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

The choice reached Dane through the pressure closing around Tess’s left forearm.

Her one shallow cut warmed his tongue. Brant’s sword trembled beneath the lower rim. The crooked tooth held one corner of the jaw above her pulse, its root split around the token shard.

Dane chose `Hold Open`.

The tooth sheared at the root.

Its broken end drove through the soft bed beneath it. Dane’s lockplate kicked outward, the split left hinge peeled against rod two, and the pins under his base plowed sap and blood through living wood. Root pain crossed the containment ring hard enough to jar Brant’s sword and shake Tess’s arm inside Dane’s mouth.

Rod one burned against the brass tag. Rod two stayed seated under Vera’s left-hand pressure. Rod three pitched in its floor socket, and a sharp gasp carried the scent of Vera’s scorched skin through the anchor as her burned right hand caught its strain from her side of the circle.

Rod three steadied under Ada’s answering pressure. Vera’s scorched hand added a second shove through the same anchor route, enough to halt its outward pitch before the ring could open.

The choice recorded what Dane had paid.

/==[ Party Link: Choice Receipt ]==\

| Subject: Mind Found In Mimic Frame\

| Selected Action: Hold Open\

| Feed Completion: Refused\

| Control Lease: +0.31% Mouth Access\

| Lease Condition: Party Containment Active\

==[ Refusal Paid In Teeth ]==/

Dane pushed at the iron bands. They kept tightening. He reached for the base pins, the lockplate, the room’s lid command. Nothing answered.

His tongue did.

The lease ended at his mouth and would die with Ada’s ring. His permanent Control remained 0.08%.

Brant rolled the bowed sword against Dane’s rim. Right-hand torque changed from wedge pressure to leverage; the left splint struck his ribs but never reached the weapon.

”Tess. Follow my right shoulder when it moves. Let the arm hurt after you’re clear.”

Her tendons tightened across Dane’s mouth floor. ”Move it.”

Holt’s prayer mark drew the shared pain into separate paths. The root fracture quit spilling through Brant’s grip. Tess’s cut stayed inside the arm they needed to move. Hunger remained in Dane, while the order to close traveled down from the property tag.

The distinction lasted only as long as Holt could hold it.

Dane’s commanded tongue curled toward Tess’s wrist.

He spent the lease in the opposite direction.

The thick muscle slammed onto his lower teeth. Their points entered from beneath. The tongue recoiled, but Dane drove it down again until tooth and flesh locked together beneath the lid.

Conversion fluid and blood flooded the grooves from a wound Dane’s own teeth had opened. Brackenvault wrenched at the tongue for another strike. He shoved through the recoil, burying the muscle deeper until it became a doorstop.

The brass tag branded one compressed notice through the obstruction.

`Asset Misuse: Tongue Response Converted To Bite Obstruction.`

`Revenue Loss: Active. Correction: Complete Feed.`

`Tools Do Not Choose Their Work.`

The living chain contracted behind Dane’s socket. His base jerked toward the rear wall, tearing the pins through another strip of wood. Ceiling teeth ground down over the right breach. Shield iron buckled under them. A recovery hook shrieked but stayed pinned in its floor groove; beside it, the medic’s clasp snapped and the smell of fresh packing smothered some of the injured warder’s blood.

”Linen coming through,” the medic called.

Metal scraped stone. Folded splint and fresh cloth crossed the shrinking shield gap toward Holt, then the ceiling teeth ground lower and sealed the path again.

Milo’s return charm answered faintly beyond the left wall.

Dane pressed his tongue harder onto the teeth. The lower row cut deeper, but the doorstop held. Brant leaned through the sword lever. The split hinge opened by another thread around its pin.

Between steel and tongue, the gap grew to less than two fingers.

Tess’s forearm began to slide over Dane’s tongue.

The same shallow cut dragged across the broken tooth bed. Blood ran into the root cavity, and his intake convulsed hard enough to pull the two free coppers away from the lip. The dirty copper burned below reach. Vera’s fringe and every piece of shattered token stayed pinned at the ruined root.

No new tooth reached Tess.

”Now,” Brant said.

The pommel hauled down. His right shoulder turned the sword against Dane’s rim, and Tess followed the change in pressure. Holt’s pull traveled along the trapped forearm, lengthwise with the bone rather than sideways across the jaw.

Her wrist caught at the narrowing gap.

Brackenvault’s chain dragged Dane backward. The torn shields buckled at the right breach. Rod three ground in its socket; Vera’s right-hand pressure struck the anchor while her left kept rod two inside Dane’s hinge. Ada drove the third rod from the other side before the ring could fold.

Brant gave the lever one last wrench.

Tess’s pulse slipped across Dane’s tongue, struck the wounded rim, and vanished from his mouth.

Her sleeve followed. Then the length of her forearm cleared his teeth, leaving warm blood and empty space behind.

”Arm clear,” Holt said.

The medic’s clasp snapped open beside him. ”Five fingers responding. Perfusion holds. Same cut. Bring her to the splint.”

Dane’s jaws slammed on empty air.

Brant’s sword remained between them.

Steel folded against Dane’s rim with a deep crack. One half scraped the tongue; the other stayed under pommel torque in Brant’s right hand. The impact tore the doorstop free and mashed Dane’s tongue against the lockplate.

His mouth opened again.

Feed search hunted for the arm it had lost. Blood on the floor pulled the lid wider. Tess’s pulse had left Dane’s contact map, but the ring still carried her fear nearby. Holt’s prayer mark shook beside her; Brant’s damaged blade shifted across the bite line; Vera’s rod held the hinge.

One more full opening would put all of them back inside the search.

Dane used the remaining mouth lease to shut himself.

The tongue flattened. His broken root struck bare wood. The left hinge buckled inward, and the lid closed before the upper teeth cleared the rim.

The ring caught the second refusal.

/==[ Party Link: Choice Receipt ]==\

| Follow-Up Reflex: Feed Search\

| Selected Action: Shut Mouth\

| Hunger Backwash: Shared\

| Witnessed By: Four Living Members\

| Permanent Control Award: Pending Survival\

==[ Clerk Note: Repeated Refusal Is Evidence ]==/

Hunger backwash hit the four-member circuit.

Tess’s pulse lurched through the ring, outside Dane’s teeth at last. Holt gagged against the prayer mark but kept the pain routes apart. Brant drove the broken sword into a floor groove. The impact reached Dane through stone, followed by a heel-skid and one ragged breath that never became a fall. Vera’s rod hammered the hinge as her body absorbed the urge to open, seize, and feed.

Rod three carried a different strain. Ada bore the ring’s attempt to translate Dane’s appetite, but the hunger never entered her as a fifth party member.

The backwash ebbed. The award stayed pending. Dane owned no new permanent fraction.

Brant kept the broken sword between Dane’s mouth and the blood beyond it. ”How long before that search comes back?”

”The ring keeps him contested while it holds,” Ada said. The anchor foot scraped in widening stone. ”You have minutes at most. Every slip goes through his mouth.”

Milo’s charm pulsed again beyond the left wall, weaker than the last answer.

Vera held rod two against Dane’s damaged hinge. ”Can he understand words?”

”Pressure and intent reached him. Anything beyond that is a guess.”

The hinge route tightened. Vera’s burned hand still carried the bitter scent of spell backlash.

”I don’t forgive what your mouth almost did,” she said. ”But you bought us time. Keep choosing, and I’ll spend it.”

Dane held his mouth shut.

Something small fell from Tess’s torn sleeve. Waxed cord slapped the stone near Dane’s front corner; a weighted bead clicked once and rolled within a tongue’s length of his rim. Handled silver and old wax reached him through the seam.

The brass tag heated.

`Restraint Hardware Within Intake Range.`

Swallow it. Hide the rival claim in your gut. Leave the rescuers to blame one another.

The silver trace stirred hunger; Tess’s shame pleased the room.

Party containment still held the mouth lease, though every rod shook. Opening again risked waking the feed search before anyone could move Tess farther away.

Dane raised the lid by less than a nail’s width.

Brant’s broken sword shifted off the floor. Holt’s prayer route tightened around Tess. Rod two drove harder into Dane’s hinge. The ring treated the small opening as a possible return to the bite.

Dane kept the teeth behind the rim.

His wounded tongue reached stone and found the cord. Waxed fibers compressed under the tip. Silver thread ran inside them to a locking bead, the collector’s claim ridges sharp beneath his tongue. He rolled it once. Inner catches stopped at handle-width, hinge-width, then narrowed to the span of a grown limb. On the last turn, one caught the torn edge of his tongue.

The tag urged intake.

Dane pushed instead.

The bead scraped across stone, away from his mouth. Cord followed in short waxed jerks until the collector ridges reached the edge of Tess’s breathing and stopped beside her.

His tongue slid back, and Dane lowered the lid until wood met wood.

Cloth shifted near the bead. Its silver trace lifted from the floor, then vanished into a warm grip. Tess said nothing.

Behind the socket, the living chain tightened. The pull struck Dane’s broken root, crossed the torn hinge, and entered the ring while he kept his jaws closed.