The Fusionist Book 2 -- Chapter 71

Chapter 71

Verne and Norde were both sitting cross-legged on an empty bed near Nedira once Larek arrived, talking in low voices that not even he could clearly make out with his high Listening Skill. They looked up when he entered the room and both seemed excited to see him; they were less excited to see Penelope and Vivienne behind him, however.

“What are they doing here?” Norde asked. From what he had observed during the short time he’s seen him after the final match, Nedira’s little brother was a little annoyed that his sister was in the healer’s ward thanks to the Skirmish. As a result, he seemed to blame all the members of Team Fusion for her current state – though, for some strange reason, he hadn’t extended that blame toward Larek, who was the whole reason she was part of the team in the first place.

Larek nearly missed a step as he came to a realization. What if that strange reason Norde doesn’t blame me is because I’ve used my Dominion magic on him? Have I used it on Verne and Nedira, too? Is that why they seem to like me?

The thought that he had inadvertently caused his roommates and the fourth-year naturalist to artificially like him made him simultaneously depressed and angry at the same time; he was depressed because now he couldn’t be sure of their real feelings toward him, while at the same time angry at his father and – oddly enough – at the Dean and Shinpai for telling him about his Dominion magic in the first place.

He shook his head to clear it from those thoughts, knowing that it wasn’t important or productive right now. What was important was Nedira’s health and safety, which is what he came to ascertain at his earliest opportunity.

Remembering that Norde asked him a question, he waved toward the two Martial trainees who had entered the room after him. “They’re my… protectors. It’s a long story, but suffice it to say that they’ll be around a bit more now.”

Penelope snorted in agreement. “That’s right! Besides, isn’t it allowed for us to check up on our teammate?”

“Sure, but I think there should be an exception for those that caused her to be in this state in the first place!” Norde yelled, pointing straight at the blue-haired trainee.

Before Penelope could respond, one of the healer’s stuck their head into the room and looked at Norde. “I told you that if you can’t keep it down, you’re going to have to leave.”

“But—!”

“No exceptions. Keep it down; there are those that need their rest and you’re disturbing it.”

Norde appeared as if he wanted to protest, but he closed his mouth shut with an audible *snap*. The healer nodded at him sharply before departing.

“Norde, it’s about time that we get some lunch anyway,” Verne said to the other boy. “Larek’s here, so she’ll be fine.”

“Well, as long he keeps an eye on her—” Nedira’s brother began to say, pointing toward Penelope, but Verne dragged him up from the bed before he could finish.

“Enough. Let’s get some food; your sister will be just fine.”

Larek’s two roommates left quickly after that, with Norde giving both of the trainees a nasty look as they departed. The Fusionist sighed as he sat down on the edge bed the two boys had just vacated, looking at his friend laying peacefully on the opposite bed. Her reddish-gold hair was fanned out above her head, draping over the pillow like some sort of halo, and she appeared as if she would wake up at any point. Peering closer at her, he was pleased to see that she was looking fairly healthy, unlike the slightly wasted appearance his roommates had adopted after their unfortunate injuries and healing. Then again, from what he could tell, it was only her head that had been seriously damaged compared to the multiple broken bones and other injuries that Verne and Norde had experienced; as a result, there was likely less strain on her body from the healing, though obviously it was enough to send her into this restorative coma.

“She’s going to be fine, won’t she?” Penelope asked while she sat down on the bed next to Larek. She placed the sword that she carried with her everywhere onto the bed, the wooden weapon not necessarily the best offensive implement given that there was no real edge to it, but given the fact that it had a Fusion boosting Penelope’s Strength by 100%, she could likely use it to simply beat someone with a blunt object rather than cutting them in half.

If she’s going to continue being my protector, I might have to rework all the Fusions I made her onto something with a little more oomph to it. When there isn’t a need for the Repelling Barrier every minute of the day, I can plan out the locations of the Fusions she’ll need a little better. In fact, I should do the same for everyone when I get a chance – possibly even an upgrade to Nedira’s staff.

Larek looked over at Penelope, noticing that Vivienne stayed standing near the door as if she was there to prevent any threats from coming inside. He mentally sighed once again, thinking that the two of them were taking this whole “guarding him” thing a little too far, but he didn’t want to get into an argument with them in the same room where Nedira was in a coma. Instead, he simply responded to the blue-haired trainee’s question.

“She will. My unique healing spell, as I believe I told you, takes a lot out of the person who’s being healed. For those with stronger bodies, such as trainees like yourself, it isn’t as bad even for a head wound like she suffered, but for Mages it can have this result quite often.”

“That’s good,” Penelope said, laying her hand over his and squeezing it rather hard. “I can’t help but feel responsible for her being this way, even though I don’t want give her little brother any more reason to dislike me,” she added, removing her hand after a moment to put it in her lap along with her other one.

“It’s not completely your fault,” Larek finally responded after a silence stretched out after her admission. “It was ultimately my decision even after the Dean and Shinpai convinced me to participate, and if it wasn’t for that decision, Nedira wouldn’t be lying in a coma right now.”

“But you couldn’t have known this would happen to her, could you?”

He shrugged. “Not this, exactly, but I knew that potential for serious harm to someone on the team was possible,” he replied. He then looked at the blue-haired trainee in the eyes. “It was your entire purpose, after all; with you trying to dig into my secrets for so long, this was just the next step.”

Penelope seemed taken aback as she looked at him with confusion. “What are you talking about? Sure, Head Drill Instructor Bleeker ordered me to get close to learn more about you, but I had nothing to do with the whole Skirmish thing. He seemed to think that you have some sort of Fusion that could heal people, that was all.” She looked at him closer, as if seeing him for the first time. “You do, don’t you? It wasn’t a spell that healed Bartholomew and now Nedira, was it?”

Larek didn’t answer at first, because he was trying to figure out if denying it would even help right now.  Penelope already had her suspicions that were apparently echoed by some important people at Fort Pinevalley; for all he knew, the Vice General might even know, because he wasn’t exactly sure what the man in charge of the Fort knew about him. The only thing he knew for certain was that no one but his friends, Shinpai, and the Dean knew about his status as a half-breed and his Martial stats, so it was entirely possible that the secret of his Healing Surge Fusion was already common knowledge around some circles. Even if it wasn’t, the Dean had technically created an explanation for any potential Fusions like it by classifying them as “unique” and only accessible by him.

“Yes, but it’s not stable,” he finally admitted in a soft voice. “As you’ve seen, it has some serious side effects that I’m attempting to work out, which is why it hasn’t been announced. If used incorrectly, it could kill someone if they aren’t careful, which would defeat the purpose of a healing Fusion, right?”

She nodded slowly in response.

“I’ll eventually get it worked out, and was already in the process of trying to learn more to do just that, when this whole Skirmish business came up.  We had reason to believe that someone would take it upon themselves to injure someone on my team badly enough that I would have to expose my Fusion so that they wouldn’t die. It’s the reason why I was so adamant in creating something that would help prevent any of you from taking any damage, because I didn’t want anyone to be hurt.”

Penelope was silent for nearly a minute as she seemed to consider his words. “I… I had no idea about any of that. All I was told was to learn more about you and any special Fusions that you might be able to create, but even then, I didn’t tell him everything. I swear that no one but us knew about the Repelling Barriers before the Skirmish.”

He believed her as far as no one from the Fort knowing about his newest Fusion, but he remembered the Dean saying something about inside information on his team, which is how she knew about the changes in the team members due to Larek’s subtle use of Dominion magic. There was only one person that he could imagine that would be, as Kimble might have leaked the knowledge of the Barrier before the Skirmish.

But if the Dean knew about it beforehand, did she orchestrate things in the last match so that Nedira got hurt and I demonstrated what I could do, so that she could turn that to her advantage when she revealed me to the Academy?

It was such a monstrous thought that he could barely even consider it, but he thought that it was entirely possible. There was nothing he could do about it right now if he was correct, but he would certainly look into finding out if it was true in the future. Even if it wasn’t, he already knew that the Dean had a sharp if convoluted mind, so he’d have to watch his back – and the backs of his friends. With what she wanted him to eventually do, closing the tear that the Gergasi had opened a thousand years ago, she seemed as if she was willing to do just about anything to maneuver him to that point. Hurting his friends would accomplish just the opposite if he knew she had done it, but if she somehow made it look like an accident or due to the influence of the Gergasi? He wouldn’t put it past her abilities to do just that; she was a much more dangerous woman than she appeared to be on the outside.

Penelope placed her hand on his back in a comforting way, though Larek barely noticed as he simply watched Nedira sleep, not wanting to talk or think about such things that had been rattling around in his mind anymore.

After nearly 30 minutes with no change, the Fusionist sat back a little as he adjusted his seat on the edge of the bed, opening his Status for the first time since the Skirmish. Even before the matches, he hadn’t really looked at it after his first day of practice as he was so busy with experimenting and creating Fusions that he felt like he didn’t have time, but now that he finally had the time he figured he might as well look.

Right away, he noticed the two new Martial Skills he had gained during that last match, Blunt Weapon Expertise and Bladed Weapon Expertise. He could only assume that there were more of these “Expertise”-type Skills, given that there were those that specialized in different types of weapons that didn’t necessarily fit into those categories, such as spears and other pointy weapons, bows and their arrow projectiles, and even more that he likely didn’t even know about.

The second thing he noticed was the increase in his Pattern Recognition, Magical Detection, and Spellcasting Focus by 2 Levels each, gained while he had been creating Fusions for the team earlier in the week. Unfortunately, Multi-effect Fusion Focus seemed to be added to the list of Skills that weren’t budging along with Mana Control, Fusion, and Pattern Formation – though instead of being stuck at Level 30, it was stuck at Level 10. He was half-convinced that Spellcasting Focus was also stalled at Level 20 because he couldn’t remember it increasing after the first few days.

The only other change were to his stats, which had all of his Martial stats up to 59. As a result of the increase to his Body stat, his Pneuma had also increased to a base of 299, which meant that he had 2,990 Pattern Cohesion. He wasn’t carrying around his staff anymore, as he left it in his room the night before, but he had slipped his wooden armlets back on, replacing the 100% increase in his stats that the staff provided to only 90% again, but that still gave him 568 Pneuma and 5,680 Pattern Cohesion. He’d eventually replace them with something stronger, as well as combining them into multi-effect Fusions like he did on the staff to save space, but he wasn’t in too much of a hurry to get that done right now.

Eventually, Verne and Norde came back from lunch, the latter glaring at Penelope until she got up from the bed with a sigh and stood next to Vivienne near the door, allowing the two boys to flank him on the soft mattress. “Any change?” Verne asked.

Larek was just about to answer in the negative when a faint noise coming from Nedira’s bed made him look that way. Movement in her left hand made him get up and rush to her side, taking it in his own. He felt her gently squeeze his fingers unconsciously, but after another minute or so, he saw her eyes fluttering open.

Looking up at him, she smiled lazily as she stared at his face, squeezing his hand even tighter. “Ouch. That really hurt, you know,” she spoke, her voice a little raspy from lack of moisture. “I think I remember vaguely feeling the healing from your Fusion—”  Her vision flickered aside from his face as she looked at the foot of her bed.

“What is she doing here?” she asked, sounding almost as angry as Norde had been earlier. She was also probably angry at herself for revealing his healing Fusion, but he just patted her hand consolingly.

“Don’t worry, they know about it. Not everyone does, but they aren’t going to say anything, are you?” he asked of the two trainees, who shook their heads.

“How do you know? Isn’t she the one that caused all this to happen in the first place?”

Norde laughed shortly next to Larek. “That’s exactly what I said!”

“She is – along with the rest of the team – my protector of sorts, now,” he explained. “I’ll tell you a little more later when you’ve recovered a bit, but suffice it to say that she’s on our side now.”

“Excuse me if I don’t believe her. In fact, I still don’t trust her,” Nedira said, struggling weakly to adjust herself in the bed as she stared at the blue-haired trainee.

“You know, I don’t really care for people talking about me when I’m in the same room,” Penelope said with venom in her tone. “We’re supposed to be on the same team here—”

“That’s all nonsense, especially coming from someone like you!”

Larek was a little taken aback at the vicious words coming from Nedira, but he didn’t know what to say… so he cowardly kept his mouth shut. This seemed like something he didn’t want to get involved with, especially since he didn’t know where it was coming from; all he knew was that it didn’t seem to stem from what happened in the Skirmish.

“Whoa, that’s a bit harsh. Is it because I’m a Jaroupa? I thought those from Tyrendel were a bit more well-rounded than to listen to rumors, but—”

“No! It has nothing to do with that!”

Clearly exasperated, Penelope put her hands on her hips and asked, “Then what’s the deal? What problem do you have with me?”

“It’s because you can’t seem to keep your hands off Larek!”

Her shout caused everyone in the room to freeze for a moment, even as Larek’s mind stopped working. What? He was still at a loss of what was going on.

Penelope eventually broke the silence with a throaty chuckle. “That’s what your problem is? You think that I’m messing around with your man?”

“Yes! I’ve seen the way you look at him; the way you covered him in kisses within minutes of meeting him was bad enough, but—”

The blue-haired trainee just shook her head. “That was just an overreaction and I already apologized to him for that. As for everything else, I was just following orders to find out more information about Larek; you wouldn’t believe how much you can learn from a man just by showing them a little attention. Unfortunately, that didn’t really work on him for some reason.”

“But—”

“Anyway, I have no designs on Larek in that way. He’s not really my type, after all. Is he, Viv?”

The Ranger, who had thus far been relatively silent and unobtrusive, smirked and said, “Ha! No, not at all.” She then snaked an arm around Penelope’s waist, pulled her close, and then gave her a passionate kiss that lasted an uncomfortably long time. When they pulled apart, the blue-haired young woman turned to Larek and Nedira and grinned at their shocked expressions. “See? He is not really my type. Now, you are a lovely little flower I wouldn’t mind getting to know better—” she said to Nedira directly, but she stopped with a laugh as Vivienne playfully punched her in the shoulder.

“Alright, alright; I was just kidding about that, too,” she admitted, holding up her hands as if to ward off another punch. “But seriously, you have nothing to worry about, Nedira. I’m part of his protection detail now, but I have no romantic designs concerning Larek. I’m more happy to see that you seem to be fine after what happened to you during that last match.”

Still holding her hand, Larek patted it with his other hand and said, “I am too. I have to say, I was slightly worried there for a moment.”

“Thanks to you and your quick thinking, I think I’ll be alright. I’m still exhausted, but if this is anything like what happened with my brother and Verne, I’m sure I’ll be alright in a day or two.” She still didn’t appear happy with Penelope or Vivienne being at the foot of her bed, but she wasn’t scowling at them either. As for Larek, he was still trying to recover from what he’d just witnessed between the two trainees, so he nearly missed what Nedira asked next.

“So… did we win?”

They all chuckled at the question before Verne, in an exciting rendition of the final few minutes of the match that Larek thought was clearly exaggerated, told her all about it. After she expressed both joy and concern over what Larek had ended up doing, Verne also described the reward ceremony and the Dean’s words about Larek, which had the Fusionist blushing as they all talked about him. By the time Larek’s roommate was done, Nedira was falling asleep, the excitement after waking up after a thankfully short coma too much to her.

“Get some sleep. I’ll be here when you wake up,” he told her, and she seemed to pass out almost immediately with a smile on her face.

Larek would be there when she awoke later, as he was determined to keep her safe and happy… for as long as possible. With everything happening in the Kingdom, from the increased frequency, amount, and severity of the Scissions to this whole mess with closing the tear that brought magical power into the world and then to stop the Gergasi from enslaving the Nobles, he knew that he wouldn’t be able to keep her safe forever.

The Dean and Shinpai, despite their obvious manipulation of events and of Larek himself, had at least given him a chance.  He now had a chance to learn, to experiment, and to grow in ways he could only envision, without the fear that his secrets would be discovered and he would either be killed or shipped off to the Gergasi as an errant half-breed.

He wouldn’t allow that chance to go to waste.

Book 2 Epilogue: https://www.patreon.com/posts/fusionist-book-2-84975184