The Fusionist Book 3 -- Chapter 43

Chapter 43

Larek started to take an involuntary step back at the appearance of the SIC so close to him, but Penelope stopped him with a firm hand on his back. He understood immediately what she was doing, as they needed to present a strong front toward these people, and moving backwards as if trying to run would run counter to that impression.

At least, that was what logic was telling him, but being so close to the furious-looking SIC members nevertheless made him want to run.

“No. This is not of our making,” Penelope stated fearlessly toward the Major. “We were coming to assess the threat that we felt here. That is all.”

There were a few mumbled mutterings that Larek wasn’t able to make out completely, but no one suddenly attacked them either. After about 10 seconds, the Major finally looked past them and at the forest that was still transforming. “What is happening? I’ve never seen anything like this before.”

With a mental sigh of relief, as it seemed as though that at least the Major was prepared to honor her sworn vow for the moment, Larek glanced back at the radically changed trees and shook his head. “We’ve never seen anything like this before, but it feels extraordinarily dangerous.”

That was patently obvious, he thought, but it didn’t hurt to emphasize that there was something worse afoot than their own disagreements. That seemed to do the trick for the Major, as she nodded at his words. “It’s a stronger Scission than anything I’ve felt before, but I can’t actually see it, which is worrying.”

Larek spoke without thinking. “It isn’t a Scission. It’s something else.”

“What are you talking about? Of course it’s a Scission! I know what a Scission feels like, boy.”

Nedira came to his defense. “Oh, yeah? And does a Scission normally do this?” she asked, waving toward the trees.

“Obviously not, but—”

“Now isn’t the time to argue,” Larek interrupted the local SIC leader before their discussion could blow up into a full-blown fight. “I could be wrong, though I don’t believe so; regardless, I think this is a threat that needs to be assessed and stopped immediately, don’t you think?”

He could see Major Kuama’s lips pressed firmly against each other, as if she was physically fighting with herself so as not to say something she would regret. After a few seconds, she gave a very short nod and said, “Yes. But if this is something like a Category 6 or above, then we’re screwed.”

“Well, then it’s about time you put those new Fusions to the test, don’t you think?” Penelope retorted with a bit of snark.

“Please don’t antagonize the powerful people looking for an excuse to get back at us for what we did to them,” Larek told the blue-haired Martial in a quiet voice. The way she opened her mouth right after he said that told him that she was going to deny doing just that, but she shut it just as quickly without saying anything. She didn’t indicate that she heard and would do as he asked, but he got the impression that she would.

As the one in charge in overseeing the safety of the local area, Major Kuama was put into a situation where she couldn’t easily back away from the threat represented by the powerful feeling coming from the forest. That didn’t mean she had to like being backed into a corner by Larek and his group, but she immediately took charge of the situation as if she had been investigating strange transforming forests her entire life.

“Despite your poor attitude, girl, you have a point,” she said. “This land is my responsibility, however, and I won’t put up with you endangering my people on this operation. You might be powerful, but you aren’t a part of the SIC just yet, if you ever will be; as a result, I want you to stay back and out of the way while we investigate this threat. Do not engage with whatever we find inside here unless I specifically ask for your help, though at that point I would imagine everything will have gone to hell already.”

It wasn’t exactly ideal being pushed to an observer role, but Larek had to admit that it was probably a lot safer for his group. He agreed quickly after hearing the stipulations of their quasi joint cooperation. “Fair enough. You lead and we’ll follow.”

Thankfully, none of his companions disagreed with this, especially as they didn’t want to be so close to the powerful threat they could feel anyway.

The individual members of the SIC gave them murderous looks as they passed by, but none of them made any move to attack Larek or anyone with him. They had all obviously been informed of the Major’s sworn vow not to attack them, which extended to anyone in her command. It was either that, or it was just a temporary truce while they dealt with more pressing issues, such as whatever was found inside of this forest.

The SIC entered through the white, snow-laden section of the trees, given that the petrified forest with all of its sharp-edged leaves appeared dangerous and the other section was aflame, but Larek couldn’t say that it was much better. The moment he stepped foot over the line that seemed to differentiate the forest from the grassland, the environment plummeted to freezing or near-freezing temperatures, which caused the Fusionist to shiver slightly as his clothing wasn’t necessarily appropriate for the weather. He found that his body naturally adjusted to the cold after a few seconds, as his Martial stat was proven to be more than just providing him with an extra-durable frame.

Unfortunately, that didn’t help the Mages not only in his own group but the ones that were part of the SIC, as he could see a few of them shivering slightly as they moved through the stillness of the snow-carpeted forest. Larek resolved to create some more of his Temperature Regulator Fusions at some point, which would help alleviate some of the discomfort that came from being in a cold environment brought with it.

Instead of rushing ahead, which would undoubtedly be stupid when venturing into an unknown situation, the Major sent a few Martials to scout the way ahead, and they advanced at a relatively even if slow pace. Despite the delay in investigating, as well as their current walking speed, they had only traveled about a half-mile before Larek could see the dark fog ahead of them still moving toward what seemed to be a central point somewhere in the forest.

It was at about that point that they found the body of one of the Martials sent out to scout. He was surrounded by two other scouts who were looking down at his body in confusion and anger; Larek recognized one of them as Rhylla, the Silent Blade Martial they had saved from the Dechonabras the day before.

“What happened?”

The two scouts looked up at the Major before Rhylla answered. “Doran attempted to push past that strange haze to see what might lay beyond it,” she said, waving toward where Larek saw the dark fog. Larek could only assume that because they couldn’t see it like he could, they instead saw this “strange haze”. “He passed through it and completely disappeared from my sight. A few seconds later, we found him like this on the ground after the haze retreated further ahead.”

It killed him? Considering that he had been absorbing the Corrupted Aetheric Force for about a week, Larek suddenly worried that it was actually harming him.

The Major cursed up a storm, though she kept her volume low so as not to alert whatever else was in the forest. “Leave him for now; we’ll pick up his body on the way back,” she eventually said, before looking toward the retreating dark for, or in her case, the strange haze. “And don’t get near that stuff; we’ll follow along and destroy whatever we find that we can actually fight.”

So, that was exactly what they did. For the next 30 minutes, they made their way forward, staying well out of range of the strange haze that seemed to be the catalyst for the changes in the forest. After quietly asking Nedira what she could see of this haze, she said that it was like a visual distortion in a flat plane that was at least higher than the treetops; she could see the vague outlines of normal trees through it, but as soon as this distortion moved past them, they were transformed into the white, snow and ice-laden winterized forest everyone was moving through. It made absolutely no sense to him or anyone else, but Larek could also sense that the power was slowly increasing the more they walked; it might not make sense now, but they were quickly going to arrive at the epicenter of whatever it was that they were feeling.

It shortly after the half-hour mark, looking off to their right revealed that the petrified section was getting closer to them for some reason; either they were moving off-course, or the width of the sections was getting smaller. That was likely proven correct when they saw that off to their left was a section of burning trees that was slowly encroaching on the narrowing frozen section of the forest. He didn’t know what was happening at first, but then he began to see a distinct curving of the dark fog as he looked to the right and left. An epiphany spread through his mind and he blurted out, “It’s a condensing circle of alternating sections.”

“That would be my guess, as well,” Nedira said, nodding.

That was proven to be correct as within another 5 minutes, the section of frozen trees narrowed dramatically until it was only 20 feet wide, and they could see at least a dozen other alternating sections to their left and right. By the time the section became only 5 feet wide, the reality of the environment became obvious to everyone as the transformed forest looked like the spokes of a wheel. Unfortunately, the spokes of that wheel led to a central hub, which turned out to be a relatively large circular clearing approximately 150 feet across that was free of trees. None of them could see inside the clearing, as even through the haze it appeared empty, but that didn’t last long as they stopped right on the edge of the clearing and waited for the fog/haze to retract even further.

Strangely enough, while the forest had been dramatically altered, what was slowly revealed inside the clearing appeared entirely unchanged, with a short grass that grew to about shin-height on Larek. There were even a few wildflowers that grew in small clumps here and there, but other than that, it seemed relatively normal.

That was the case until the first of the monsters appeared.

Standing approximately 6 feet tall, the 12-foot-long lizards had thick, darkly iridescent scales all over their bodies that shone in the mid-morning sun. Each of their four feet had large claws that appeared as though they could rend someone from head to tow with just a swipe, and their long, thick tails had a set of spikes along a round protrusion found on its tip, which Larek could imagine would be strong enough to punch through un-Strengthened steel with ease.

That all seemed normal enough coming from Scission monsters, but when he considered that they had three heads on long necks, that made them even more dangerous.

“Greater Trizards,” Verne whispered as soon as they were spotted.

The name sparked a memory of learning about these particular monsters back at Copperleaf Academy, and what he remembered wasn’t good. Each of the three heads weren’t just able to bite victim with significant biting force, but could actually expel a breath-like attack that was elementarily charged. In other words, one of the heads could breathe fire, another had the ability to petrify parts of a victim with its breath, and the third was able to freeze or slow a target with a blast of ice-infused cold air.

The environment they passed through was starting to make a little more sense, though why they were like that was still in question.

None of the Trizards reacted to the arrival of the SIC and Larek’s group, as they were all facing toward the middle of the clearing. Larek expected the Major to order an attack while they were distracted, but she kept them back as the foggy haze was still too close for comfort. That changed after another minute when the dark fog contracted even further, revealing dozens more of the Trizards, until they numbered even more than every single SIC member and Larek’s group combined.

The last few feet of the fog’s condensing revealed something new located in the middle of the clearing.  At first, it appeared as though it was a Scission, but it was smaller than any that Larek had seen before – even smaller than the Category 1 Scissions that had attacked Crystalview Academy. It was only when he realized that it was round like a sphere, instead of a large circle on a flat plane like a normal Scission, that it became obvious this was something completely new, something no one had seen before. At least, no one other than the Gergasi, who might have seen something like this before, but it was unlikely that any of the SIC knew what this was.

The sphere itself was dark like the Corrupted Aetheric Force that was sucked into it at a rapid pace now, though it also seemed to glow with a weak aura around its shape. When he concentrated on what he felt from it, his senses were unable to determine exactly what it was, though he could tell that it was related to a Scission… and yet was completely different.

With a sound that reminded Larek of cracking wood, the dark fog was completely sucked into the sphere, followed by a visible pulsing of the darkly glowing object as it expanded from its previous 4-foot diameter to one that was at least 8 feet wide. An ominous feeling was projected outward with the transformation, prompting everyone to grip their weapons or staves harder for a few seconds, but nothing jumped out at them.

At that point, the Greater Trizards finally moved – though not at the SIC or Larek’s group. Instead, they sped along the ground toward the larger sphere, moving much faster than the Fusionist expected. As the first one touched the round object, it seemed to explode into the dark fog that Larek recognized as being Corrupted Aetheric Force; it only stuck around for less than a second before it was seemingly absorbed by the sphere, just like Larek did to the Corrupted Aetheric Force he gained from killing monsters.

It was feeding on them. And if that meant what he thought it meant, then the sphere was getting stronger somehow.

“We need to stop them!” Larek shouted, pointing toward the Trizards, most of which were nearing the sphere already. Unfortunately, his plea went unanswered as the Major largely ignored him.

“Why? They’re killing themselves.”

He shook his head, worried about what was going to happen next. “No, they’re sacrificing themselves,” he clarified. That got the Major’s attention, finally, but it was already too late.

Before any of them could move to stop the monsters, the last Trizard disappeared in a flash of dark fog and was swallowed up by the sphere, which then sent out a shockwave of dark force that passed through every single person nearby, knocking a few of the more unsteady off their feet. The physical impact wasn’t that significant and didn’t really hurt anyone, thankfully, but the result of the shockwave certainly would if it was left unchecked.

No more than a second after the last Greater Trizard was absorbed by the sphere, a new one seemed to slide out of the middle of the darkly glowing object before fully manifesting and dropping to the ground.

This one wasn’t blind to the presence of the SIC and immediately moved toward the group, its three heads already dripping what appeared to be drops of fire, dirt, and frost.

Whatever this sphere was, it wasn’t a Scission – but it did seem similar. The biggest difference that Larek found when he looked at it with whatever senses that he had at his disposal was that, while both the Scission and the sphere spawned monsters and spit them out into the world, the former was only temporary and would stop after a while. The latter, the sphere, felt more permanent– which was a frightening proposition.

A Scission-like opening that constantly releases monsters out into the world? What else could possibly go wrong on a day like this?

With an inward wince, Larek remembered that he shouldn’t think things like that, or so Verne had mentioned when they were journeying from Crystalview to Copperleaf. It was bad luck or something like that, but at least he hadn’t said it out loud. That had to count for something, right?

As he gripped his axe tighter and prepared himself for a fight while the Major directed her SIC forces to attack, he certainly hoped so.