The Tales of the Legendary Mimic : Momo

IT'S HERE

Shadow hung upside down in his royal cave.

The place had a strange mix of Western flair and old antique luxury—a hall of faded velvet, carved wood, and relics from ages no one alive remembered. Any modern eye that stepped into it would feel the weight of a thousand generations pressing down on them… assuming they had lived long enough to recognize such things. Otherwise, they’d just end up seeing some creepy stuff.

Creepy, expensive junk.

A sound drifted into the cave, long and low, like a whale song twisted with a hyena’s laughter. The vibration rolled through the stone and into Shadow’s bones.

He stirred.

His body dropped from the ceiling… then stopped inches from the ground, as if caught by invisible strings. He twisted lazily in the air, turned upright, and landed on his feet without a sound.

The call had reached him. Someone wanted him awake.

He made his way to the meeting hall—which, for him, also doubled as a feeding room.

A long table dominated the center, its surface scarred by age and use. At the far end, a skeleton sat slumped in a high-backed chair, pinned there by a knife that had been driven straight through its spine and deep into the wood.

Shadow clicked his tongue.

“Hey. To think you’d be the first to welcome me, Mary…” he said lightly. “So, how long has it been? A century? Judging from your still-firm bones…”

He reached out and brushed a finger against the skeleton’s arm.

The bones collapsed into dust on contact, spilling down the chair like pale sand.

“…or not. Oh well, Guess I would ask the guy downstairs.”

He sighed and straightened up. “Let’s see who decided to wake me up. Hopefully, they had a good reason.”

He clapped his hands once.

Flame surged to life.

Candles set into the walls and along the semicircle of fourteen seats flickered on, bathing the hall in a soft, golden glow. Shadows danced in the corners like half-remembered ghosts.

Shadow walked to the main chair, tugged the knife free from the table, and dropped into the seat in a sideways sprawl—his back against one armrest, legs thrown over the other.

A soft chime echoed.

A hologram bloomed into existence above the table—a projection of an old woman, her face a web of wrinkles so deep they nearly hid her pupils.

“Lucifer,” she said, her voice dry but steady. “A resonance was detected on the central continent. An anchor has awakened. You will retrieve it.”

He rolled the knife between his fingers, eyes half-lidded.

“Retrieve, huh?” he repeated. “What if I just destroy it instead?”

Her gaze hardened. “The Council grants you the right to seize it, not to erase it. You know the rules.”

Of course, he knew the rules.

He just had no intention of following all of them.

In his mind, the order twisted itself into something far more interesting. He wasn’t thinking like a courier.

He was thinking like a hunter.

He wanted to know what it felt like… to kill an anchor holder.

He didn’t share that thought.

“If there’s nothing else, I’ll prepare,” Lucifer said, voice smooth.

The old woman studied him for a moment, then nodded.

The hologram flickered and vanished.

Lucifer rose from the chair and headed down a spiraling staircase, deeper into the heart of the cave.

The air grew colder. The stone under his feet carried faint scratches—marks left by something large and angry, long ago.

A low growl rolled out of the darkness to meet him.

“Ei? Fenrir,” Lucifer said, smiling to himself. “You haven’t changed one bit. I was going to ask Mary how long I slept, but she seems… out of town. So what about you?”

Another growl answered him, deeper this time.

Chains rattled.

At the end of the corridor, a massive wolf crouched in the gloom—eyes burning, fur matted, a heavy collar of runic metal locked around its neck. Years of captivity had stripped away some of its strength, but not its hatred.

Lucifer stopped just outside the reach of its jaws.

“Well then,” he said lightly, “let’s skip the pleasantries. We’re going hunting.”

The wolf bared its teeth, a clear answer in the language of beasts.

Hell no.

Lucifer chuckled.

“Who said anything about working together?” he murmured.

He held up a small jar, a swirl of dark, viscous fluid shifting lazily inside.

“Besides,” he added, more to himself than to the wolf, “I’ve been meaning to test this.”

His body blurred.

In the space of a blink, his form twisted and stretched, shadows folding into jagged wings. A huge bat took shape where Lucifer had stood, its silhouette blotting out the torchlight.

The dungeon erupted.

Bat and wolf crashed together, shadows and fangs clashing in a tight, vicious space. Claws raked. Teeth snapped. The air shook with snarls and screeches as they tore at each other for dominance.

Fenrir was strong—once, it had shaken mountains. But years in chains had eaten at its power. The great wolf stumbled, breath coming hard.

A gust of wind ripped through the corridor.

The bat’s jaw opened. A stream of darkness, like liquid night, spat out and splashed over the already-fallen wolf.

Fenrir’s roar broke.

It shrank.

The monstrous beast’s struggles weakened, its outline collapsing in on itself. In moments, the mighty wolf’s voice was reduced to a thin, broken whimper.

More like a dog.

Or a puppy.

The scene fractured.

Far away, in another chamber, the old woman from the Council sat before a tall mirror. Her reflection looked back at her, tired and unreadable.

Her assistant stood at her shoulder, shifting nervously.

“Elder… can we really trust him?” the assistant asked.

The old woman’s eyes stayed on the mirror.

“Hmm,” she said at last. “We’ll see.”

Elsewhere, far beyond their world, a different scene unfolded.

In the silence of outer space, a massive structure drifted—part fortress, part dock. Alien creatures and humanoids moved along its platforms, hauling mineral crates, welding plates into place, running checks on strange devices. The whole construction buzzed with preparation.

In a dim chamber at its core, a glass container sat nestled in a web of cables and metal.

Inside, a small, twisted creature floated in pale fluid.

Its eyes snapped open.

The air around the jar vibrated, reacting to something only it could sense.

“It’s here,” it whispered, voice too soft for any ear to catch—yet the words seemed to echo anyway.