Mark sipped his beer, staring off into the waters far, far beyond the low walls of Orange City. The ocean beyond the walls shimmered with silver moonlight, the many islands of the Floridas looking like black marks upon the waters. Mark wanted to be there. Out there, among the empty places. He wanted to be everywhere except stuck behind these walls of humanity, where he was protected.
He wanted to do the protecting.
He did not want to be a brawny.
At least Sally was right there with him.
Sally sipped her beer, saying, “I think I’m going for it. Brawny.”
Mark raised an eyebrow. “Really?”
She had gotten ‘brawny’, too. Most everyone did. Mark had hoped that she would have gotten something special, and she had hoped the same for him, but both of them ended up on the same track in life.
Sally said, “It’s also the bare minimum to be able to walk into the hero side of town, so yeah. I want to be out there, and that’s how I’m going to get out there.”
“… yeah,” Mark said, nodding as he stared at his beer, like he was staring down the barrel of a rifle.
And then Mark stared at the world ahead, knowing that he’d never get to go out there as a basic human. Even partial mages like Mom and Dad weren’t given all-world-access, so if Mark went the arcanaeum-one-year route, he’d still have to do... something else? He wasn’t sure. Go the full 4 years and get actual-mage accreditation? Shit. Probably have to sign up with a god in the Chosen System, too.
Dammit.
Maybe he should just be brawny, too.
“Dammit,” Mark softly said, “Maybe brawny isn’t so bad.”
Sally smiled wide, flashing her brilliant white teeth in the moonlight. Her golden hair shimmered as she took a sip of her own beer. She was beautiful, and she was a complete lesbian, so it was actually pretty good that Mark felt nothing for her besides as a best friend. Mark was pretty sure he was asexual himself. He still noticed beautiful people of all genders, but not really.
Sally confided, “It’s kinda terrible of me, but I’m glad you got brawny, too.”
Mark burst out laughing. “What! You wouldn’t have wanted something good for me?”
“Yeah… I did say that earlier, but. You know. I’d have been insanely jealous.”
Mark chuckled.
Sally smiled.
Mark confided, “I’m glad we got the same offer.”
Sally smiled wide. “We can be brawnies together. You can be my wingman, and I can be your wing girl, and maybe we can have little houses next to each other and our kids can be friends. Not in Gladegrove, though. Fuck this tiny town!”
Mark chuckled at that. “What’s wrong with Gladegrove!”
“Oh please. You don’t like it here anymore than I do. Besides! I can’t find a girl in this town! I’ve tried.”
“Oh please yourself. Trying to land a girl takes some guys years and years.”
“Yeah, but boys are icky, so that makes sense!”
Mark laughed, and then he pretended to be offended for his entire gender, “What’s wrong with boys?”
“What? You found one you liked?” Sally asked, teasing.
Sally had been making a ‘joke’ like that ever since she told him she was gay 5 years ago, when they were both 12, and Mark had been kinda ambivalent about the whole idea of girls. Mark had a usual response to that sort of joke, though.
Mark smiled and thought of the guys he had seen lately, picking one. “Have you seen Adam after practice? Those arms of his are great.”
Sally laughed.
Mark smiled.
And then Sally sighed. “Shit, man, this kinda sucks. I was hoping for anything but brawny.”
“You got a 7% chance at a martial variant. 3% at defender. That’s pretty good odds.”
Sally countered, “Your own 4% speedster is… Okay I can’t lie that much. Sorry. 4% sucks.”
Mark chuckled.
His chuckle faded fast.
He had a 4% for speedster. 1% for some unknown Knack. Knacks were shit. They were ‘know where a book is in a library’, or ‘be able to play cards really well’, or stuff like that. People with knacks were relegated to civilian status just like all the baselines.
For a while, neither of them spoke. Both of them just stared out at the night sky, at the islands beyond the wall, and at the shining light of the moon upon the waters. It was a beautiful night. The moon was looking particularly sparkly tonight, too; all the golden light in all the cracks spilling out into the darkness.
Sally said, “I wanted to be able to stand on the front lines under my own power.”
Mark commiserated, “Not many brawnies can do that.”
“Barely any at all! And I know I didn’t get True Brawn. I’m not that lucky.”
Mark said, “Back-line support for us.”
“The most basic of back-line support.”
Mark sarcastically said, “And not even good support. ‘Carry this here!’ ‘Carry that there!’”
Sally grinned. “You gotta carry stuff if you’re going to keep any sort of proper musculature. Gotta go to those special gyms, too, or else you waste away to a skinny brawny.”
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
“At least you’re healthy!”
Sally laughed. “So very healthy!”
“I wish I had real numbers. Real stuff to go on. Real ways to plan.”
Sally frowned at the air. “Curtain Protocol.” She fell to silence.
Mark finished off his beer and sat there, just thinking.
Sally did the same. “So yeah. I’m doing the brawny thing anyway. Even if it is bad. How about you?”
Mark said, “I like Dad’s telekinesis thing. He can’t mana baptize me, or whatever it is they do, but an arcanaeum could. Just gotta go for a year, and then I can fish pull right alongside him…” Mark stared out at the shimmering waters of the Floridas. “Grandpa would have liked that.”
Grandpa would have preferred hydrokinesis, but he had always loved Dad’s fish-pull in a unique sort of way.
Sally asked, “Your dad ever let slip why he can’t do a normal telekinesis?”
Mark shrugged. “No. They don’t talk about that stuff, not for real.”
And Mark wasn’t about to spread rumors of magic, either. He wasn’t going to ‘injure’ Sally in that way. Curtain Protocol was very real.
He certainly had his guesses, though. Dad had used his telekinesis too much against fish and the power mutated to only let him use it against fish. Arcanaeum-granted spells were like that; they mutated some times. It was the same problem Mom had with her cleanse. She used it in too many different situations, and now it only functioned to keep water clean.
Sally didn’t expect, or want an answer, anyway. She was just nervous, just like Mark.
Sally looked out across the dark world, saying, “I think I would have liked a real kineticist power. Any of them would be good. I don’t think I could ever do the mage-thing. But the kineticist thing? Sign me up.”
“Maybe I should do telekinesis.” Mark said, “It’s generic kineticism, so it’s less powerful overall, but it’s still good.”
“Maybe if you had the actual telekinesis Talent I’d agree with you, but just the spell? It’s weak.”
That was true. Spells imprinted on the soul were weak compared to real Awakened power. And yet...
Mark said, “Dad’s magic is… Okay. You know what they call 1-year-arcanaeum mages over on Daihoon? ‘Halfers’, if they’re being generous. ‘Quarters’ if they’re being more honest.”
Sally said, “Not even half a real Talent.”
Mark added, “Not even a quarter, most of the time.”
More silence.
The air smelled of salt, even all the way up here on this bare building overlooking the ocean. Bugs buzzed in the trees and in the dark. Mark stared at the world beyond the Wall that he would never get to see in person, and Sally was right there with him.
Sally sighed. “I want to see Daihoon.” Sally asked, “If we both become brawnies, you want to go travel to the Other Earth with me? As a team we might be able to swing a gate pass.”
“We’d need to find a healer and a ranger.” Mark said, “They wouldn’t give two brawnies a gate pass.”
Minutes passed in silence.
Sally stared at the moon, and Mark stared at the moon right with her. The city of Arakino on the moon was rather active tonight. 100 years ago the only light on the Luna was the reflected light of the sun. But then the Veil broke, and then Arakino stood revealed. It had been a broken city back then, but humanity —mostly the God AI Malaqua and the Stone Church— had rebuilt a lot of the under-surface and overworld up there. Glittering silver roads shimmered on the sunward side of Luna while golden lights glowed in the shadows, in the cracks, like ever-sparkling fireworks.
It was magical.
Sally asked, “How about the Chosen system?”
Mark said, “I’m thinking about that, too. Freyala for healing.”
“I might go for Drakarok.”
Mark breathed deep. “… The god of war and assassination?”
“And the killer of monsters. No one messes with a Drakarok priest. I could even get war-healing; inflict wounds and get healed and heal others, too.”
Mark went with it, saying, “You’d have to be a pretty awesome priest of Drakarok to get that one.”
“Ha! You don’t think I’m awesome?”
“You could work on your footwork some more.”
Sally laughed, and then she sighed, saying, “Yeah. I probably could.”
Mark went silent for a long while.
Sally was about to say something, but she yawned suddenly.
Mark grinned at that. “I guess it is getting late.”
Sally nodded, unable to say anything through another yawn.
Mark chuckled, but he held back his own yawn, saying, “You’re going to make me tired now, too!”
“I’m exhausted! I can’t believe you’re not tired.”
“I want to see the sky whales. They should have been here by now, and yet the sky is still empty.” Mark checked his phone. The illumination of the screen brightened Sally and Mark’s dark little corner of the world with a warning yellow glow. ‘NON-AGGRESSIVE KAIJU IN THE AREA.’ Mark checked the radar. All he saw was… an empty sky. “They should be here. Kaiju watch is still on.” He turned off the screen and shoved the phone back in his pocket as he looked up, asking, “Where are they?”
“Well I’m done waiting.” Sally got up, saying, “They probably got diverted.”
“Probably.” Mark got up, too.
The two of them had been at the top of a paintball site, at the top of an old construction project. The place looked abandoned, but it wasn’t abandoned at all. It was closed at night, though; especially at this hour.
The two of them walked down the dark stairs, through the bowels of the paintball range. It was made to look abandoned. Dangerous. It wasn’t really that way at all. It still looked creepy, though, with the lack of light and with walls splattered in all colors, a lot of them looking like blood.
They reached the bottom and Sally headed left, headed home in the dark. She only lived a minute away from the paintball range, and the two of them had been walking in the dark in Gladegrove since they were both ten. Even though they were close to the city wall, there was no danger of there being monsters in the dark. Maybe some gators in the ponds here and there, but no monsters.
Mark lived a bit further away from here than Sally, and in the other direction, but he had taken his bike, so he hopped on that and was soon sailing down mostly-empty streets. He took a detour into the woods to get around a guard station at a major intersection up ahead. He didn’t want to deal with guards asking him why he was out at midnight, and they didn’t want to bother giving him the 50-questions. It was a hassle if they caught kids out after curfew, so they had told him, years ago, to not get caught. If they didn’t see him, then they didn’t need to talk to him.
Mark hopped back on the main street after he passed the station and headed home.
As he was putting the bike away in the garage, the rear tire popped.
It just…
Popped!
Just like that!
Mark stared at the popped tire.
He found himself weirdly furious at every single damned fucking thing in life and he took his bike, lifting it high before he smashed it onto the ground. Plastic shattered. A pedal went that way. The chain broke. Mark stood over the wreckage, feeling empty.
“… Fuck. Why did I do that?”
He left it there, for the morning.
… And then he went back down to the garage and tried to fix what he had broken, cursing at himself for breaking it like he had. It was his only real form of transportation. He got as far with the fix as he could, replacing the parts of the chain that had burst, and unbending the wheel. It was kinda just fucked up, though. By the time he got around to putting new tubes in the tires it was almost 3 am, and it was as good as it was going to get.
Mark went to bed exhausted.