F-Rank Mimic Chest: My SSS Mimic Skill Lets Me Become Anything

Small feet struck the open corridor while Milo was still behind the left wall.

Net weights clicked among them. A spear ferrule rang against stone. Someone dragged a broom head rather than lift it, and flour dust arrived beneath the sharper smell of hot collector wax.

”Twenty breaths,” Ada said.

The torn shield bit into the false-wall seam. Its injured bearer grunted when the rim kicked, then shouted, ”Packed hand clear. Drive it.”

The second shield hit behind the first. Stone split toward Dane’s base pins. At the right breach, ceiling teeth came down on both shield loads and made their rims shriek against each other.

Holt called through the crack. ”Milo Trent. Rookfall recovery. Give me your license class.”

”Provisional,” a young voice coughed back. ”I passed the damned practical, and I’m alive.”

The medic scraped through the opening on linen-wrapped knees. Milo’s return charm knocked against stone ahead of him, each little chime closer than the last.

A spear butt crossed the doorway.

”Asset recovery,” said the wax-capped runner. He projected the words, but the shaft rattled in his hands. ”Help return the box and the Registry records your share.”

”You stand nearest its mouth, then,” an adult woman said. A cleaver edge touched the floor beside her grease-and-flour scent. ”You’ve got the speech for it.”

”They told me the net goes first,” the maintenance boy said.

Two sweepers argued behind him about whether a broom counted as recovery equipment.

Vera kept rod two in Dane’s lower left hinge. Chalk snapped across the doorway from the hot collector bead in her other hand. When the spear tip crossed, the line burned the metal hard enough to pull a curse from the runner.

”Milo clears first,” Ada said. Rod three ground deeper into its floor seat. ”Cross my recovery mark and it brands the tool you bring with you.”

The runner withdrew his spear tip. The kitchen hand stayed close enough that Dane could smell old fryer oil in her apron, but her cleaver stopped scraping forward.

”Thirteen,” Ada said.

The left wall broke inward.

Stone struck both shields. One rim folded; the other carried the ceiling teeth long enough for the medic to reach through. Milo’s charm skittered, stopped, then moved again with a body dragging after it.

”Hands under his arms,” the medic called. ”Keep the head below the shield.”

Holt answered from inside the ring. ”Milo, give me your next breath.”

Milo coughed it out. His boots found stone and shoved.

The spear runner crossed Vera’s chalk with the wooden shaft this time. Heat raced through it. He held on long enough to knock the medic’s splint roll aside, then dropped the spear when the burn reached his palms.

”Six,” Ada said.

The wounded warder drove the torn shield into the left gap. His two packed fingers stayed off the grip; the impact traveled through his elbow and the shield boss. His partner locked the second shield against it while the medic pulled.

Milo’s charm passed Dane’s left corner. The young man’s breathing followed, dry and fast, then crossed the right breach beyond the ceiling teeth.

”Milo clear,” the medic said.

The support load changed at once. Torn metal scraped away with the injured warder. The medic’s clasps and Milo’s charm retreated beyond the right wall. Last came the least-damaged shield, shoved flat across the floor by the second warder before his boots followed the others.

Milo’s voice followed the retreating shields. ”Tess, whoever drew that return route owes you a new map.”

The free cord trembled once in her good hand. ”Get far enough away to complain tomorrow.”

His charm chimed in answer.

Brant caught the shield with his right boot. His splinted left forearm stayed against his ribs while his right hand pulled the cracked sword from its seam.

The bounty workers came through the doorway.

”Vera calls the cord,” Brant said. The shield edge worked beneath Dane’s left base; the cracked sword slid flat under the right rim. ”I call the weight. Tess, if you hear neither of us, let go.”

The free cord tightened under Tess’s good hand. Her wrapped left forearm remained close to Holt.

”Say it loud enough,” she said. ”My pulse is louder than both of you.”

Vera moved the collector bead forward. Chalk dragged beneath the cord, and rod two held the damaged hinge off the floor. Ada lifted rod three without opening the ring. Rod one stayed cinched to Dane’s burning tag.

”Weight,” Brant said.

His right shoulder struck Dane’s side. The borrowed shield ground under the left base while the sword bowed beneath the right. Both pins tore through Dane’s underside. The living chain behind his socket stretched, contracted, and pulled the broken root against bare wood.

”Cord.”

Tess pulled. Vera advanced the chalk. Dane left the socket by less than the length of a finger.

The motion opened his lid toward flour, fear, and the warm wrist holding the net.

Dane spent the mouth lease. His wounded tongue locked behind the lower teeth, and the lid shut before the boy crossed the bite line.

A broom head jammed beneath the borrowed shield.

Brant’s next push stopped in Dane’s pin wounds. The sweeper on the handle shoved from behind, trying to lever the shield away. Wood bent. The living chain hauled backward at the same time.

”Leave the broom,” the kitchen hand said.

”It’s issued,” the sweeper panted.

”Then lose it before you lose the arm attached.”

The handle snapped under Dane’s weight. Brant recovered the shield angle on his right shoulder. Tess waited for Vera’s call before taking the new slack, and the broken broom clattered behind them.

Release came too fast. Dane’s right rim rolled along the cracked sword, opening the blade’s old break by another thread. His left hinge struck rod two and drove burn pain through Vera’s hand.

”Hold cord,” she said through her teeth.

Tess let the free length lie slack while Ada hammered rod three back into line. Brant kept his left splint clear and used the right shoulder to settle Dane’s weight across both rails again.

”Now pull.”

The drag crossed the doorway into the maintenance approach to the outer drain.

Brackenvault pulled through Dane’s brass tag.

Pain eased.

The chain took his weight without tearing another strip from the pins. His iron bands settled toward their old grooves. The broken root stopped grinding. Even his tongue loosened as the room offered to choose the next bite for him.

Relief opened Dane’s mouth more effectively than hunger had.

Vera’s rod struck the hinge. ”Forward. The tag is making surrender feel safe.”

The Registry named the offer.

/==[ Party Link: Custody Review ]==\

| Subject: F-2 Storage Mimic Seventeen\

| Spoken Name: Unknown / Unverified\

| Assigned Role: Container Liability\

| Party Status: Contested\

| Owner Claim: Brackenvault Active\

| Easy Resolution: Return To Owner\

==[ Clerk Comfort: The Box Can Be Somebody Else’s Problem ]==/

Dane forced his tongue flat again. Brant shoved before the backward ease could settle into their hands.

The approach narrowed between low iron brackets. The cracked sword struck each one before Dane’s right corner could. Brant changed the angle; Vera moved rod two only after the split hinge cleared; Tess fed cord through her good hand under the bead’s hot restraint.

Net weights spun through the corridor and wrapped the borrowed shield’s upper rim. With the far rope taut in the maintenance boy’s hands, Brant drove forward instead of fighting the mesh sideways.

Small shoes scraped once, twice. Both knees hit stone.

The boy cried out within a lid’s reach of Dane.

Hunger lifted his tongue. Dane held the mouth shut while a cleaver slapped flat against the floor between the boy’s breath and his rim. Flour, old grease, and one adult body filled the gap.

”Behind me,” the kitchen hand told him. ”Move your feet. Tell me where it hurts later.”

”Knees,” he gasped. ”Both.”

Net rope scraped under the cleaver while she shifted closer.

”Then crawl until you can stand.”

The wax runner pushed around them. ”Leave him. The share closes when the asset crosses the drain.”

The kitchen hand cut the net rope from Brant’s shield and backed away with the boy. Her cleaver never came within Dane’s mouth. Their retreating steps forced both sweepers to split around them and cost the runner the space he had gained.

Brant kicked the loose mesh free. ”Weight.”

The next push drove a bent base pin across a floor seam. Dane’s root flared through the party link. Tess lost half a breath but released cord before her injured arm could tighten it. Holt kept pace beside her without touching the handles.

Stone brackets closed lower over the maintenance approach. The corridor squeezed Dane’s upper corners and rang against his bands. Behind them, the hook spear had returned to the runner’s hands; its point scratched closer between every drag count.

Vera pulled the traveling chalk across a broken tile.

Her boot caught the raised edge. Rod two stayed in Dane’s hinge, but the chalk route snapped sideways and her burned hand left it for one step.

The party link opened through the burn.

Cold rain flooded the burn.

Dane’s old hand rested on a cheap restaurant table with the damp receipt under his wrist. The freezer motor trembled through its legs. June’s blue-inked thumb pressed his knuckle. Then the memory skipped to rain and her coat sleeve tearing inside his grip.

Dane clamped his lid until the broken root screamed. He drove one intent into Vera’s burned hand: get out.

The link caught the name he had once pushed alone into Brackenvault’s dark.

June.