The Fusionist Book 5 -- Chapter 30

Chapter 30

On the way to Peratin, Larek and Nedira stopped by the only Aperture nearby Aperture that wasn’t closed, as the Fusionist wanted some additional Aetheric Force before he attended Fort Hilltower, but unfortunately it was an extremely weak one with Vampiric Sheep, which were essentially black sheep with red streaks running through their dense wool, as well as fangs that could suck the blood right out of your body if you weren’t careful. For Larek and Nedira, they were very careful and killed them from above as they floated by in his Pattern box; the Sheep couldn’t jump or launch any type of long-range projectiles, so it was fairly easy to wipe them out even when they practically stampeded as a horde when the Aperture was attacked.

In all, he didn’t even receive enough Aetheric Force to use on anything worthwhile, so he simply kept the 415 AF he was sitting at for a future time. At the moment, though, he wasn’t exactly hurting in terms of his Skill maximums, and in the near future he was going to be concentrating on his Martial Skills, which were – in general – fairly low and had a lot of room to grow.

Once the mountain that hosted Peratin, as well as Crystalview Academy and Fort Hilltower, was in view, Larek and Nedira set down the Pattern box around five miles away, disembarking so that they could walk the rest of the way. Everywhere they’d gone in the Kingdom, his Pattern construct had garnered too much attention and he didn’t want to risk anyone from the city seeing it when they arrived.

“How do I look?” he asked as they got ready to set out on the last leg of their journey.

Nedira looked at his face for about 10 seconds before she said, “Recognizable, but only because I know what to look for. To anyone else, you don’t look like the old Larek at all.”

“Good. Hopefully that will help,” he said, relieved. On their last rest stop, Larek had worked with his internal pattern to makes some subtle changes to his body; however, instead of condensing it down to make him smaller and shorter, he only altered his face so that he looked less like himself. The changes weren’t dramatic, with a slight lengthening of his nose, a tiny change in the slant of his eyes, a thinning of his lips, and a tiny cleft in his chin was added to make him a whole new person, at least visually.

He found the process quite easy to do compared with trying to condense his entire pattern down, though it was only made more difficult as he didn’t have a good method to see for himself the changes that he was making. He could feel the changes as he did them, but it wasn’t exactly the same as looking in a mirror or having someone else’s perspective to comment on the changes. Thankfully, he wasn’t alone and had Nedira to help him with it, but now that they were on the final leg of their journey south to the Fort, he wanted the reassurance that he still looked different enough from a casual inspection by someone who was familiar with him.

Such as the Professors from Crystalview seeing him, and in particular Dean Wilburt.

Theoretically, he could’ve changed his appearance even further so that he was completely a different person, but when he started making sweeping changes to his face, it felt wrong. He could still do it, of course, but giving himself different facial features altogether felt as if his skin was itchy and uncomfortable, as if it was aware that it was wrong and was telling him about it. It made no sense to him at first, especially considering how much he had changed his appearance by making himself shorter, but he eventually realized that his previous alterations weren’t really changes; it was still the same internal pattern, after all, just condensed. It was when he did something completely different from his normal pattern, such as giving himself an eleventh finger, that his body knew that something was wrong – and it let him know.

But subtle changes didn’t seem to have the same response, so he pushed the limit of what he could do without causing a reaction by his body. He figured it was better to be recognizable by those who really knew him than have to suffer through a perpetual itchiness that wasn’t necessary; besides, his most recognizable feature had already been altered, as anyone assuming he was the same “tall freak of nature” that had attended Crystalview Academy a half-decade ago would seriously question their assumptions.

As they began walking toward Peratin in the early morning sun, Larek asked, “So, what are you going to do while I’m attending Hilltower?”

She shrugged. “I’m not sure. I’m going to dig into any information I can get on my brother’s whereabouts, as well as our other friends’, but I’ll most likely be pulled into service like anywhere else,” she finally answered.

“We can always try and hide you, or have you stay outside somewhere?”

She thought about it for a minute before shaking her head. “No, there’s too much risk in being discovered, and communicating with you will be nearly impossible. If you’re going to be attending the Fort, then we’re going to have to look legit so as not to raise any suspicion. There can’t be any hint that we’re not going to be entering the service of any nearby cities or towns after you’re done with the Fort, or it could complicate your training.

“I’ll probably end up requesting service in Peratin, as I want to stay near my betrothed,” she added.

“Betrothed? Who—?” He chuckled. “Is this your roundabout way of asking me to marry you?”

“What? No, of course not. I wouldn’t trick you into marrying me, Larek.” She paused with a grin on her face. “Unless that’s something you want to do, of course.”

Get married? I never thought… Anyway, I’m not exactly in a good place to get married and settle down somewhere, after all. But if I was going to marry anyone, it would be Nedira.

“I would love to get married to you… as soon as all this mess is over and done with,” he said, taking her hand and bringing it up to his lips to give it a kiss while they walked. “It wouldn’t feel right without our families there for the wedding, after all.” He was still holding out hope that his family was still alive, and this was yet another motivation to work hard in order to rescue them – not that he necessarily needed any other motivation to take down the Gergasi.

“Sounds good to me,” she said quickly. “But that essentially means your my betrothed now, doesn’t it?” she asked innocently.

“But I didn’t even ask you—”

“Yes! Of course I’ll marry you, Larek!”

He stopped and looked at her with a shocked expression, and she gazed right back with an identical one on her own face. After a few seconds, they burst out laughing. He took her in his arms and gave her a deep kiss that lasted far longer than anything they’d shared up to this point, and he felt a slight loosening of the stress that had wrapped around his brain after learning about his family. The fires of anger were still smoldering away, but this little glimpse of his life outside of revenge and rescue brought him some perspective to what he was doing, and why he was doing it.

When they finally parted, he gazed into her eyes and saw the love shining up from them. The same worry that he had subtly influenced her with his Dominion magic reared its ugly head in his thoughts, but instead of pushing it away, he embraced it – along with the solution. “You know, there’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you, and it’s very important if we’re going ahead with this.”

She leaned away from him slightly as she asked, “What is it?”

Larek paused for a second before pushing forward. “Would you mind if I placed a Fusion on you, similar to what I did for Kimble?”

“Why? What exactly did it do?”

He forgot that he hadn’t exactly explained to her what the new Expression of Free Will Fusion did. After a quick description of it, she frowned as she understood what he was getting at. “I see. And you want to do this because you’re still afraid that your Dominion magic is influencing me? I… I don’t think that’s it, Larek.”

“Honestly, I don’t think it is, either, but I couldn’t live with myself and be your betrothed if I didn’t know for sure.”

She just stared at him for a few minutes, a bit of fear in her expression. He wanted to assure her that it would be perfectly safe, but that apparently wasn’t the issue. “What if it’s true, Larek? What if, all this time, my feelings for you are false?”

That was something he hadn’t seriously thought about, but he supposed he should have at some point. “Well then, at least we’ll know and go from there. Either way, I believe it’s necessary for both of us to know.”

The fear didn’t go away on her face, but she still nodded. “Fine. Do it. Quickly, before I change my mind.”

Before he knew it, they were sitting on the ground with Nedira across from him, and he was constructing an Expression of Free Will +10 Fusion. He wanted to make it as strong as possible so as to block out any attempts of mental manipulation used on her, which would also come in handy if she ever encountered another Gergasi. He was slightly worried that full coverage would prevent some of the Fusions she used, such as the one on her staff, from working – as they used a non-invasive form of mental manipulation to read her thoughts – but he intuitively knew that she would be fine. Plus, a quick perusal of the description again said that it only blocked or eliminated invasive mental manipulation, which should block even his own more subtle form of Dominion magic.

It took a few minutes for it complete, and he reached out to her head, running his fingers through her hair to touch her scalp. She shivered at his touch, but he ignored it as he directed the finished Fusion to settle under her skin, merging with her flesh as it *clicked* into place.

Nedira gasped, sucking in lungful of air, as she twitched a few times in response to the Fusion being active. As opposed to when it affected Kimble, it only stayed active for a few seconds before it went dormant, which he hoped meant that what it found was small enough that it wasn’t that big of a deal.

Once she stopped twitching, she looked up at Larek and her eyes opened wide as she caught sight of him. Uh, is this a good thing or not—

After a few seconds of searching his face, she smiled. “Thank you, Larek. I could actively feel the Fusion you created eliminating the mental manipulation in my mind. There wasn’t a lot, but it was there.”

“There was? Was it, uh, mine?” he asked cautiously.

“I’m assuming so, unless you think someone else was trying to subtly get me to like them. Either way, it’s gone now.”

“And?”

She knew what he was asking, and her smile thankfully didn’t fade away. “And I still feel the same, if not quite as strongly as I did before. I swear I sometimes felt like I just wanted to get you alone and, uh, anyway, I think I can restrain myself now,” she explained with a wink. “But I would still love to be your betrothed, if you’ll have me.”

With great relief, he said, “Of course. And thank you for being willing to risk your head being blown up to appease my conscience.”

“W-What?  B-But—” she sputtered at first, but she ended up punching him in his shoulder when she saw the smirk on his face. “I’m not so sure about this now….”

Taking her hand as he chuckled, he kissed it and said, “Oh, don’t worry, I wouldn’t have let anything happen to you.” Getting to his feet, he pulled her up behind him. “Now, let’s go – I’ve got some training to do.”

Nedira forgave him for his little joke after walking for about a mile toward the city, and as they approached the tall walls, Larek became more and more apprehensive. He vividly remembered his previous experience arriving in Peratin for his attendance of Crystalview, and he was worried about the same sort of treatment repeating.

“Don’t worry, it’s completely different this time,” the Naturalist said, identifying his unspoken worry. “You look different and your attitude has changed; you actually want to be here, remember?”

He had to admit she had a point. He wasn’t the same as he was when he first arrived at the city, and it wasn’t just his appearance. It was also true that he wanted to be there for training his Martial abilities, which was a far cry from his previous experience.

It was approaching noon by the time they arrived at the gate leading into Peratin, and he couldn’t help but notice how different things were from the last time he was there. For one, the walls appeared a bit more run down than before, with cracks and missing pieces here and there; he figured it was probably because they didn’t really see much use nowadays, as most of the action was out near the Apertures, not at the city. In fact, as he tried to sense for any nearby, he couldn’t detect any for at least a few miles; either they were already closed, or they were too far away for him to sense.

There were also far fewer people trying to get into the city, and the river and docks behind the mountain contained only a fraction of the boats he remembered seeing when he was there before. These were yet more signs of the devastation trade had undergone with the appearance of the Apertures, and he wouldn’t be surprised if they continued to get worse before they got better.

From what he could tell from afar and getting close to the gate, the only thing that hadn’t changed was the number of people living in the city. If anything, the population had expanded; despite that, there were dozens of wagons filtering into the city with food from the plethora of farms around the countryside. For some reason, it didn’t seem as though the area had been hit as badly as most of the rest of the Kingdom, meaning that there was more than enough room for the normal farms and ranches that fed the city – with even more near the walls as usual, as they didn’t have to worry about Scissions appearing and destroying them anymore.

While not an expert on farms and logistics, he’d had enough experience with them over the last few weeks to figure that it wasn’t enough to support much more than just the city, but it was a heck of a lot better than most other places he’d seen thus far in the Kingdom. Therefore, while Peratin wasn’t necessarily as prosperous as it used to be, there wasn’t as many changes as he was expecting.

One thing, though, had changed – which they heard as soon as they were close enough to the gate.

“Form three lines and no pushing! No entry without assessment! We all work together to hold back the Calamities!”

It was slightly different from what they’d heard in most other towns and cities along their journey, in particular because multiple Calamities were mentioned, but it had the same purpose: detecting those with magical potential. Thankfully, this time they were prepared – and weren’t even planning on shirking their responsibilities.

“Next!” Larek heard soon after arriving at the front of the line they were in. After walking up with Nedira by his side, the guard – a young-looking Mage – asked, “Purpose of your visit?”

The Fusionist already had his letter from Kimble out, and he presented it to the young man. “I’m here to attend Fort Hilltower for training to be a Martial.”

“Another one, huh? You’re the second one today,” he said, giving Larek and the letter only a cursory glance before handing it back to him. “And you?” the Mage asked, glancing at Nedira. Thankfully, the same as Larek, she was completely covered with his Void Curtain Fusion, meaning that any hint of the other Fusions was hidden from his sight so he didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary.

Nedira placed her hand on his arm and said, “I came here with my betrothed to join in active service while he’s training at the Fort.”

“Good to see another Mage!” the guard said, genuinely smiling at the woman. “It seems like we get Martials at three times the rate of Mages here, and I’m sure you’ll be an asset to the SIC. Are you a current or previous member?”

She hesitated so briefly that Larek barely caught it. “Previous. I’ve been of service out to the west over the last few years.”

He didn’t seem to have any problem with that. “Well, we’re glad you have you back. While your, uh, betrothed heads up to the Fort, check in with the General at SIC headquarters to get your assignment.” With a last smile, the Mage guard waved them through, and before they were even past, he shouted, “Next!”

Within a few steps, they were inside Peratin – and Larek was more than ready for the next stage of his training.