The Fusionist Book 2 -- Chapter 33

(A shorter chapter than usual, but as it was from two different POVs, I felt it better to keep it separate)

Chapter 33

Penelope paced back and forth between the walls of the vestibule, the door leading into Head Drill Instructor Bleeker’s office closed for the time being. She knew she was late to their meeting, which was entirely her fault, but she didn’t think she was that late.

If it wasn’t because I was afraid of reporting my failure, I would’ve been here on time—

The door abruptly opened and she saw the Head Drill Instructor beckoning toward her. She crossed the distance to the door in a matter of seconds before following him inside. As he took a seat in a simple wooden chair behind a large wooden desk, covered in what looked like hundreds of pieces of paper, he gestured for her to sit down on one of the wooden stools arranged in front of the desk. She only hesitated for a second before sitting down, aware that she was likely to get into trouble and thought it better to stand, but that trouble would be even worse if she disobeyed his order.

“I’ll cut right to it, Penelope. What information have you been able to obtain? You’ve had weeks to learn everything you can about that Mage student, Larek, so you must have something for me.”

“Sir, I did what you asked and shadowed Larek the first day, finally encountering him all alone in the second floor of the library. He seemed to be checking out Intermediate Fusion books, though I’m not exactly sure what that means.”

The Head Drill Instructor appeared contemplative for a moment before he waved at her to go on.

“I spoke with him, wanting to genuinely thank him for what he did the day before, and he appeared to be very nervous for some reason. I can only assume that he was hiding some sort of secret, but I’m not aware of what it could be.”

“What else did you discover?”

“Well, he’s apparently a transfer from Crystalview and had only been here a few days at that point, and he’s not a Noble.” She hesitated for a moment before she went on. “There’s also one more thing, though I’m not sure what it means.”

“What is it?”

“Well, I was gripping on to his arm because he was trying to escape my questions—”

“You did what? Penelope, this had better not come back on us; you know better than to hurt one of students at the Academy.”

She shook her head. “No, I didn’t hurt him. In fact, he broke out of my grip like it was nothing.”

“Really? You must not have been gripping him very hard.”

“Oh, I was, but it was as if he didn’t even notice it.”

At her words, the Head Drill Instructor stared off into space for a few seconds. “Hmm. That’s certainly unexpected. I’m not sure what it means, but perhaps it was the result of a spell or a Fusion?”

He didn’t seem to be asking her, so she was silent. Eventually he turned his attention back to her and asked, “What else did you find out?”

Penelope hesitated for a moment before answering. “Nothing.”

“Nothing? You’ve had three weeks and that’s all you found?”

“Yes. I’ve attempted to contact him again, but every time I try and get close, I’m discovered by that Mage we saw during the, uh, incident in the yard. You know, the one with the reddish-gold hair and the green robe? She’s been blocking me from getting close; I could certainly force my way through, but you told me not to do anything that could potentially look badly upon the Fort.

“This Larek student doesn’t go anywhere except his classes, his room, and the Dining Hall, so it’s nearly impossible to get to him alone. I’ve been waiting near the library in case he comes back, but so far he hasn’t visited it since that first evening. I was almost able to intercept him on day when he traveled all the way across the yard between classes, but he runs fast enough that it would be quite obvious if I were to follow him.”

“Wait, you said he ran across the yard in between classes? That doesn’t sound correct; most of the years are clustered together so that they don’t have to travel as much to get to classes. Where is he coming from and going?”

Penelope explained what she had observed, and the Head Drill Instructor had the same contemplative look on his face she had seen earlier, but it was mixed with confusion.

“But that would indicate that he’s a first-year and somehow taking classes in the workshops for upper-years. I thought he might be a second- or third-year, because of the student greys he was wearing instead of having a specialization, but I guess I was wrong. But that just makes everything even more strange; if he’s a first-year, how was he able to cast a healing spell? Or was it a Fusion like I thought—”

The intimidating man across from her suddenly snapped his eyes to her and said, “You didn’t hear that. In fact, this conversation is entirely confidential; I don’t want you spreading it around the Fort. If I hear about it, you’re going to wish I didn’t.”

“What conversation, sir?” she immediately asked.

“Exactly. Unless you have anything else for me, you’re dismissed.”

Penelope immediately jumped to her feet and bowed, before turning around and practically running toward the door. Yes! No punishment—

“Oh, and Penelope?”

She stopped as her boots skid along the stone floor.

“10 laps around the Fort tomorrow morning. Perhaps next time you’ll try harder to gain the information I requested.”

Guess I spoke too soon. With a nod to indicate she heard him, Penelope opened the door and slipped out, closing it behind her. Leaning up against the smooth wood, she let out a breath. Could’ve been worse, I suppose.

Running 10 laps around the entire Fort would take hours, especially since she knew he meant around the outside perimeter. But if she were lucky, she might get a chance to see Larek again on her way out or when she came back in; there was just something about him that intrigued her, even if he was a mystery in many other ways. Not intriguing in a romantic way, of course, because he wasn’t exactly her type, but there was a natural charm or charisma in his naïve-yet-powerful aura that he projected that she couldn’t help but want to learn more about him.

Resolving to continue trying to get close to him despite no further orders to do so, Penelope headed off to the barracks to get some sleep. Despite having 15 points in Body and Agility, along with 20 in Strength – a fairly balanced mixture of stats perfect for her fighting style – running 10 laps in the morning was going to be exhausting. She was going to need all the rest she could get.

* * *

Head Drill Instructor Bleeker watched the door close behind the trainee as he leaned forward to put his head in his hands. I’m not even sure what to do anymore. None of his contacts in the Academy knew anything about this Larek student, but now that he managed to get a little more information about him from Penelope, he now knew why.

He was a first-year Mage that just transferred from Crystalview.

Of course, he’d heard the rumor about what happened up at Crystalview a few weeks ago like most of the staff in the Fort, but it both sounded implausible and like a made-up story – perhaps there was some truth to it after all? Regardless of the validity of the rumor, the fact that this student was here now meant that even if he went looking for records in the Academy, they wouldn’t have much to investigate since he basically just started a few weeks before.

There were a few things of interest that he could pursue, such as an abnormal strength and the fact that he had a class in the higher-year workshops, but it wasn’t really much to go on. Without directly interrogating the student, which felt like a poor way to thank the young man for helping to heal one of Bleeker’s trainees, there wasn’t really any other option.

Well, other than going right to the top and asking the Dean of Copperleaf Academy. If anyone knew what was going on in her institution, it would be her, but there was no way that a Drill Instructor, even the Head Drill Instructor, would approach the woman and blatantly ask about one of her students. No, that was something that only Vice General Whittaker could get away with, given that they had a working relationship.

The only real choice now was to see if investigating on his own turned up any other information or going to his boss to pass along the responsibility; either way, it was going to be a headache.

But it will be worth it if what I suspect is true.

Based on the conjecture that the healing done to the Noble trainee had been done with a Fusion, which had ended up healing him miraculously well with a few weeks of recovery to gain back body mass that had been lost as a result, Bleeker could assume that the higher-year class he was taking in the workshops had to do with Fusions, but that didn’t really get him anywhere. The Mages were inordinately secretive about the Fusion processes, especially the more-powerful ones, so he doubted he’d get much information from that avenue.

But as far as the young man’s strange strength, that was something that could be investigated further. After all, there was a Skirmish coming up within the next few weeks in the arena, so that might be the perfect time to see what this kid was all about. Granted, as a first-year student he was unable to volunteer to participate on his own, but if he was part of a team and chosen to participate by the team members, there was no rule against something like that. First-years normally weren’t chosen by the experienced teams because they were practically useless in a fight, especially first-year and even second-year Mages, but he had a feeling that this Larek was anything but useless.

If the Skirmish doesn’t turn anything up, I’ll go to Whittaker and report all that’s been discovered to this point. It’ll be up to him what to do with the information.

With that decided, Head Drill Instructor Bleeker looked at the paperwork on his desk that he had been neglecting, after making a note to speak with a certain trainee in the morning after she finished her laps.

Book 2 Chapter 34: https://www.patreon.com/posts/fusionist-book-2-83783497