had to make contact to use Take Over magic on a target. Luckily for him in this case, his arm was making contact.

With the tooth pierced straight through it.

A brilliant light flashed brightly illuminating the destroyed street.


Power, strength, hunger. The sheer instinct to kill, feed, survive. Primal instincts of an apex predator slammed into his mind.

His soul shuddered and he felt it…crack?

He heard a howl and his vision slipped between black, green and gold. He felt his consciousness waver.

'No.'

He decided right then and there, that no. He would not be devoured. He'd felt it happen before. He'd been eaten once. Never again.

The wyvern, was not the only apex predator here.

His mind, his magic, his soul roared and slammed against the overwhelming presence of the wyvern with everything he had.

And it shattered before, the beasts soul curling inwards from the blow and going limp.

And his eyes opened once more and Brody found himself standing in the middle of the destroyed street where he'd done battle with the wyvern, panting deeply within the crater that had been formed between its head and his body.

"…I….won…" he laughed to himself, almost madly. That had been a crazy thing to do. It had been all instinct. And it had been his only option in a desperate gambit to survive.

But he had come out on top, and survived. He had won. He was the true apex predator.

His vision was hazy, but he noticed, people hesitatingly peering out of ruined buildings or street corners.

Before suddenly, cheers erupted. He heard his name being chanted.

And then his legs gave out and darkness consumed him.


And we return with chapter 4 woop woop poop?

Quite a bit happened this chapter. Brody helped Blue transform and make his own battle form, based on Dorulumon from digimon, he munced a few more Forest Vulcans, and then a Wyvern attacked the town, and he manned up, and almost lost his life fighting it. But he won in the end and ate that bitch, so go Brody, yaaay!

We're multiple chapters ahead on the Pa-treon if you guys wanna read ahead for this story, and I just updated Jordinio Version on there as well and a Skyrim story of mine yestreday.

Anyway, again, shameless Pa-atreon plug. I've got one, go by the same username on there, easy to find and all that jazz. Support me if you want, it'd be swell, but don't feel pressured lads and ladies, I'll be uploading my stuff outside it regardless and not keeping it all behind a paywall or anything like that.