The Fusionist Book 2 -- Chapter 26

(I'm wiped out after the convention this weekend; I was only able to get one chapter done and I may end up going back and changing some things, as I was so busy I didn't really get a chance to go over it when I was finished.  In addition, for the first time, I added a secondary perspective other than Larek's, which could either add a precedent for more POV changes or I may change it later if I decide if I want to stick to a singular POV as I have thus far.  I will only have this one chapter this week for The Fusionist Book 2, as I need to have Scorched Time done by Friday; after that, I'm planning on taking 2 weeks to write as much of The Fusionist as I can before I start Dimensional Dungeon Cores book 5.)

Chapter 26

Larek froze, completely out of his element as the young woman practically hung off him with her surprisingly soft lips locked onto his own. After nearly 20 seconds, she finally disengaged from his mouth, but promptly started pecking his cheeks and even his forehead as she kept saying, “Thank you, thank you, thank you!”

It felt like it had gone on forever by the time Larek heard a voice coming from his side. “Your eyes are going to dry out if you make them any wider, Larek.”

Nedira’s comment made him blink a few times, realizing that she was absolutely correct. He focused on that rather than try and make sense of what the Martial trainee was still doing to him, though she stopped shortly after hearing the fourth-year student.

Loosening her arms around the tall former Logger, Penelope stepped back and immediately raised her hands to her mouth in shock. “I—I’m so sorry, I don’t know what came over me.” Even through her dark skin, Larek could see a blush creeping up her cheeks as her eyes widened as much as his own had done. “I was just so thankful for you healing Birdy after what I accidentally did to him that I wasn’t thinking.”

Larek wasn’t even sure what to think; in fact, he had trouble even thinking at all. The entire event, from the healing of the near-mortally wounded older boy to the forced kiss had overwhelmed his mind. And if he thought about it too much, he might even have to think about how his body reacted to the Martial trainee being so close to him.

It was all just too much.

“Well, it was the least we could do, but we really have to get going,” Nedira said when Larek didn’t respond. A hand on his wrist pulled him away from where he was standing stock still, turning him around so that he wasn’t staring at the blue-haired girl anymore. As if he had been under some sort of illusionary spell, as soon as he lost sight of the trainee his brain started to work again.

At first, he was dragging his feet as he was pulled away, following Verne and Norde who were looking a little frightened for some reason; eventually, he began to walk on his own even without Nedira dragging him by the arm. She still didn’t let go of his wrist even when they had left the Martial section of the park, for which he was appreciative; he was still feeling a little out of sorts and didn’t mind the assistance.

They were halfway to their rooms before he realized they were headed in the wrong direction. “Uh…” For some reason, forming coherent words was difficult. “Library?”

“We’ll check it out another time,” Nedira quickly explained, the tone of her words clipped. “We should probably get back to our rooms before it gets too late.”

He supposed that made sense, though he didn’t think that the entire process of healing the poor trainee had taken that long. It wasn’t even dark yet.

Before he knew it, Larek was in his room with his roommates, sitting on his bed across from them as they stared in his direction. Nedira had disappeared at some point, leaving him somehow missing the feel of her hand. It was a comfort in a time when he was feeling as if nothing made sense.

“Larek, are you alright?” Verne asked.

It took him a few seconds to respond. “I think so. Why?”

“Because you’re acting like you just got smacked in the head with a hammer,” Norde replied instead of the young, tree-like boy. “Did that healing drain you as much as it appeared?”

Larek shook his head. “The healing? No. I only used my anklet for that. I can’t cast any spells, remember?”

Verne smirked at him. “Ah, then it was what happened after—”

“What? No. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Thankfully, neither of his roommates teased him about it anymore, as he didn’t want to think about it.

“Fine. We can pretend like it didn’t happen.” Verne said, before his expression turned serious. “But as for the healing, do you think that was a good idea?”

“What do you mean? Was saving that boy’s life a good idea?” He didn’t think there was any question.

“No, not that. I meant the entire situation: revealing that you could heal him despite being a first-year and risking people finding out about the healing Fusion you created. Weren’t you going to try and not call attention to yourself? If so, you didn’t even make it a single day.”

Looking back on the entire day, he had to admit that what he said was entirely true. He hadn’t intended it, but he had done a lot that day to draw attention to himself, and for once it didn’t even have to do with his height.

The distraction of thinking about it was good for him, turning his mind away from… other things. “Well, wait until you hear about what happened when I went to my Advanced Fusions class this morning…” He hadn’t been able to talk about it before during dinner, but now Larek was able to tell his roommates about the incident involving him bodily moving that student blocking his way inside the building.

“Wait, the Professor performed a Truth spell on you? Did she do it to the other student?” Norde asked.

Larek shook his head. “No, not while I was there. I had to leave quickly, but the Professor certainly didn’t look happy with the young woman. It’s quite possible that she was tested after I left.”

“Good. I would watch out in the future, though, because you might have just made an enemy of that girl.”

Larek certainly hoped not, because that was another complication that he didn’t need. He shrugged, knowing that there really wasn’t anything that could be done about it without searching for the purple-robed student and apologizing. In an Academy the size of Copperleaf, he didn’t welcome his chances of finding her, unless he met her outside of the doorway again. Even then, the way she reacted to him indicated that there was a pretty good chance that she wouldn’t accept any apology he might give, but he could at least try.

He shrugged, trying not to worry about it at the moment. “Perhaps. I’m more excited for my Fusions class tomorrow than being concerned with something like that.” As his roommates knew more about his strange stats and abilities with Fusions than just about anyone else, he told them about his encounter with Grandmaster Fusionist Shinpai, and what he ended up demonstrating to his instructor.

“It sounds like you’re finally getting some help!” Verne said excitedly, and Larek couldn’t help but agree. “If he’s really going to help you, then he might help to shield you from any retaliation from that girl. Just… make sure you let him know if you’re being harassed.”

He really didn’t want to bother such an important man with his problems, but he would keep it in mind.

There wasn’t a lot more to go over, especially as he didn’t want to talk or think about what happened after the healing a little bit earlier. They ended up going to bed earlier than usual, but that was fine for Larek because he had a big day tomorrow.

He was finally going to learn more about Fusions.

* * *

Head Drill Instructor Bleeker quickly passed through the hallway leading to Vice General Whittaker’s office, the day’s events cycling through his mind. Normally, he would rarely have a need to talk with the man in charge of Fort Pinevalley, but something unusual enough had occurred that he needed to report it.

A brief knock on the door to his destination was quickly answered with a barked order to enter, and he swiftly turned the handle and swept inside.

“Bleeker. Heard you had some excitement in the yard today.”

Standing at attention as he approached the Vice General’s desk, he looked at the older but still obviously powerful individual sitting behind it. His thinning white hair and sun-darkened and wrinkled face was the only visible sign of his age, as the Vice General’s frame exuded strength, vitality, and restrained violence.

Exactly what the head of a Martial training Fort should look like, in Bleeker’s opinion.

“Yes, sir.”

“Is Scorwood’s boy alright?”

It didn’t surprise the Head Drill Instructor that the Vice General knew about what had happened, nor that he was concerned about a Noble’s brat. While the trainees at the Fort were technically all equal in the eyes of the staff and instructors, there was an underlying awareness that the majority of them were Nobles, who could make life slightly difficult if something like an accident killed one of their own. Granted, accidents absolutely did happen, but they were rarely fatal; they typically had a healer of some sort while any high-intensity training was going on, thanks to the proximity of the Mage Academy in the same building, which was usually enough to heal any injuries. It was actually a good practice regimen for healer-focused Mage students to have practical applications of their spells.

During extracurricular training and duels, they only occasionally had a healer present, which meant that the fights were supervised, and most offensive-based Battle Arts were banned; there were too many opportunities for something go wrong when the combatants used their powerful abilities instead of perfecting weapon drills, concentrating on their footwork, or employing tactics to win a fight.

Which was what happened earlier such a tragedy, as Penelope had disobeyed instructions and used her Battle Art despite it keeping the fight clean. Fortunately, he had been miraculously saved – giving Bleeker a reason to visit the Vice General’s office.

“He’ll… be fine, eventually,” he replied. “From what the healers at the Academy can tell me, it’ll take a few weeks for him to recover.”

“That doesn’t seem to bad, then. I heard it was much worse than that.”

“Oh, it was. The kid was seconds from dying.”

That seemed to shock the Vice General, as he sat back in his chair. “Really? But I thought we didn’t have any healers on call at that time.”

“We didn’t. He was saved by a Mage student passing by,” Bleeker explained. “Here’s the thing; this kid was older than most of my trainees, but he didn’t have a specialization robe. From what I could tell, he wasn’t even a healer.”

“Then how was he able to heal the brat?”

This was the thing that caused him to seek out the head of Fort Pinevalley. “I don’t believe he did, sir.”

The man looked perplexed, which was exactly how Bleeker felt. “What do you mean?”

“I can’t be entirely sure, because it all happened so fast, but I believe the Mage might have used a Fusion instead of a spell to heal him. That’s the only way I can see him being able to do what he did, because the amount of healing required to save the kid’s life was more than most veteran mages could handle in such a short amount of time.”

It sounded entirely far-fetched, he knew, but a glimpse of something in the Mage student’s hand made him think this was the case. Either that, or the student was some sort of healing prodigy, but he thought he would’ve heard about that before now.

“A Fusion? You must be joking.”

“I wish I were, sir. But all the evidence points to it being true, even if it is hard to believe.”

“But healing Fusions are impossible, at least for more than a single use. I’ve seen them before, you know, and they are typically no more than a temporary patch to a wound, not a full healing like what you’ve described.”

It also didn’t surprise the Head Drill Instructor that the Vice General had used a healing Fusion before, as he had been around a long time. While not exactly current with the doings of the Fusionists, such Fusions were rarely made any more, as they took hours to create and with their single-use designation, they weren’t worth the time.  There were also examples of them exploding when they degraded at a faster than normal rate, for reasons he had no knowledge of, which also attributed to their rarity.

“I’m aware, but I still stand by what I saw,” Bleeker replied. “Now, I can’t guarantee this wasn’t a one-time use Fusion, but I don’t believe so.”

The Vice General was silent for a moment. “I’m going to have to look into this, then. If this is true, this could be huge. Did you happen to catch this student’s name?”

“I believe it’s Larek, sir.”

“Larek, huh? I’ll see what I can find out. Thank you for bringing this to my attention. You’re dismissed.”

As he turned to leave, he certainly hoped that what he suspected was true.

Book 2 Chapter 27: https://www.patreon.com/posts/fusionist-book-2-83448590