The Fusionist Book 5 -- Chapter 2

Chapter 2

“I… can’t.”

Larek sighed, dropping his hand from Nedira’s shoulder.

“I don’t understand. We’ve left the tunnels—”

“It’s not that,” the green-robed Mage said, turning around and looking straight into Larek’s eyes. He could see that her own were wet, and he reached up to wipe away a tear that had tracked itself down her cheek. Nedira reached up and grabbed his hand, pressing it against her face as she leaned her head into it.

“It’s alright if you don’t want to talk about it; that had to be a horrible experience.”

She didn’t say anything for a moment. “It’s not that, either, though it certainly was the worst thing I’ve ever had happen to me.”

“Then—”

“It’s because I don’t remember!” she explained, nearly shouting by the end.

Larek was now confused. She clearly remembered him, which was unusual in and of itself considering that she had been affected by Chinli’s Dominion magic, so what couldn’t she remember?

“Umm… what?”

She sighed as she pulled his hand away from her cheek. “I remember you, as well as vague recollections of our time at Crystalview and Copperleaf Academies, but the rest is… fuzzy. Whatever that Gergasi did to me never fully removed all knowledge of you, though I could never seem to act on that knowledge. After whatever you did to bring me back, however, any trace of what she did to me is gone.

“Unfortunately, being possessed by that Demon damaged quite a bit of my memories, to the point where I can only remember the events in the Kingdom in general terms over the past few years. As for what I was doing in Lowenthal… I’m pretty sure I was part of an expedition heading to the Sealance Empire to the west, but I can’t remember who was with me. I do know that we were going there for a specific purpose, though.”

Larek was silent for a moment as he took in what Nedira was saying. He felt horrible for her that her memories had been damaged because of what the Umbral Demons had done to her, and he wished some of them still existed just so he could destroy them again. However, what he heard also didn’t make much sense, because leaving the Kingdom for the Empire seemed counterproductive, especially as it apparently happened before the Scissions and Apertures spread throughout the world.

“What reason was that?” he asked.

She didn’t hesitate to answer now. “To establish trade for food.”

“Food? Why food?”

She shook her head slowly with a faraway look in her eyes. “That’s the part I don’t remember.”

“Well then, what do you remember?”

She visibly gathered her thoughts this time before answering.  “Well, after you left, the Kingdom was in a bit of turmoil due to the introduction of Apertures, and the knowledge about them spread quite quickly – thanks to the Gergasi, I assume, though I didn’t know it at the time. I went to Silverledge Academy with my brother and Verne, graduated at the end of the year, and then was drafted into the SIC to start hunting down monsters despite my wishes otherwise. Fragmented memories of the next few years have me traveling around with different groups of SIC members closing Apertures, but I can’t remember any places or faces. The only thing I do remember is that at some point there were Apertures that had expanded to the point where even the strongest teams of Mages and Martials couldn’t close them, only contain them at the point they were at.

“At some point, something changed.” She paused for a moment as her face scrunched up, as if she was searching her mind for the answer. “I think the Apertures began to slow their reopening rate, giving us a little breathing room, which was when different expeditions were sent out to neighboring lands – such as the one I was a part of.”

“To negotiate for food, right?”

“Yes,” she agreed with a nod.

Considering what she said for a moment, Larek could only think of one scenario that fit the narrative and would lead to the point where expeditions for food were needed. The Apertures had obviously grown so large and made the land so dangerous that the vast farms he’d seen before on his travels between academies had likely been abandoned, or they were changed entirely due to the environmental effects of the Apertures. As they expanded, even more land was taken away from what could be used for farming, which would inevitably lead to famine and the need for food. He’d seen hints of it back at Crystalview before he and the others were forced to flee from there, as trade started to break down and shipments were disrupted by the increase in monsters across the land. It was bad enough when they were roaming around, but if they had permanent areas where monsters appeared, then the likelihood that trade and travel had become worse was much greater.

“I think I understand, at least the general idea,” he assured her, as she appeared pained by the fact that she couldn’t give him a better picture of what was currently happening in the Kingdom. While it would’ve been very helpful knowing that kind of information, he was just glad that Nedira was alive and safe with him now. “Is there anything else you remember?”

She shook her head. “No, not really. What I really wish I knew was where Norde and the rest of our friends went after graduation.”

“You don’t remember? Sorry, you obviously don’t.” She appeared quite stressed by that lack of knowledge. Larek would also like to know where they were, but finding them might be a difficult prospect until they could figure out what was really going on in the Kingdom at the moment.

She abruptly smacked him in the arm, letting her hand linger on it a second later as she said, “But you still haven’t told me why you were in those tunnels. Were you there the whole time?”

That’s right; things were a bit chaotic after I brought her back from her possession that I never got a chance to explain. Given that she, herself, hadn’t really wanted to talk about it while they were underground, he had put off going into detail.

So, he sat down on one of the bags of supplies inside the Skimmer and began to tell her of his adventures – or misadventures, as it was. He described what happened when Chinli was attacked by the Warped Void Hunters and being sucked into the void, where he was trapped for a number of years, before being spit out into a lake in the Sealance Empire. He described how he had unlocked his Stama Subjugation Skill and even acquired another Battle Art, but he was still ignorant of their activation and use despite actually gaining a Level in the Skill during his fight against the monsters controlled by the Umbral Demons. Another hour went by as he detailed his journey through the Empire, closing Apertures and avoiding notice as much as possible.

He attempted to skip over the events in Swiftwater with the all-female Underworld Society and his subsequent destruction of their base of operations, but Nedira chuckled and made him describe it all in great detail for some reason – especially how he was lured into their underground base in the first place. She also seemed inordinately interested in the ferry boat he helped to create, and rightly extrapolated that he had used some of the same ideas to create his Air Skimmer.

The only thing she didn’t really want to hear about was his experience in the tunnels under the desert, which was understandable given what had happened to her there. Still, he quickly explained what happened as concisely and without detail as he could, so she would know how he ended up where he found her. It was only when he described his new Skill that she asked for him to describe what it was a bit more and even demonstrate it for her, which he did by creating a shield out of his Pattern and then an axe, both of which he could now maintain while moving slowly. It wasn’t overly helpful yet, but it was progress compared to where he started.

“I want to see if I can learn that in the future, as I can see how useful that could be,” she said, shaking her head with a laugh.

“What’s funny?”

“Just when I thought I remembered you fully, something like this makes me realize I barely recall half of what makes you so… unique,” she admitted. “I forgot until now that you seem to be able to do the impossible, and it comes to naturally to you that you barely notice it.”

“Well—”

She held up a hand with another chuckle. “I’m not saying it’s a bad thing; far from it, in fact. It’s just going to take some getting used to again.” They sat in silence for a moment, before she asked something that took him off-guard. “So, what are our plans now?”

That… was an excellent question.

“Well, originally I wanted to come back to the Kingdom for a couple of reasons. First and foremost was to find my friends and family to ensure they were safe, which has been partially fulfilled by your presence,” he said, taking her hand in his with a smile. “To aid in keeping them safe was to go back to the Academy, or more precisely, a Fort.”

She seemed confused for a second before her eyes opened in comprehension. “Ah, your Martial abilities. But I thought you said you unlocked Stama Subjugation already?”

“I did,” he confirmed, “but I haven’t been able to figure it out yet. More than that, though, I have very little in the way of training in the ways of fighting; I’ve been using my  Fusions, as well as my overwhelming speed and strength, to win my fights, but if I was evenly matched stat-wise with even a mediocre Martial member of the SIC, they would likely defeat me handily. In addition, I’ve mostly been fighting weaker monsters, as those were what appeared in the Empire, and I barely survived against the stronger ones controlled by the Umbral Demons – and those weren’t even that strong compared to what I remember from my Monster Knowledge classes.”

Nedira nodded. “From what I recall of those monsters… down there,” she said quickly, likely not wanting to remember them, “only a few would be classified at the level of a Category 3 or 4 Scission, and what little I remember from my time fighting the Apertures in the Kingdom, there are much stronger monsters. Of course, we always fought in larger groups to tackle those types of threats, shoring up our weaknesses with numbers, so isn’t that something that you could do, too? Is training at a Fort even necessary?”

What she said made some sense, but after being alone for so long during his trek through the Empire, he knew that it wasn’t as simple as that. Besides, there was one thing that he hadn’t mentioned to her yet, which was the real reason he needed to get training.

“Yes, unfortunately. There’s… something about my Battle Arts that I haven’t told you quite yet, which makes it imperative that I receive some sort of training as soon as possible.” He took a deep breath before continuing.  “My Stama seems to have a mind of its own sometimes, and I’ve lost control of myself while my Battle Arts have been active. I’m slowly trying to get a handle on it and have a few successes in maintaining a modicum of control, but I’m worried that it’ll happen when there are innocent people nearby that could be hurt by it. Not to mention that it almost inevitably wipes out most of my physical energy after it’s deactivated, leaving me extremely vulnerable. If that happens at the wrong moment, I may not survive.”

“I… see. That is definitely a problem.” She sat there thinking for a moment. “I agree that you should get some training, at least, but attending one of the Forts could be problematic.”

“Why?”

She waved toward him, taking in his entire body. “Well, look at you; there were already problems before with you attending an Academy, and with you being so tall and much older than normal students, your appearance will certainly be remarked upon. If anything, your height will get you into even more trouble than before.”

“What? Why would that be?”

“Ah. I think I forgot to mention something else that I remembered,” she said a little hesitatingly. “Knowledge of the Gergasi, or the ‘Great Ones’ that the Nobles were enslaved to, has become common enough that the general population are aware that they still exist and are controlling things from behind the scenes.”

Larek was shocked. “How did that happen? Wait—did you say ‘were’ enslaved to?”

Nodding, she explained. “At a point that I don’t recall too clearly, the Dominion magic controlling most of the Nobles suddenly vanished, freeing them immediately from their enslavement. It was these Nobles that disseminated the information about them to the public, as a recruitment tactic to bring everyone together to fight the Gergasi, I believe, but it came to naught because everyone was too consumed with defending against the Apertures to rally against the powerful giants. The Nobles’ efforts were further stymied by the fact that the Gergasi seemed to retreat even further from the world, disappearing completely to the point where not even those who had semi-regular contact with them could find them.”

Larek sat there with his mouth open in surprise at what he was hearing, because it was the last thing he expected. After a minute or so, he closed his mouth with a snap, only to open it again as he started to speak aloud while he worked out what he thought happened.

“They must have realized they were losing against the Corruption and cut all ties with the Kingdom. I’m sure they’re all holed up in the Enclave, protecting it directly from the breach, while the rest of the world burns around them.”

“Do you really think they would do something like that?” Nedira asked.

Honestly, Larek wasn’t sure, but it fit what he knew about them. The people of the Kingdom were only a means to an end, with that end being power over the people; once they found that the people couldn’t fend for themselves, they abandoned them to their fate.

But there was something about it that didn’t quite fit. Based on his, albeit limited, interaction with Chinli, there were at least some that considered the people their subjects instead of just slaves, at least as far as wanting to protect them; it was why she had been sent out to investigate the Aperture in the first place, and didn’t end up slaughtering everyone who saw her or knew of Larek. So for them to completely abandon the people of the Kingdom to save themselves was, while not completely uncharacteristic of what little he knew of their nature, was… strange. The fact that they suddenly stopped their Dominion magic enslaving all the Nobles was doubly odd, because he couldn’t reason why they would do something like that.

Of course, it was a good thing for the people of the Kingdom; he wasn’t denying that ending their slavery was beneficial in the long run. It was only that he couldn’t fathom an explanation of why the Gergasi would suddenly withdraw their controlling magic.

With conflicting thoughts on the subject, Larek shrugged in response to Nedira’s question. “Maybe? Something seems off about the theory to me. I’m obviously not overly fond of them for multiple reasons, but I still can’t see them doing something like that. At least not voluntarily.”

Which, if he was following his logic, meant that they had done it involuntarily. How that came about, he had no idea, but it ultimately didn’t matter at the moment. What concerned him was what he was going to do now that he’d returned to the Kingdom.

“Regardless, you didn’t really answer my original question. What are we going to do now?”

After considering all the reasons for coming back to the Kingdom, one of them took priority over everything else. As Nedira had mentioned, attending a Fort for training would be difficult, but he had some ideas about making it work. It was on the list of things he wanted to get done, though it wasn’t at the top.

Finding his friends and companions – including his roommate, Verne, and Nedira’s brother, Norde – was also on the list, but they were probably below training for himself if he was being honest. Accessing his Stama and fully utilizing his Battle Arts without losing control was more important to him than finding them at the moment. It wasn’t out of selfishness, but out of necessity so that he didn’t hurt himself or others. Besides, they had no idea where everyone had ended up, and he could only assume that all of them were perfectly capable of taking care of themselves, having been trained to join the SIC.

That left only one other goal that took priority: his family. Having not seen them in more than half a decade, he had no idea what had happened to them after he had left, and they weren’t exactly capable of defending themselves properly if monsters appeared near the Rushwood forest. He had already considered checking up on them when he had been forced to flee Copperleaf Academy, but had held off because he thought it would be safer if he stayed away; traveling through the hostile countryside all the way up north was also an issue at that time, adding to additional reasons why he decided against checking on them.

But all of that had changed. Larek was no longer helpless and had a means of conveyance that he could use to travel relatively quickly over the land, heading straight to his destination.

Standing up and gripping the handlebars in the center of the Air Skimmer, he looked down at Nedira and smiled. “I’m going home. I’d love for you to meet my parents.”