The Fusionist Book 4 -- Chapter 1

Chapter 1

“I’m really not comfortable with this,” Larek whispered to the Protector sneaking through the underbrush next to him. They, of course, were much more adept at maneuvering through the familiar – to them – terrain without making noise when compared to the tall Fusionist, but he had to admit that he was a lot better at watching where he put his own feet than he used to be. Whether it was due to watching Vivienne glide through just about any environment like a shadow or through his own awareness of his lack of subtlety in movement, Larek was slowly improving.

Fortunately, their prey wasn’t a hyper-alert horde of monsters that could hear him trampling his way through the brush from a mile away. Unfortunately, the reason they weren’t hunting monsters was because their targets were… people. Not just random people on the street, because that would be ridiculous; no, these were people that apparently deserved to be hunted down and killed, based on their heinous actions. It wasn’t the reason or reasons that these “bandits” hiding in the strange forest near the town of Enderflow needed to be killed that bothered him, though.

It was whole killing people part that he wasn’t comfortable with.

Granted, he had killed people before – namely Ricardo and the two Martial trainees who had captured and basically tortured him for their own pleasure – but he could argue with himself that it was self-defense. The fact that it was self-defense after he had already escaped was irrelevant to him; their knowledge of him as a half-breed Gergasi had been too dangerous to let them go free, as it could harm him even further than the physical injuries that they had inflicted upon him. Revenge for how they treated him played a small part in his actions, as well, but it had primarily been about ensuring his own future safety.

At least, that had been his own internal justification at the time that their deaths occurred. It had been before he had been discovered by the Dean and his Fusions Professor, who figured out his secret with seeming ease, so it seemed reasonable at the time. It was only later that he considered if it was even necessary, as he was sure that the powerful Dean would’ve been able to do something about the three who had captured and hurt him. But then he remembered about what they did to him and his roommates… and decided that even if he knew about everything that happened afterwards, he would still do it all again. As callous as it might seem, he concluded that they deserved what was done to them.

Just as these so-called “bandits” apparently deserved what was coming to them. Thieves and murderers was what he was told they were, accosting travelers and caravans that traveled from elsewhere in the Empire of Sealance to and from the town of Enderflow. While he didn’t have the best relationship with caravans and the Merchants that led them, these bandits were taking all of their goods and killing everyone accompanying the wagons. Or so it was assumed, as there was no trace of any bodies left after the caravans were ambushed and the people were never seen again. It was only after a single caravan guard managed to escape and get word to the Protectors in Enderflow that knowledge of where these ambushes were taking place was even discovered.

All of which led to Larek creeping through the forest filled with odd trees as part of a force of over two dozen Protectors from town.

“It doesn’t matter if you’re comfortable with this or not, Martial Larek,” the woman behind the helmet hissed back at him in an annoyed whisper. Protector Ashlynn had essentially been his prison guard since he arrived at Enderflow nearly a week ago, despite the fact that he wasn’t… exactly… a prisoner. “This is what you have to do to work off your obligation.”

Obligation. Otherwise known as the punishment he had to endure for injuring an Ectorian; more specifically, breaking the wrist and lower arm of an Ectorian named Gwest, who made the unfortunate mistake of thinking Larek was dead and attempted to take the Fusionist’s belongings. It was an accident on both sides, as Larek could certainly imagine his semi-conscious body at the time appearing to be deceased, while his own reaction had probably been a bit more violent than absolutely needed in order to demonstrate that he yet lived.

Healing Gwest with the aid of the Healing Surge Fusion on his robe – once Larek was able to shove a heaping of exotic foods down his throat to recover his energy – had gone a long way to absolving his obligation toward the rag-wearing scavenger, but he soon found that it hadn’t been quite enough. That turned out to be because the Ectorians, one of the two races living in the Empire, were fiercely protected and anyone caught harming one of them were prosecuted severely.

He still wasn’t exactly sure of the relationship between the rag-wearing, lighter-skinned Ectorians with their strange way of speech and the darker-skinned Brolencians, who made up the rest of the population and who generally seemed to be in charge of everything in town. At first, he thought it might be some sort of servant or even a slave type situation, which immediately put his back up thinking about the Gergasi back in the Kingdom, but that didn’t seem to be the case once he investigated further. Instead, the people in charge treated the Ectorians like some sort of hard-working little brothers that needed to be protected from anyone or anything that might choose to do them harm.

Regardless of their social relationship, the end result was that Larek was still to be punished for what he had done, despite his best efforts to try to eliminate the problem with his healing. It certainly helped to reduce what they were calling his “obligation” from 5 years of hard labor to only a month of service with the Protectors in Enderflow, so he guessed that it was better than nothing.

For the first few days, there wasn’t much for Larek to do other than rest in the same building he had been brought to when he first arrived, where he ate even more to aid in his recovery; thankfully, he wasn’t required to pay for the food he consumed because of his obligatory service with the Protectors, though with the amount he ate he was sure they would’ve preferred to charge him. The lack of pressing business was interrupted when the caravan guard appeared and relayed the information on the “bandits” nearby, and he finally got called up to fulfill his obligation.

“I’m well aware, but I’m just not as comfortable killing other people as I am monsters,” Larek replied. That was the biggest hangup he had concerning his role in accompanying the Protectors on their search for the bandits; it was the fact that they didn’t do anything to him, his friends, or his family that prevented him from being alright with their deaths – especially since he might be the one who dealt that fate to them.

Then again, why is it fine for me to kill monsters? Is it because they are more likely to attack and kill innocent people due to their nature, so it’s the job of the SIC to stop them? If that’s the case, then how are these bandits different from the monsters back in the Kingdom? Based on the information I’ve been given regarding their activities, I’d be helping the people of the Empire by ensuring they are no longer a threat.

For some reason, this justification for their deaths still didn’t sit well with him. He could understand the necessity, as the only other option was perhaps to imprison them for a lengthy amount of time, but it felt wrong. Perhaps he was a hypocrite because these bandits didn’t directly affect him, but Larek couldn’t see it any other way—

Having not really paid attention to where he was going, as he was watching his feet more than the area around him, he was momentarily startled when a hand closed around his right arm and held him in place. Stopping his movement, he looked over curiously at Protector Ashlynn, but other than her leather glove-covered hand on his arm, she wasn’t paying attention to him. Rather, her helmeted face was peering ahead.

As soon as Larek obtained a glimpse of a large clearing ahead and heard the voices that he’d somehow ignored until now, including the screams of those who were suffering incredibly painful tortures at the hands of these so-called bandits, all his reservations about killing these people faded away.

It didn’t matter that he didn’t personally know or was affected by the way one woman was stripped bare, had a rag shoved into her mouth, and then whipped to within an inch of her life before a metal collar was slipped over her neck; it mattered naught that he had no specific knowledge of the man who had his feet smashed into masses of flesh and bone to prevent him from running away; and it certainly made no difference if, before he came there, he wasn’t even aware of the two small children that were—

Feeling a sudden upwelling inside of his chest as he watched the gruesome scene underway along the clearing, all that Larek could now focus on were the dirty, sadistic men – and women – wearing a variety of dark brown and green clothing that was likely designed to help blend them into the strange forest. They needed to be stopped, no matter what.

“Here’s the plan—” Larek heard the beginnings of the whisper next to him, but he was already gone. With his best friend eager to spill blood in his hand, the enraged Fusionist took off toward the clearing without a whit of tactics in his movements, as the only thing he could think of was killing these heinous people.

As he felt his strength suddenly increase substantially in a moment, he vaguely realized he had activated his Furious Rampage Battle Art without conscious thought. He was too enraged to analyze how he did it, or even how the Stama in his chest reacted to his use of the Art, but that wasn’t exactly what was important to him at the moment. What was important was closing the distance between himself and the first of the bandits, who was in the process of committing unspeakable acts on children.

He felt another surge of energy flare through his chest and do something to his body, but he was too riled up to comprehend what it was. His feet, which had already been pounding along the ground with incredible speed as it utilized his Agility of 83, felt as if they might fall off as his pace increased. He was running so fast, in fact, that as he approached his target, the man seemed to move in slow motion. Eyes turned toward him a fraction of a second before his axe came around in a sweep as he passed by the despicable man; Larek was both pleased and unsatisfied as the blade of his best friend passed completely through the arms and upper torso of the bandit, sheering lengthwise through what was essentially his shoulders.

He was pleased because he had managed to bisect the deplorable man, sheering through his clothing, his upper arm bones, his upper ribcage, and his spine all in one blow – and he barely felt any resistance.  The sensation was patently unlike killing monsters back in the Kingdom, as he realized that most of them had at least some sort of natural resistance to damage that this bandit did not.

Larek was also unsatisfied for two reasons. The first one was something he aimed to rectify soon: This was just the first of his targets, and his Furious Rampage demanded more.  Already moving toward the next horrid person in his sights, who was still perceptually moving as if they were trying to fight through an extremely dense gelatin, he knew the demand would be satisfied soon.

The second reason he was unsatisfied was because he had been aiming for the man’s neck in order to decapitate him.

His aim was off because he wasn’t used to the sudden burst of speed, as well as being unused to fully utilizing his Martial stats in general. Even as he barreled toward his next target, he could feel himself starting to lose control, and not because of his Furious Rampage – which was starting to mess with his focus as everything gained a red tint in his vision. He could feel himself slipping away, similar to what had happened back at Crystalview when he first unlocked the Battle Art. He was holding on to his focus as much as he could, but he was starting to lose control – which was the last thing he needed when he could barely handle his body with all his stats how they were. It hadn’t seemed to be a problem before, but with his Strength stat doubled and his Body stat reduced by 30% due to Furious Rampage, as well as what he did to increase his speed, it was feeling all out of sorts.

His balance was so off that when he went to turn toward his new target, he stumbled slightly, meaning that when he finally reached the scraggly bearded man holding a whip, he smashed right into him instead of chopping him in half like he had intended. The impact of his chest against the head of the bandit was so great that he felt a rib snap in the process – but the other man got it so much worse.  Not only did the bandit’s neck snap instantly, but his head caved in and then half-exploded outward in a spray of disgusting blood, skull fragments, and brain matter that covered the front of Larek’s robe.

The unexpected impact cause Larek to lose his balance completely, and he fell into a jumble of arms and legs as he became entangled in the corpse of the man he just killed. It was at that point that he felt that whatever speed increase he had just used wore off, and by the time he picked himself up, time seemed to return to normal. Two arrows suddenly impacted him as he focused in on his next target, punching into his robe but not breaking through because of the Multi-Resistance Cloth +9 Fusion on it, though it also made him belatedly realize that he hadn’t activated his Repelling Barrier.

When he tried to focus on it in order to activate it, something interfered – as if it didn’t want him to turn the Fusion on. The complete failure to activate his Fusion brought his working mind up short as the Furious Rampage took over control, until Larek was left as a spectator of his own body as it tore across the clearing toward one of the archers that had deigned to fire upon him. They attempted to run, but they were no match for his normal speed, even without whatever he had done earlier. As he witnessed himself strike out at the bow-wielding bandit and cut through her chest, he could only observe in horror as the initial strike was apparently not enough. A follow-up flurry of chops completely dismembered the woman, leaving her in a dozen different pieces scattered along the blood-soaked ground.

His awareness of everything after that was disjointed, even as he felt his body starting to break down slightly from the Battle Art for some reason, as if it was harming him physically.  The brief flashes of awareness were disturbing, as he continued to rampage against the bandits, even as the occasional attack by an arrow or sword-strike hit against his exposed skin. Eventually, the bandits, apparently seeing that he was unstoppable, started to flee – but he was too fast. Larek hunted them all down one by one, his Furious Rampage activating several times over the 5 minutes it took to clear the bandit encampment – all of which Larek had no control over in the slightest. Finally, with the last one dead, the fury and rage that had infused his body drained out like a hole being opened in the bottom of a bathtub, and a weakness that had been building for a while slammed into his body and mind, knocking him out cold.