“No… I’ll help you.”

Pigs are really smart and empathetic. They’re supposedly even more emotional and intelligent than dogs. And I had never even intentionally killed a fucking fish before. Honestly, I didn’t want to kill the poor bastard. But he was already dying no matter what. It was much quicker and less painful to have a bullet in your head or your throat slit than to slowly rot away from an infection or get torn apart and toyed with by a pack of wolves or other predators.

“He’s terrified. But, well, death is scary.” I sighed and then placed my hand gently on the hog’s head, petting him as if he was a cute puppy and not an ugly old piggy.

“You shouldn’t think about it too much. The more you empathize, the harder it is to do what needs to be done.” Chameleon smiled wryly and then handed me her absurdly large revolver.

I couldn’t help but complain, “Do you want me to go deaf? And your birds will probably have heart attacks if I shoot this big-ass handcannon in here. Give me your ax.”

Why the tomahawk instead of the knife? Well, it’s way harder to stab a knife through a skull than to use an ax. Would it be more traumatic to cut the head off completely or simply deal a bunch of damage to the brain? As I was contemplating the easiest and most painless way to end the hog’s life…

“It’s already dead? What did you do?” Chameleon was shocked because the piggy just closed his eyes and eventually stopped breathing. Then it started shitting and pissing a lot.

“Maybe he was a lot sicker than he looked?” I honestly didn’t feel like I did anything special.

She sighed and then asked, “Are you sure you didn’t accidentally use your power to kill it?”

“Umm… I don’t feel any mental strain or physical pain. The energetic feeling from having lots of Qi hasn’t changed either. But maybe it was just so terrified of death that it had a heart attack? Or maybe it was just already dying and simply accepted its fate?” I shrugged, “My power is pretty… Well, ‘overpowered’ in a lot of ways, but I don’t think I can just kill something instantly by petting it. Otherwise your pussy would be dead by now, hehe~!”

“Either way, we need to drain the blood first. I’m going to need your help with this part and you’re not gonna like it.” She first dumped the pig, along with its piss and shit, onto the dirt. Then she dragged the carcass by its non-crippled right front leg away from the filth. After she brought it over to a western window that didn’t have any trees directly in front of it. Instead, there was a metal post and a high-powered hose. She wrapped a chain around the pigs hind legs and hoisted it up to the point where its entire body was right in front of the window screen, which she opened up. Okay, she didn’t do all this by herself, I was helping her, but it was so fucking disgusting that I kinda wanna write that whole experience out of the diary.

To be honest, I kinda wanna skip past this whole butchery nonsense, because it really just is not my thing. However, for the sake of OCD, I’ll continue I guess…

First we had to hose the dead piggie down with scalding hot and high-pressure water from a special hose that was apparently already there, which made me wonder: “How often do you do this here?! How do you even carry a pig like that up the stairs?”

She chuckled, “This is the first time since the storm. Before you moved in next door, another Eve lived there. She would help out occasionally, for a price. But she moved to the eastern island a while back, so I’m not sure if she’s still around. Our network doesn’t reach that far. And it’s too dangerous to cross the bay or pass through that much jungle. But it is possible to go along the shore, so we might run into her eventually… She calls herself Princess now. And lives in the castle across the bay. Last I heard, she gathered up all her Eve-89 Rejects that were still alive and created a ‘kingdom’ of sorts. Honestly, you need to be careful of Princess. She’s… Well, greedy, violent, cruel and really dangerous now that she’s actually become the ruler of Eastern Island.”

I snickered and shouted over the noisy hose that she just turned on, “Tell me more about this ‘Princess’! Like what does she look like?! What are her powers and shit like that!”

“Princess is… Well, Princess is a pig! Hahaha~!” Chameleon started laughing really loudly, “I know it’s not right for me to make fun of her, but she was such a bitch that it’s hard to say anything nice! She’s a huge, fat, ugly Boar-Chimera! Eve-89! And her Reject collection are all pigs too! EMP almost killed her a few times ‘cause she would steal her hogs! She thought that she could breed with them, but that didn’t end up working, so she started to eat them instead! She’s the same age as Demoness and Angel! She umm, used to date Demoness for a while, but they broke up eventually! She decided to move once she found a male descendant of her own Reject one day, since she wanted to start a ‘Royal Family’ hahaha~! Turned out that he was sterile though, last I heard! Now she just collects all the Boar Chimera Rejects she can find and lives with them in her castle as their Princess! Or so she says! Who knows what the actual situation is like right now?!”

“But what you’re saying is that if she ever found out about ‘Michael’, we’d have a really powerful enemy to deal with?! Hahaha~!” I couldn’t help laughing at the thought of fighting an army of pseudo-orcs. It made me think though, like… If I did happen to ‘mate’ with her, would our kids look more like humans or pigs?

“Well yeah, there are no real laws on the island, Ana!” Chameleon looked at me with a serious expression, “And the one thing that Princess hates most of all are ‘beautiful’ Eves! It’s one of the reasons she would mess with EMP so often! But there’s a huge difference between then and now! They might actually come over here to raid for supplies at some point, so we need to be prepared to fight or at least negotiate! If she finds out about Michael, I’m afraid there might really be a war!”

“And let me guess, unlike the savages in the jungle, Princess’s minions actually have guns, ammo, maybe even RPGs and shit, right?!” It was one thing if they were just armed with medieval weapons like swords and spears, but bullets and bombs are dangerous to me even if it’s only a few enemies.

Chameleon sighed and then turned off the hose, she finally rinsed off the hog. Even a lot of its hair was ripped off from the water pressure. Then she said, “Honestly… I’m actually not too worried about Princess. Since she’s so lazy and prideful, she might not even show up unless she’s really desperate. In that case, she might actually end up becoming an ally, rather than an enemy. But like I mentioned before, if she knows about Michael, there’s no way she’d ever give up on creating her ‘Royal Family’. So you need to be careful.”

“Well, you know… If it really comes down to it…” I smirked up at my girlfriend, “I wonder if I can take control of her ‘minions’ from this distance?”

She smiled at me too, “That’s why your power is so incredibly dangerous and terrifying Ana. Earlier, what you did to Scylla… Her power is a type of mental manipulation too, so the fact that you’re able to overpower her like that is really amazing. And it means that we might really be able to protect ourselves from the Devils and other Telepaths now.”

And then we butchered the pig.