Malcolm Tent
patreon
Wish upon the Stars 712
🕑 Added 2024-09-12 19:09:35 +0000 UTCRebuilding Velan was my first pick of assignment. Well…assignment was a loaded word. I just kind of said what I wanted and people did it. Word was already spreading as the E-rankers returned to their cities, clearing out stragglers and beginning the rebuilding process. I went back to my city, to fix the damage that had been done.
Pit of Despair was so overpowered in this environment I was able to push it further out than I could have imagined. A mile of building and rubble reduced to ultra fine dust with a thought, and the same amount of dust captured with my Dust Construction, slowly reworking the buildings as I’d been told.
I had a parallel running to check over the blueprints, correcting any issues, and because of that, I had a lot of time to think.
Callie came with me. She looked worried, and I didn’t blame her. Now that things had temporarily settled, I was finally decompressing, and the wounds my emotional adrenaline had been concealing were starting to burn.
“What did you do to yourself?” My wife asked me as she finally had a chance to take a good look at me through the bond. “You feel…fractured.”
“I am.” I said tiredly. The weariness wasn’t from the manual labor, that actually helped, it was more from everything else. The emotional toll of commanding my troops, the mental exhaustion of being ON for such a long time, sure. But more than that, it was the recursion I’d been through.
The cold hate of the Wendigo, the sadistic glee of Limbo, the final frost of the formation. Normal recursion was fine. It was gradual and spread out over my soul. Like a coating of water that froze on layer at a time, making me bigger and bigger as it was applied.
But the things I’d been through since I came to Callus were different. When you flash freeze a person, the water in their blood turns to icicles, it perforates their cells, the uneven freeze pincushioning them from inside out.
This was like that. A few spots where I’d been flash frozen at different times and temperatures, and parts of me were torn apart by the ice.
Callie tapped into the bond, took control over the Dust Construction Skill, and created a parallel to run it, then she walked over and took my hands and led me over to a building nearby. She pushed me down so I was leaned against the wall and sat down next to me, curling up to my side.
“My big brave idiot.” She said, her voice rough with pain. “How many times have you taken on the weight of the world because you were too stupid to be careful?” She removed my mask, taking my face in her hands as she set it beside us.
Then she reached through the bond and called forth Zagan. Her beautiful black hair cascaded into an emerald flame, her blue eyes lightning verdant green, and I felt a powerful tide of soothing, purifying peace enter my head through her hands. “You don’t have to hold it alone.” She murmured. “Not ever again. I won’t let you. We’re in this together.”
Genesis Burst flooded through me. I’d never had the ability used on me before. I’d used it on Felicity dozens of times, but I’d never felt it from this side.
It hurt. Not just physically, although, yes, very much, but emotionally. It felt like my pain was a friend, like it was a part of me and it was dying. I felt my eyes well with tears as the various frozen pieces began to thaw, exposing open wounds and then starting the slow process of knitting them together.
Felicity wasn’t very expressive. She’d never told me much about what she experienced when I used this technique on her, or hell, maybe she didn’t feel this. Maybe the damage to her soul was so severe she’d lost the capacity to experience this.
If so, she was lucky. The flame from Genesis Burst finished the last of the thaw, and when it was finally done, when my wounds were all on the way to healing…they ignited. Fire blazed up inside and burned away the impurities, the damage, the pain, the emotions and sensation, they acted like kindling. No, like accelerant. I was burning alive, lit on fire by a cleansing blaze that felt like it would never go out.
My mouth was screaming, I think. I couldn’t tell, except Callie’s eyes were closed and she was sobbing and I could feel a distant echo of self loathing for torturing me like this. I didn’t care. I couldn’t. Caring was a feeling, and the pain was overstimulating my emotions so heavily it felt like my skin was an open wound and someone had pushed me into a pool of bleach and lemon juice and dried me off with a bundle of salt covered razor wire.
By the time I came back to myself, I was lying in her lap. She was crying and holding me, making small shushing noises as she smoothed my hair.
I blinked away the tears, realizing my vision was blurry and wiping my face to find blood. I wasn’t in pain anymore, so the burst must have healed it, but I had been bleeding. “Sorry.” I Croaked through dry lips. “That was probably loud.”
“I kept it quiet with stealth.” She rasped. “I didn’t think you’d want people to hear.”
Chuckling, I sat up with a groan. “That was…something. Holy shit, does Felicity go through that every time?”
She shook her head. “I think it was because we did it all at once. Felicity is still having the damage cleansed. We got rid of yours all at once, and it turned into like…fuel for the healing process. But in a bad way. I’m so sorry.”
I cracked my neck. “It’s fine.” I said, life coming back to my voice. “Well, actually no. It sucked hard. But it was the good kind of suck. Like cleaning out a cut with alcohol. It hurts like a bitch, but you feel better when it’s done.” I shot her an appraising look. “I hadn’t considered Genesis Burst to fix the damage. I just kind of took for granted it would be a long term thing.”
“You’re not used to me being able to use your forms.” She shrugged. “It’s one of the most useful things that came from the bond reaching Expert, I think. I’m glad I could help though. The thought of you being like that forever…”
I grinned. “Zeke once told me something. It was back during our trip to the Tricorn. He said ‘Despite what some may tell you, there are very few things that cannot be undone. Unfortunately, the process of undoing them is often worse than having them done in the first place.’ This situation kind of shows me what he meant.”
She giggled wetly. “That sounds like him, all right. Are you really ok? I didn’t…I thought Genesis Burst was supposed to be helpful. I know Felicity is different, but I hadn’t realized HOW different until now.”
“Yeah.” I said slowly. “I might need to tinker with that one. But still, I owe you one. Those instances of forced recursion weren’t just damaging my soul. I’m pretty sure they were causing corruption in my stats. If they’d been allowed to fester, my next rank up might have been…dangerous.”
I’d never heard of anything like that before, but then again, forced recursion like that wasn’t common. Or I guess it was, just not in a way I was aware of. Technically I’d gone through three different catalyzing incidents for a racial trait, but only partway. Thinking about it like that it was no wonder I’d been so fucked up.
“You took one look at me and knew.” I said with a smile. “I had my guard up before and didn’t even realize myself, but as soon as I relaxed you saw it and fixed it.”
She snorted. “Obviously. In sickness and in health, remember? But please don’t do that to me again. Fixing you…” She shuddered, eyes haunted. “Gods, Shane, I could feel it while it was happening. You were there in my head like normal, but you couldn’t hear me, all you could do was scream. I felt the agony in my bones.”
“Yeah. I’ll give that a pass. No more monkeying with anything Domain related until D-rank.” Because that had been what had happened. The damage was all Domain related. The Wendigo’s Domain had been part of it, integrated early maybe, and a Domain was just a fledgeling world, so seeing the truth of Callus had been like brushing up against one.
Only I could find so many ways to scar myself in a fashion that should be borderline impossible at my current level. I laughed, climbing to my feet. Looking around, I marveled at the buildings. “Damn, you finished while I was out? How long was I unconscious.”
“An hour.” She shrugged. “I was already working on the Dust Construction thing, so I figured I’d take it off your plate.”
“That has been your habit with most things.” I nodded solemnly. “Even when you have your own plate.” I let out a loud cough that sounded suspiciously like ‘french fries’, and bent to pick up my mask, slipping it back on. Callie had some of the highest Perception on Callus most likely, so the Stealth didn’t worry me, but I felt naked without it.
Laughing at my jab, she strode over and tucked herself under my arm. To an outsider it would look like affection, but I suspect she’d seen the slight tremor when I straightened up. I squeezed her with one arm, letting my gratitude flood the bond.
We stood like that for a minute, letting my sore and exhausted body readjust. My soul and mind were feeling fine, if not actually good, but my body had spent the last hour seizing up and screaming myself hoarse, so my muscles were feeling like shit. Once I was doing ok, we went to go check on the other nearby construction projects, to see what we could do to help.
On the way, I took Callie on a walk. We’d both grown up in Valen, but she’d been in a different social strata then I had. She’d never been to some of the places Benny and I had hung out. This hot dog stand, that park. Some of them had been crushed and were under construction, but some were still there and doing fine.
With the lingering damage from the Domain exposures going, I could actually enjoy the sensation of just…going for a walk with my wife. It was shockingly nice to just do nothing for a while. We stopped a few times when we did find construction that needed a hand, but it never took long.
By the time it was dark, we were ready to head home. We’d decided to stick with the cavern base, since we’d put so many wishes into reinforcing it. We figured people would stay more combat ready if we kept the base around, too. Though of course we approved missions home to do repairs and just decompress. We needed everyone at their best for the fight.
We piled into a shuttle at dusk to head back to the volcano, and Callie curled up against me as we watched the night sky. Even through the trails of labyrinth, the stars were beautiful as they started to peek out in the sky as the light of day faded.
Despite how rough things had been only an hour earlier, i counted this as one of the best days I’d had in quite a while. Despite all that, the sense of foreboding never faded. Something was still coming, and when it got here…I wasn’t sure what would happen. Whatever it was though, I knew one thing. I wouldn’t be facing it alone.
