The Fusionist Book 5 -- Chapter 27

Chapter 27

Standing near the gate leading out of Fairmeadow, Larek shook the Faction Commander’s hand as he got ready to leave with Nedira.

“What you’ve given us is incredible, Larek. You’ve only gotten better at what you do after all this time, haven’t you?”

The Fusionist just shrugged with a smile on his face rather than answer.

“Well, if you’re ever back this way, please don’t hesitate to visit – or drop off any Fusions you feel like donating to the cause,” Kimble said sincerely, the first sign of relief passing over his face as he realized that things were going to be alright. At least, Larek certainly hoped so, especially after the haul of Fusions that he’d just received, along with instructions for all of them. The Commander dropped Larek’s hand and hugged the Naturalist next to him. “And you, young lady, are welcome anytime. I wish I could join you and help keep this fellow out of trouble,” he said with a smirk directed toward the Fusionist, “but I have responsibilities here that I can’t abandon.”

“That’s perfectly understandable,” Nedira said, stepping back from the former bodyguard. “If you hear anything of the whereabouts of my brother, Verne, or any of the others, please send word. I’m not sure if where we’ll be, but there is a good chance that we’ll be at Fort Hilltower at some point.”

“Will do. Good luck and thank—”

“Hey! What’s up with the fresh meat? Where are they going?” Larek heard a shout from behind him, and he turned around to see a small group of Mages and Martials making their way inside. From what he could tell from their battered armor and dried blood covering what used to be wounds – before they were magically healed by one of the group’s Mages – they appeared to be just coming back from “patrol”. The term essentially encompassed looking for any random monsters that might have appeared around the area to closing Apertures, and he could only assume that they had just done the latter.

The one speaking was an older Martial compared to his groupmates, probably nearing 30 years old, and he had an arrogant sneer on his face that Larek immediately disliked. When he saw even the other Mages and Martials that had accompanied Kimble down to the gate to see them off step out of the man’s way, he could only assume that there was some trouble brewing that he had no desire to be a part of.

He was especially wary when he saw the shouting Martial twirl a double-bladed battleaxe in his hands as he stepped forward, looking between Larek and the Faction Commander.

The Fusionist turned toward Kimble and was about to tell the Pyromancer farewell, but apparently the arrogant Martial didn’t appreciate it.

“Don’t turn away when I’m talking to you, recruit! If our fearless – and now apparently bald – leader doesn’t have the balls to take charge of your training, then I’m more than happy to step in. In fact, I think this just goes to show that a change in leadership is needed, if this is how we treat newbies that haven’t even killed a monster before.” The man tsked a few times as he stood in front of Larek and attempted to stare him down, despite being about a half-foot shorter. “I’ve scraped better recruits off the bottom of my boots, you worthless sack of sh—”

“Axil! Now is not the time! You have no—”

“No authority? Is that what you were going to say? You put me in charge of training all our new recruits, so I believe that gives me all the authority I need to handle business – since your spine seems to have evaporated along with your hair.” Larek couldn’t help but shake his head and chuckle at the man’s over-the-top attitude. “What was that? Are you laughing, recruit? What is there to laugh at? I don’t see anything around here worth laughing about, do you? I know, how about I give you something to laugh at?” At that, the man backed up a step and started to swing his axe around, the flat side angled toward Larek’s head, but it clanged against an immovable Pattern shield that Larek made appear in an instant.

As his swing came to a complete stop without any type of rebound, Axil was slightly unbalanced and nearly fell on his face, but apparently his stats were high enough that he recovered without any issue. Of course, that didn’t stop his face from suffusing with anger as he looked around to see who had cast the spell that had stopped his abrupt attack from hitting the “new recruit”. “Who did that? How dare you interrupt—”

“Axil. I was about to say, before you so rudely interrupted me, was that you have no idea who you’re messing wi—”

“Arrrgh! No one messes with my training program!” the axe-wielding man shouted, and Stama was shunted from his body and into his axe as he activated a Battle Art. As Axil swung the weapon again, this time from the other direction, it practically blurred in Larek’s vision as it moved at quadruple the speed it did before. It was still angled so that the flat would hit him, but the Fusionist didn’t want to waste any of his Automatic Ice Repulsion Field charges, so he simply moved the Pattern shield with a thought and blocked the strike.

Of course, that just pissed the man off more, and he swung again and again at Larek from an array of directions, but they were all easily blocked by his Pattern construct. His own Agility stat was higher than Axil’s by a good amount, and even with the speed of his blows increased so that most Mages wouldn’t be able to follow them, the Fusionist had no problems at all.

“Would you mind not doing that?” Larek asked after approximately two dozen attacks. “We really need to get going.”

“No! You’re my newest recruit and I need to teach you your first lesson!”

Sighing in exasperation, at the tiring man’s next blow, he quickly manipulated the Pattern in his shield and wrapped it around the axe. When Axil tried to retrieve it, he couldn’t make it budge even a bit. “Here’s a lesson for you, Axil,” Larek said loudly, so that everyone could hear. Applying his Agility stat to its highest amount, he took a step toward the man’s side, but to most it looked like he simply appeared in another place. Still moving quickly, he leaned in close and whispered into Axil’s ear.

“Don’t judge people by their appearances.”

Sure, it wasn’t the most impressive of things he could’ve whispered to the man, such as “Don’t start fights you can’t win,” or “Think before you act stupidly,” or even “Learn not to make a fool of yourself,” but what he actually said resonated with Larek more than anything else. He’d been judged for his appearance for most of his life, and while he’d corrected a bit of that by making himself shorter, he was still being judged. This time it was because he was still wearing his ill-fitting and singed clothing, holding a relatively basic-looking sack over his shoulder that appeared empty, and had a common-looking Logger’s axe on his side. The only thing that looked halfway impressive was his new work boots, which he’d picked up that morning from the Tailor; they fit perfectly and replaced his too-large, destroyed pair with a comfort that he hadn’t experienced in years. His new clothes were in his sack until he could find some time to add Fusions to them, so with his current attire he probably appeared like some sort of poor Logger that had come to Fairmeadow after learning that he had the potential to become a Mage or Martial.

The anger emanating from Axil was palpable, and instead of verbally responding to Larek’s presence by his side, he let go of his trapped axe and swung around to punch the Fusionist in the face.

That was his second mistake. The original mistake was deciding to attack Larek in the first place, but he’d only compounded on that mistake by continuing despite the obvious signs that his target wasn’t someone he could bully around. The Fusionist had enough of that in his life already that he didn’t put up with it anymore; but that didn’t mean that Larek had to be a bully in return. He wasn’t going to deliberately attack Axil to “teach him a lesson”, or accidentally kill him such as what happened to Borex in Tarvada, but he was certainly going to defend himself.

Before his Automatic Ice Repulsion Field could activate from the incoming attack, Larek moved his own hand to intercept the incoming punch, grabbing the man’s fist with his own and stopping it with only about half of his Strength stat employed into doing so. With a further flex of his stat, he immediately twisted his fist and subsequently the arm it was attached to, and he heard and felt the limb’s bones crack under the sudden pressure.

Axil screamed as the shock of his arm being practically ripped apart shuddered through him, and he collapsed to his knees as Larek kept ahold of the fist in his hand. He let it drop a second later, which only seemed to enhance the pain that the arrogant Martial was feeling – at least according to the scream volume he heard – and Larek looked up to see the man’s group staring at him before they began to move to attack him.

“Hold! Do not attack this man!” the Faction Commander shouted, which thankfully stopped Axil’s group from reacting poorly to the situation.

“But he—”

“I need to heal—”

“He can’t do—”

They began to protest, but Kimble simply held up his hand and the words died on their lips. Larek smiled inwardly at how much authority the Pyromancer held within the faction, as he still remembered the still relatively young man as his bodyguard.

The Fusionist slung his sack off his shoulder and reached inside, pulling out one of the emergency Fusions he had separate from all the rest of his supplies. There were only a few of these Fusions, but what he extricated from the Void Pocket was a simple copper bracelet with a Healing Surge Fusion on it, which he quickly reached down and slipped over the wrist of the injured Martial, eliciting another scream in the process. Activating it, he ignored the gasps of the onlookers as the arm that Larek had mangled reset itself back to normal with a few disturbing *pops* and *cracks* during the process, and within 20 seconds the limb was perfectly healed – along with any other injuries that the man might have had on him.

The dazed and confused Martial didn’t protest as Larek reached down and slipped the bracelet off his wrist before popping it back into his sack. Squatting down in front of Axil so that they were at eye-level with each other, since the man was still on his knees, the Fusionist smiled and said, “Hello. I’m Larek. It’s nice to meet you. I hope that you have learned my little lesson from this misunderstanding, because if not, you might actually get hurt from your mistakes. I really hope that doesn’t happen, as you seem like you really care about the training you do with new recruits. Unfortunately for you, I’m not one of them.”

Larek stood up as Axil continued to kneel, staring up at the Fusionist with confusion and not a little amount of fear. Addressing the other newcomers, so that there weren’t any more misunderstandings, he said, “As for why myself and my companion are leaving, it’s because we already performed a service for the city and your Faction, and we have places we need to be. You can speak to my old friend, the Commander, for more details, and I wish you luck in defending against the monsters coming from the Calamity.”

Speaking has reached Level 24!

The increase in his Speaking Skill was a surprise, but he’d take it. Reaching for Nedira’s hand, he pulled her close before releasing Axil’s double-bladed battleaxe from his Pattern Cohesion, before manipulating it into a thin sheet that he had flow beneath their feet. Within seconds, his high Pattern Manipulation Skill allowed him to make his Pattern box once again around them, and they took off into the air.  The both of them waved back at Kimble as they ascended, and while it strained his focus to raise so high above the ground, he wanted to get out as quickly as possible without fear that any of the people watching would be able to follow.

“I’m proud of you, Larek.”

The Fusionist looked at Nedira holding onto his arm with a questioning look on his face.

“For not killing him after he attacked you.”

Larek shook his head. “Why would I do that?”

“Well, after what happened to that man back in Tarvada—”

“That was mostly an accident,” he admitted. While he hadn’t actually intended to kill the “Supreme Provider”, he also hadn’t worked to prevent it – or felt bad about it afterwards. “There was no reason to kill Axil, even if he was too willing to jump to conclusions and judge me on my appearance. Besides, he deliberately turned his axe so that I wouldn’t be too seriously hurt if he actually managed to make contact, so he wasn’t actually trying to kill me.”

“Oh. Well, I’m still proud of you for handling all that without resorting to drastic measures,” she said.  “Every day, I’m discovering more and more about you that has changed since you’ve been gone.”

“Are they good changes?”

“Yes, for the most part. The new confidence you have in yourself which you were originally lacking is sometimes a bit intense, but you definitely have the stats and Skills to back it up,” Nedira answered with a smirk.

Intense? Me? He supposed that he certainly was more confident in himself than he used to be, which mainly came about from being on his own for so long. He had to survive with only his own abilities, which led to an independence that he didn’t know he needed at the time. Now, though, he was just glad that it translated well to interacting with people, and all because he wasn’t afraid to stand up for himself and hold people accountable for their actions. He was still probably a bit naïve and willing to accommodate the wishes of others over his own, especially when doing so didn’t put himself or Nedira in danger, but it was hard to change who he was; because, deep down, he really did want to help people and hoped that might like him, but he wasn’t ready to abandon everything he cared about to fulfil those wants and hopes.

“Yes, well,” he said, slightly embarrassed as he unconsciously rubbed the back of his neck. “Everything worked out fine, and Kimble and his local Faction should be doing much, much better now.”

That was an understatement. Since it was his former bodyguard, Larek had no problem sharing his Fusions with the Faction Commander, which included staves, bracelets, and necklaces with offensive, boost, and healing Fusions on them, upping the efficiency of the Mages and Martials involved in the Defense Faction there by a large order of magnitude. He didn’t get a chance to add any Sharpen or Strengthen Fusions to any existing weapons or armor, but the upgrade they would be getting was already impressive enough.

They also received the whole set of farming Fusions, leaving only a few for Larek to lug around in his Void Pocket sack from that point on. Within a week, they would be able to grow enough food to feed the population of Fairmeadow at least twice over, which would – similarly to Tarvada – help to free up some more Mages and Martials to concentrate on the local Apertures, as well as the Calamity. He didn’t think they would be actively working to close the Calamity any time soon, but it was a step in the right direction.

In exchange for all the Fusions, Larek simply asked for his previous requirements of feeding everyone who was hungry and the letter for him to use to get into Fort Hilltower, which was now in his sack, but that wasn’t all. Joining the letter were blank materials to replace the ones that were given to Kimble, so that he could remake the Fusions that Larek had parted with. He didn’t get a chance to create any Fusions the night before or that morning because they had luxuriated in the feeling of sleeping in a bed again, and there hadn’t really been time to devote to such an activity. Coming up, though, he planned to put aside some time every night while they were on the move to rebuild his supply.

“That’s for sure,” Nedira agreed. “You single-handedly turned their whole operation around.”

He didn’t know that for sure, but they would at least have a much better time of things.

“Now, according to the map in Kimble’s office, we have a little bit left to go toward the east before we can start heading north, adjusting our route to skirt the edge of the Calamity,” she added, looking out at the passing landscape as they slowly descended to an easy-to-maintain altitude once again.

“Sounds good to me.” After getting a better idea of where they were in the Kingdom, he could feel the end of his journey back to his family slowly closing in. He was feeling more confident of finding everyone safe and sound, especially after finding Kimble alive and well – or at least alive. The stress the Faction Commander was under was immense, he knew, but his former bodyguard was handling it fairly well.

While the chance that they’d find Nedira’s brother, Larek’s roommate, and the rest of their friends on their way north was slim, he now knew that such a thing wasn’t impossible. He just hoped they got lucky and found a clue to their whereabout during their journey – which likely meant stopping and talking with people more often than he cared for, but it was also necessary if they wanted any chance of locating them.

“We should reach the next city sometime tomorrow if we aren’t delayed too much,” he added. The possibility of a delay was likely, because he was eager to earn more Aetheric Force to use on raising his maximum Skill Levels – because Pattern Manipulation was maxed out once again. Now he just needed to find a nice, juicy Aperture with strong monsters to give him exactly what was needed.