Hou took Armen out leaving Da to protect Renè and Junior. As they left the dome, Hou took out ten parasites from his flowing black robe and layed them out on the floor.
"Take your pick, you can choose any five of these parasites"
"What do they do Hou?"
Hou shrugged "I don't know. The only way to tell is to use it so make your choice and hope you chose well!"
Armen flinched but then let out a long sigh. He put his hand on his chin and thought for a few minutes before saying,
"I've decided! I'll take those three on the left and those two on the right..."
"Okay I'll start to give them to you, first these three vine like plants, from my knowledge they should make you stronger in general where it attaches. One of them is red and presumably does something special. So where do you want them?"
"I want them... All on my legs! Two on the right, one on the left, the second on the right should be the special one. I've thought and I've created a move in my head, this is perfect!"
"Okay it's your choice" Hou moved the vines and they wrapped themselves onto Armen's skin causing his legs to bled but then quickly heal again.
"What next, two ordinary looking plants but one has some sort of fuzz?"
"Put the fuzzy one on my right arm and the other on my left eye" Armen said it confidently but he had no idea what would happen but he wanted to seem ready.
Hou did so and Armen's eye turned from a hazel to a green. And on his right forearm, a large fuzzy green leaf formed a sort of shield.
"Now all that's left is to try them out, first do the legs and run about"
Armen did that and he started to run then activating his parasites and he bursted forward. Then he activated the second parasite in his right leg and when he pushed off that leg he seemed to jolt back. He assumed it was wrong and tried again but the same thing happened.
Hou was looking upon but noticed nothing wrong and shouted,
"Try the second red parasite on your leg!"
"I did! Lemme come back,"
Armen ran back and said what happened but Hou had no idea, from his perspective he saw nothing wrong and Hou ran straight forward.
"Hmm... Let's leave that for now, I don't know what happened. What about your eye?
Armen activated his eye and then could see the minute details of Hou's robe and could count individual strands of fiber
"Wow! I can see everything, it's like everything is massive, I can see even the smallest details!" A big smile was plastered on Armen's face as he looked around.
And the last, the leaf on Armen's right forearm, Hou could tell it was clearly a shield but still asked Armen to activate it.
As Armen activated it, the leaf confirmed to his muscles and became transparent.
"It looks like a shield to me, allow me to punch your forearm" Hou asked and waited for Armen to nod.
Hou launched a light punch and nothing happened. Hou paused but then let out a much stronger punch, when he made contact the leaf shield bounced up and knocked Hou back.
"Very useful, you might be better than me at defending now!"
Armed rubbed the back off his head the helped Hou back up,
"What about the other parasites, are you going to use them?"
"Yes I suppose so, let's see what happens."
Hou took all five parasites and aligned then across his body and attached them. In a second they all pierced the robe and attached to Hou.
On Hou's back was a large leaf which when attached split into two and formed wings that unfurled. On his arms two ordinary vines. Then on each ear, he attached white flowers.
Hou instantly was drawn to the wings and activated them, in an instant they felt like his own body and he could flap them and he started to rise into the sky. Hou felt the freedom of birds and floated in the air causing Armen below to shield himself from the wind.
Hou decided to fully rest then later and went back on the floor.
"....WOAHHHH!" Armen was struck with the sheer power of parasites as he saw the unnatural sight of human flight.
Hou then activated his ear parasite and heard murmuring. He focused on it and realised...
He could hear plants!
He could hear the situation of far away through the spirit of plants connected nearby. Hou focused on one plant and heard fighting far north but decided not to interfere yet.
"This is a bountiful day, let's start to head back and grab a boar to eat on the way"
"Okay!"
Hou and Armen walked back while they talked about each others parasites. When they encountered a boar, Armen easily kicked it then snapped it's neck in a grapple. They were no longer simple humans, they could fight amongst animals and even monsters.
Armen carried the boar back and helped René to butcher then cook it over a fire.
For the first time in a long time, Hou had a fresh home cooked meal and gave his thanks, only at night did he make a move.
Hou sneaked out of the formation of concealment and activated his wings and absorption. The wings used a lot of qi but we're easily fed by activating the symbiote at the same time. Hou took off and started flying.
At the start he couldn't keep steady and went up and down, turning in every which way. But after an hour of hard flying he could just about fly steady with a lot of focus. He would take every night to practice.
Practice was the main reason but also Hou liked it in the sky, he spent more than a century in a cave but now he was free and he wanted to feel it.