The Perfect Specimen

Talking is not the only change that took place within Alistair. He gained understanding as well. When the spiral inside of him was satiated, it then split apart another time and traveled into Alistairs brain, greedily absorbing information. The spiral constantly spun at a rapid pace, with no signs of stopping.

When Alistair heard Beth ask him a question, he was able to process it due to the new and old information being digested by the spiral connected to his brain. Which caused all the conversations he heard before to be processed and integrated into his repertoire.

Alistair can now communicate properly with others. Beth and Rodney were amazed by him talking so suddenly that they almost forgot he ate pounds of raw meat.

"Alistair, are you okay? You just consumed raw meat. That can't be good for you." Beth comes over and says with a concerned expression on her face.

"I-I'm okay, I was just hungry. Nothing else tasted good." Alistair says shyly with no concern for the cooks feelings towards the food.

"Outside, I had to eat food that tasted like that before so I am used to it." Alistair thinking back to the meat he struggled with the half zombie over. The spectators all assume Alistair meant eating raw monster meat whenever he could.

"Most monster meat would kill a person if not handled carefully, you must have been really lucky to find non-toxic food." Sebastian states while looking carefully at Alistair.

"Toxic? I don't know what that means. I like to eat the yummy food though! It stops the pain in my belly!" Alistair states with a big smile to show how satisfied he is with the food.

"Well I have heard of people with unique constitutions popping up here and there, it's not to far fetched to believe you can have some resistance to food-born illnesses. Couple that with your extended stay in the wilds and it wouldn't be weird that you were able to survive." Sebastian smiles softly at Alistair.

"Now that you have your stomach full young man, do you have any family or friends in Utopia?" The father chimes in from the side after seeing Alistair has eaten his full.

"Family? Friends? Until meeting with those nice people, there was only me..." Alistair says in a innocent tone which causes the lively atmosphere in the room to come to an awkward pause at the s.e.n.s.i.t.i.v.e issue brought up.

"I'm sorry to hear that. To make sure that you are taken care of, we will take you personally to the orphanage after this event. The people there should take proper care of you until you are old enough to attend school." Sebastian says softly with no room for argument in his voice.

The party continues on with everyone celebrating Sebastians rise to power. Alistair listens in attentively to the new flood of information that is pouring in from everyone at once.

"My son Leroy got accepted into the military academy. As long as he becomes ascended from their training my family will be set for life!" a fancily dressed woman having a conversation with another attendee of the party began bragging.

"Oh yeah, well my Veronica has already been scouted by an ascended in the military for a recommendation! It won't be long now until that ascended takes her under their wing and gives my family an easy life!" a robust man with a thick mustache bragged back to the lady

Conversations such as these are happening all around Alistair as he takes in everything. He hears one particular conversation that gives him a sense of urgency.

"That Alistair boy seems pretty suspicious. He came from the wilds with no family or acquaintances, happens to have been where Lady Beth had been and I heard that right before he showed up one of the bodyguards had just been killed." spoken in a slightly effeminate voice, Alistair is unable to see who it is that is speaking due to the large crowd of people.

"No worries, the longer he stays at the party the more chances we will have to dig up more information on the situation. After all, it's only a kid. If we want to get information out of him, how hard can it be? Especially with the Brightstars washing their hands of him." A voice that sounds eerily similar to the previous one continues the conversation.

Before Alistair is able to hear anymore of the conversation he sees Beth and Sebastian coming over. He takes a quick look around the room and notices that all the guests are leaving at once almost as if coordinated previously.

Beth and Sebastian reach Alistair and Beth says, "Well Alistair, unfortunately I will have to revoke your last name of Brightstar, however I would like you to continue using Alistair as your given name. It means defender of the people. I hope that you will be there for others as you were there for me when I needed you."

Sebastian sees Beth getting emotional over a child she had just picked up and sighs at his sisters maternal instincts overpowering her. "Sister, why don't I take Alistair to the orphanage while you prepare for the meeting with the government?"

She smiles warmly and then quickly turns and begins walking trying to cover up the tear in her eye. Alistair becomes confused, he understands that crying is a sign of sadness from his time in the car with Clem.

"Is going to the orphanage a bad thing?" Sebastian looks towards Alistair and says, "Not at all! Over there you will always get food, you will have shelter and be able to make friends! If things go well enough, you could even get adopted into a loving family!" Sebastian smiles and tries to hype up the orphanage as much as possible.

Sebastian is unsure why, but the moment he laid eyes on Alistair he felt that something was wrong. He needs to get him away from his family before something bad happens. He could just kill Alistair, but that would damage his reputation by picking on the weak.

The next best thing is to get him far away from his family as possible. Alistair had the eyes of a beast the moment he saw the meat. The unnatural energy given off by him after he ate it also didn't go unnoticed by Sebastian.

Sebastian doesn't care about if he was a danger to anyone else, due to his willingness to help earlier he had to repay his debts. Ascended have to repay their debts or the knots that debt cause in their hearts could hinder them from progressing in the future.

Sebastian puts his hand on Alistairs shoulder and asks with a smile, "Are you ready to go?"