The Fusionist Book 2 -- Chapter 68

Chapter 68

An anger he’d only felt once before back at Crystalview Academy descended upon his mind, but unlike when he lost control during the Scission attack, a state of hyper-focus accompanied the rage. In the space of a breath, he immediately dumped 11 Advancement Points each into Strength, Body, and Agility, draining his entire store of 33 AP in an instant. He reveled in the pain that almost was almost immediately soothed away by his Pain Immunity Skill; at the same time, he felt his body tightening and stretching at the same time as it went through a transformation – but he didn’t have time for his body to become accustomed to it.

Stumbling toward the fallen trainees, he tripped and fell just in time to avoid a blast of air that the Highflight student shot his way, though he felt the wind of its passage over his back. Scrambling toward Penelope, he saw her open her eyes in shock at his appearance.

“I need this.”

Confusion passed through her eyes as Larek gripped the handle of her sword; for a second, her grip held firm, but some sort of understanding must have shot through her mind as she let go.

The feeling of his 59 in Strength and Agility suddenly shot through his still-transforming body and his muscles twitched uncontrollably as he stood up, causing him to fall down once again – just in time to avoid another blast of air. As he picked himself up, he finally felt the changes settle down as he sprinted toward Nedira, hoping he could make it in time; his hyper-focused state had debated going to her immediately but in that split-second of deliberation he knew he wouldn’t make it there without being hit himself with his current Agility. He was insanely lucky that he hadn’t been hit going for Penelope’s swords, thanks to his body giving out on him because of the transformations it had just went through.

But with Agility doubled and sitting at 118, he was much faster. The world passed him by in a blur as he was at Nedira’s side in less than a second, completely missing the next spell sent out by the other Mage student at the same time. Before the woman could cast another and hit him there, Larek activated his staff’s Healing Surge and dropped it on top of her, grabbed the Camouflage Sphere Fusion from her shoe, dropped it in his own pocket, and then took off. All of that was done in no more than a second, before he was racing at an angle toward the Highflight student who was in the middle of casting another spell. Just as it completed, shooting straight toward where he was running, he activated the Camouflage Sphere, stopped his momentum, and then shot toward her.

At his disappearance, the young woman appeared confused for a second, but quickly started casting an entirely different spell. Not letting her finish it, Larek suddenly appeared in her vision as he came within 5 feet and swung his borrowed sword with its flat side toward her. At the last moment he remembered to deactivate his Barrier so that his hit would be seen by the observers; when it impacted the surprised student, there was no doubt that she was hit as one of her ribs snapped in the process. He restrained his blow just enough that he didn’t completely shatter her entire skeleton, though he was sorely tempted to anyway. With great restraint, he managed to keep from killing her – as much as he wanted to for what she had done to Nedira.

As the Highflight Mage hit the ground 10 feet away and rolled a few times, she screamed in pain. With a few steps toward her, he tapped her twice with the blunted wooden edge of the sword.

“3E down!”

Bladed Weapon Expertise Skill has been unlocked!

Bladed Weapon Expertise has reached Level 1!

Racing back to Nedira, he arrived and grabbed the staff, deactivating it as he knelt over her and pretended to heal her with a spell, placing his hands on her head and blood-soaked hair, he could see that any damage that had been done to her had been healed and she was breathing steadily – but she hadn’t woken up. I think I got to her in time. She might be in a coma, however.

The thought of yet another of his friends in a coma because of his healing Fusion doubled down his need to create one that wouldn’t do this to a non-Martial person – but he had other problems to deal with right now. Voices outside of the fortification made him remember that there was still danger to her, especially if the last remaining Boulderfist Mages decided to simply bombard the interior with exploding boulders; while it wouldn’t be as much damage as it would be if they weren’t shadow-casted, he knew her body couldn’t take another healing right now.

“Stay right here; I’ve got to take care of a little problem,” he told her as he finished up with the fake healing he was doing. She didn’t respond, of course, because she was still unconscious, but he didn’t mind.

Disappearing once again with Camouflage Sphere, Larek sped outside of the entrance of the fortification just as the Boulderfist Mages seemed intent to start lobbing additional exploding boulders inside. Unfortunately for them, they were clustered together only about 6 feet apart rather than spread out; with his speed, he quickly circled around them, dropped his camouflage, and used Penelope’s sword to sweep their legs out from underneath them all in a row. Two of the students went down to his strike without trouble, but the last somehow managed to see him at the last moment and cast a Stone Wall spell, blocking him from following through with the attack as had to throw himself back in a roll rather than smash right into it. Rather than try and run around it to reach the last Mage, who might be ready for him, he went back to the two he had just dumped on the ground and rapidly thwacked them on their chests.

“2E down!”

“2F down!”

Bladed Weapon Expertise has reached Level 2!

And now it was down to only Larek and the final Mage student from Team Boulderfist. Larek activated his Camouflage Sphere—

Except that it didn’t work.  Reaching down at the pocket in his robe, he realized that the piece of wood that had the Fusion on it had fallen out of his pocket.

“Looking for this? Oh my, this is quite fancy, isn’t it?”

Larek looked up to see the last Boulderfist Mage holding the Camouflage Sphere Fusion in his hands.

Uh, oh.

“Let’s see. I’m not a Fusionist, but I think I can probably figure it out—”  The next second, the young man disappeared from his sight. “Ha! This thing is powerful!”

A shadow-casted boulder suddenly emerged from the space that the opposing Mage had occupied just a second ago, and it was all Larek could to do dodge out of the way to the left. He immediately sped forward with the intention of taking out the now camouflaged student, but two Stone Walls appeared to block his way, followed by another boulder that lifted up over the walls and slammed into the ground where Larek would’ve been standing if he had kept on his previous course. Thankfully, he managed to move out of the way just in time, though his Barrier activated on two different sides as the shrapnel impacted it.

Circling around the walls, he barely stopped in time as a field of stone spears emerged from the ground, stabbing up from below. Trying to go around the spears turned out to be impossible as they seemed to surround the young man on every side as even more spells were cast from the invisible Mage.

He attempted to jump over them but another wall of stone appeared just past them, blocking his way; if he hadn’t twisted his body so that his feet impacted the wall, allowing him to jump backwards, he would’ve fell right into the spears below.

“Is that all you got?” the camouflaged geomancer taunted, though Larek could hear a breathlessness in his voice that hadn’t been there before. Casting so many spells in a row was obviously draining the other student, even if most of them were shadow-casted and didn’t require as much Mana. The Stone Wallswere full cost, on the other hand, which was likely draining the Mage each time it was cast.

“No; not at all,” Larek replied, continuing to try and get past the stone spears and walls, only for more and more walls to spring up to block him. When the other student was entirely ringed in stone, he turned away to go get Team Boulderfist’s flag and capture it before the other Mage even knew what had happened. As he turned to speed away, a boulder exploded against the Repelling Barrier along his side, shocking him so much that he stopped.

While it thankfully didn’t hit him, as all the shrapnel was diverted by his Fusion, that wasn’t what concerned him. Instead, it was the angle where the boulder had hit him, because it seemed to come from outside the walls of stone.

He’s not in there anymore?

He intuitively knew that the other Mage had somehow escaped the stone walls and had been casting those spells from elsewhere, likely from afar. How long he had been gone was the question, however, because he could’ve left almost immediately – and Larek wouldn’t have known because his opponent was invisible.

In fact, the other Mage might have already arrived at the fortification that possessed Team Fusion’s flag and potentially already picked it up. He wouldn’t know because it, too, would be invisible under the Camouflage Sphere.

Ignoring the slowly fading stone spells behind him, Larek raced toward Team Boulderfist’s fortification, speeding through the entrance just in time to see the Mage appear out of nowhere about 5 feet away from the flag base, holding Team Fusion’s flag. He knew that even with his speed he wouldn’t be able to reach the other student in time to stop him from capturing the flag, but he had to at least try. Even as he ran, he cocked his arm to the side and then threw Penelope’s sword with everything he had at the Mage.

Throw has reached Level 5!

Again, the geomancer must have had a preternatural sense of detection, because he stopped and cast another Stone Wall spell. Unfortunately for the Boulderfist Mage, it appeared just a split-second too late, as it showed up just as the spinning sword passed through the space; the stone ended up deflecting the weapon so that instead of it hitting the Mage in the chest it was deflected toward his legs. Larek couldn’t see what happened because it was behind the wall, but he heard the *crack* of bone breaking.

As he heard a scream echo through the Boulderfist’s fortification, Larek made his way around the stone wall at a slower pace than before now that he wasn’t holding Penelope’s sword with its boosts. He arrived just in time to see the brown-robed student drag himself forward, one of his legs broken at the knee, with the flag still clutched in his hand. He was inches away from planting it in the base when Larek threw himself forward at a run, grabbing the flagpole and ripping it from the injured student’s grasp as he rolled on by. Jumping to his feet, he rushed back to the Mage even as his opponent somehow managed to have the focus to cast another spell, but Larek arrived before it was completed.

With a double tap of the flagpole against the student’s chest, Larek took down the last member of the opposing team.

“2D down!”

“Team Boulderfist has been eliminated by Team Fusion!”

Hearing the announcement, Larek realized that he hadn’t heard the same for the other Teams, which was when he remembered that trainees could get back up after 5 minutes if they weren’t “killed” – and there was a pair from each team inside of Team Fusion’s fortification.

Grabbing Penelope’s sword from where it was lying near the Mage with the broken leg, Larek ran back toward his own fortification with the sword in his right hand and the flag in his left. Just as he passed through the entrance, he heard:

“1A healed 1 hit!”

“3C healed 1 hit!”

The two trainees jumped up from where they had been sprawled out on the ground, but they barely got to their feet before Larek was there to smack them with the sword; he still restrained his greater strength but not as much as he had against the Mages, as the trainees could withstand a bit more damage.

“1A down! 1A out!”

“3C down!  3C out!”

He made sure to officially finish them off before moving on to the other two trainees, “killing” them before they could get up.

“Team Coldsnap has been eliminated by Team Fusion!”

“Team Highflight has been eliminated by Team Fusion!”

The crowd, which had been following the events with cheers and shouts as it went back and forth, erupted into an explosion of noise that was nearly deafening.

“Congratulations Team Fusion! It was pulse-pounding Skirmish that had everything from alliances and betrayal, to disappearing participants, to a Mage wielding a Martial weapon as a last resort… but the underdogs managed to pull it off!”

Larek was barely listening to the announcer, because as soon as he handed the sword he had borrowed back to Penelope – who had jumped up in excitement – all he could think about was Nedira.

“Healers to 4E! Healers to 3E! Healers to 2D!”

Now that she wasn’t right in the middle of the action, the observers finally called for healers to attend to the still-unconscious woman, as well as the two Mages that Larek had broken bones.  He couldn’t blame them too much for not calling for healers for Nedira earlier, because she had been visibly “healed” by Larek who was classified as the team’s designated healer, but now that she didn’t get up after the announcement was made that the Skirmish was over, they knew that she probably needed help.

Kneeling next to her, he held her hand and felt her pulse, which seemed a little weaker than usual but it wasn’t alarming. From what he understood and saw himself, his roommates had been the same way after the Healing Surge had done their work on them. So, she would likely just be in a coma for a day or two and then she’d be just fine.

At least, he hoped so. If she wasn’t fine afterwards, he wasn’t sure what he would do.

“No! What happened to Nedira? Didn’t you heal her?”

His team members arrived, the joy on their faces fading away as they saw Nedira still lying on the ground, propped up against the wall. “I did, but my special healing spell is extremely draining. Bart, you can probably attest to that, can’t you?” He had to yell over the roar of the crowd in order to be heard.

The armored trainee nodded. “But she wasn’t hurt that badly, was she?” he asked with a shout of his own.

“Not as badly as you were, but I think a portion of her skull was crushed; she doesn’t have the same kind of bodily endurance as you do, so her body needs to recover for a bit before she wakes up.” It was the best excuse he could come up with to explain his healing without referring to his Fusion. The last thing he needed was anyone looking into it a little closer… since he’d probably have more scrutiny upon him for what he’d done during this last match.

How could I have been so stupid? There’s no way anybody missed me moving that fast without thinking I have the Agility stat.

At some point, his hyper-focus had fallen away and the consequences of his actions finally crashed into his mind. Any moment, he was expecting someone to call him out on it, but no one said anything – at least no one from Team Fusion.

As the staff arrived to carry Nedira away to the healers, he let go of her hand, vowing to see her later as she was placed in the healer’s ward. He knew within his heart that she was going to be alright after a few days; whether the same could be said for himself was still yet to be discovered.

Book 2 Chapter 69: https://www.patreon.com/posts/fusionist-book-2-84914023