Shelly, the Fusion Monster

Yin Shen laid his hand on the fusion monster's massive eye. It was like pressing his palm against a huge, ice-cold crystal.

His will reached in through the pupil, and he spoke in a tone of command.

"Shed your shell and give it to me!"

One tentacle after another unfurled from beneath its coiled body, lifting the shell on its back a little at a time.

Larger even than the temple, the massive shell came to rest on the steps at the temple's front.

The fusion monster lay prostrate beneath it, as though offering up a gift to God.

Yin Shen meant only to give the shell a touch, but the instant his hand made contact, he found it floating straight up into the air.

At the stirring of his thoughts, the shell drifted higher and higher.

He could control this thing.

Yin Shen felt as though he had found some grand new toy. It was the first thing he had ever been able to touch and control directly, almost a part of his own body. Wherever he willed it to go, it went.

Yin Shen tried the same on other things, and nothing happened at all.

This shell alone would move for him.

Finally, at the urging of his thoughts, the massive shell began to shrink, smaller and smaller.

By the time it lay in his hand, it had become something like a horn.

As though a single breath through it could sound out the very melody of life.

This truly was.

A miracle.

A first rough understanding of this mythical creation settled in Yin Shen's mind. "It can be controlled from a distance. And it changes size."

"Anything my power seeps into no longer obeys the laws of science at all," Yin Shen guessed.

The trilobite man's power, too, could not be limited to just this. There had to be more strength in it, and more ways to use it, all still waiting to be uncovered.

Just how to steep some other thing in his own power, and grant it a strength out of myth, was a puzzle Yin Shen had still not solved.

He was trapped in a crack between time and space, and only Trilobite Man Redlichia and the fusion monster held him anchored to this universe. For now, his tentative plan reached no further than creating more trilobite men, and seeing whether they could form more anchor points.

A body of his own again would be better.

Days like these, lived like some lonely wandering ghost, were simply terrifying.

Shell in hand, Yin Shen rose to his feet.

And there was the fusion monster, watching him. Having shed its shell, it looked more frightening than ever.

Yin Shen's gaze settled on the fusion monster. "You can change your own shape. So change into something easier on the eyes!"

"And honestly, the way you look right now is kind of scary."

At the moment there was only Yin Shen, and the fusion monster could not frighten him anyway.

Still, it really was a little too ugly.

The massive fusion monster caught Yin Shen's mood, and that mountain of flesh began pressing inward toward its own center.

Smaller and smaller its body grew, smaller and smaller.

Hundreds of eyes drew inward, twisting and warping, until the whole of it slowly took on the shape of a person.

Its dense tangle of tentacles drew together into two legs, just like Yin Shen's own.

The fusion monster became a little girl draped in a cloak of sheer white gauze, with green eyes, brown hair, small bare feet, and nails tinted a faint pink.

The gauzy, cloak-like garment drifted and billowed about it, wrapping its small frame up tight.

A closer look showed it to be less a garment than something grown straight out of its own body, a layer not unlike the bell of a jellyfish.

Now that it wore human form, it no longer felt like a mere object.

He had named the trilobite man already, and he had no intention of playing favorites. So he meant to give this other life, born alongside the trilobite man, a name of its own as well.

"Shelly!"

"From now on, your name is Shelly!"

Fusion Monster Shelly sat beside God, nestled against his stone statue. A name brought her none of the delight it had once brought Redlichia. She could not even grasp what difference there was between being called "Fusion Monster" and being called "Shelly."

Her legs swung, and out of her mouth came a sound like bubbles being blown.

Gurgle gurgle~

She was like a fish, blowing bubbles and chasing after them all at once, her empty eyes without a trace of light.

The mythical shell, which Yin Shen called a Biological Machine Tool, lay soaking in the seawater with only its crown exposed, forming a reef all its own.

Two figures, one large and one small, sat together atop that reef.

Yin Shen's gaze followed the life that took shape and gestated inside the shell, only for it to die almost as soon as it was born.

The look in his eyes went from anticipation to delight, then settled at last into disappointment.

Fusion Monster Shelly was playing in the water beside him, and Yin Shen said to her, "Failed again."

"Shelly, you're a crooked lottery hustler. Your odds are way too low."

Shelly kicked her little legs, stirring the seawater.

With no command to obey, she seemed not to hear a word Yin Shen said.

And even had she understood him, she would have had no idea what "crooked," "lottery," or "hustler" meant.

Yin Shen worked the mythical shell again, setting off yet another round of experiments and attempts.

One failed creation after another was produced. Each turned to dead matter the instant it was born, or was nothing more than a mindless little bug.

The remains were broken back down into nourishment and swallowed by the shell, which set about producing new trilobite man eggs all over again.

No one could say how many times he had failed, and he had tried wrong approaches beyond counting.

The sun rose and set, the cycle turning without rest.

The lone island and the ocean stayed forever unchanged, as though bound to remain that way until the very end of time.

Then Yin Shen succeeded at last, and that success was about to shatter the changelessness of the world.

On this day, egg after translucent egg tumbled loose from the massive shell and rose from beneath the water to float on the ocean's surface, each one catching the sunlight like a gleaming jewel.

This was the miracle of life, and the birth of a species.

Gurgle gurgle~ Fusion Monster Shelly cheered.

Whether it was the wild joy in Yin Shen's heart that she had sensed, or the trilobite man eggs out on the water, no one could say.

Redlichia had been spending his days carving stone in the temple, learning all the while to wield the divine language. He felt the disturbance too, and rushed straight for the ocean's edge.

Yin Shen stood atop the island, gazing down at that newborn life.

Behind him stood Redlichia, staring in disbelief at the life afloat on the ocean's surface. It was a trilobite man, just like him.

Yin Shen turned and looked back at him, smiling.

"It worked, Redlichia."

"You..."

"You have companions now."

Redlichia's gaze went distant. He, too, was no longer alone.

It was a strange and wonderful feeling, a powerful swell of emotion echoing through his chest.

"So this is what a race is."

At the same time, Redlichia felt a little lost.

"God, now that I have a race, what am I supposed to do?"

His speech had grown more fluent than before.

A smile touched Yin Shen's face. "You are their king. Lead them. Let them multiply and thrive, and in time build a civilization."

"A civilization that belongs to you. A civilization that belongs to the trilobite men."

Redlichia's face went blank. "What is a civilization?"

Yin Shen gazed out over the ocean. "It has a written language of its own. It has an art and a philosophy of its own. It has the power to remake the world and to understand it. It is a collective, built by intelligent beings and made up of them."

"It can be a city-state, or it can be a nation."

"As for how to go about it, that's for you to decide."

Redlichia stared at Yin Shen's retreating figure. "Will God not come and teach me? Or let it be You who founds this civilization!"

"In everything, I will do as You say, God."

Yin Shen shook his head. "I am the God who created you!"

"And you..."

"You alone are their king."