CHAPTER 6 – UNEXPECTED ANGER
The encounter with the girl with the white streak in her hair disturbed him on multiple levels. For one, it was a new phenomenon in the orphanage. Little Ta had already been in this place for slightly over a year, and that sort of bullying was not normal. Hopefully, it was only a symptom of the lack of adult supervision and not a more worrying domino effect of his true memories awakening. His second cause of concern was his own reaction – namely, the uncontrollable rage that had pulsed through him.
Not for the first time, he wondered exactly what did those memory holes hide. Was it possible something in there had caused that fury that coursed through him? It seemed ridiculous. On earth, he hadn’t believed the stories of people bottling emotions down and then having them eventually explode out into unexpected violence; but that was what that reaction had felt like, and it troubled him.
He comforted Bir, and then concentrated on being a child.
They reached the magic television room. The screen differed from the earth technology – it was far superior. When you activated the magic, it became more similar to opening a window and looking through it than it was to watching the regular television. Everything was perfectly three-dimensional with no noticeable pixilation issues.
“No, not like that. You need to remove the other one first, it’ll just click out.” Tom snapped.
Bir had been trying to shove in a memory crystal that captured a Druid’s battle before removing the old one.
She looked at him wide eyed.
“Let me show you,” he corrected hurriedly.
Bir let him demonstrate the technique of releasing the old crystal and replacing it with the new one. She smiled and then practiced popping the crystal out of the holder. Eight times in total! He knew because he counted, and then they settled down to watch. It seemed she had either already forgotten or never cared that he had briefly gone out of character.
He had gotten away with it.
It was, however, a wake-up call. This was a mistake he was making too often. Internally, he examined his fate pool.
It was over half-full.
He had to address the issue. It was, after all, an investment in his survival.
Fate could influence events indirectly; more importantly, the resource could act on a conceptual basis. It could be turned to improving his acting, or at least help to hide or prevent the larger missteps that risked revealing his status to a hidden observer.
Who, after all, might be watching him.
While it couldn’t directly change his thought patterns, it could cause something to fall and make a loud noise to distract him before he broke character, or cause a coughing fit by having him breathe in contaminated air and physically prevent the action. There were lots of pathways that it could use to influence him, and if he spent it early and cautiously, it would protect him cheaply.
Plus, Tom wanted to know how much fate he actually possessed, and this investment would answer that question.
Tom smiled wryly at himself. It was not like satisfying his curiosity affected his decision-making in the slightest. Not even a little. This was just something he absolutely had to do.
While they were watching a hero kill a wyvern with a spectral axe, Tom focused on his fate. One by one, he concentrated on the image he desired, then released a single point. He asked it to stop him from dropping out of character. After ten points, he tweaked what he was envisaging to create a direct protection. If anything that might reveal his nature happened, he wanted the energy to turn the enemies’ attention away from him, to save him from his own mistakes.
Fifteen points later he had used about a third of his fate pool, which placed his current fate at somewhere between forty and fifty. The amount was perplexing, especially with Bir having similar quantities. Last life, there had been competent people at level fifty with less. This was another mystery to solve.
Tom recalled the bookshelf in the isolation room. He couldn’t wait to get locked in there and be able to find the answer to all these simple questions he was putting on his ‘to do’ list.
Under his clothes, where no one could observe, he manipulated raw magic and tried to corral it into the Touch Heal spell form he remembered. His mana would recharge every six minutes, and he had carried out a risk assessment. He had compared the benefit of practicing his spell form a hundred times extra per day versus the danger of an enemy of humanity observing it. The risk, as far as Tom was concerned, was low for several reasons. For a start, eight mana was well below background variation, so his magic should be lost in the noise of the environment. Furthermore, the clothes he wore were enchanted with what he suspected was a weak obfuscation ward, which would hide anything he did. Finally, the entire orphanage had regular artefacts spread throughout it - artefacts whose sole purpose was to spit out magic static, creating chaotic flows throughout the place. Even a single one of those precautions would probably have been sufficient for him to take the risk, but with all of them working in tandem there was almost no chance of anyone noticing what he was doing.
It was the eighth time since reaching this room that he had attempted to construct the spell, and this time the result was no different. It broke into pieces halfway through the process and the magic vanished.
Internally, he shrugged. Given the barely workable structure he had managed, even when using fate, the complete failure without it was not a surprise. But he was not discouraged. He had years of practice to complete everything before he could level. That gave him more than enough time to perfect this spell, though regularly cheating with fate would dramatically reduce the timeframe.
Bir jumped to her feet abruptly and sprinted out, presumably to go to the toilet again. Pa smirked, recognizing what she was doing too, and got up from the cushions. They followed her out. Magic screen-watching was finished. She would want to do something physical after lazing about here for over two hours.
The trio of them seemed to drift between activities. Sometimes it meant choosing vigorous play like physically pretending to be heroes and fighting monsters while jumping on top of the various obstacles in the greenhouse. Other times they would go to story time, which meant that an adult they had never seen before would read them and a handful of others a book.
Tom spent the day focusing on being a kid. He didn’t retreat to his system room because that would waste his time. Instead, when tricky situations arose, he relied on his more recent childhood memories to guide his actions. In between those problematic moments, in the long periods of drudgery that filled his day, Tom would dutifully practice his healing spell every time his mana pool filled up.
Like clockwork, it failed every time.
Before he knew it, he was back under the covers, knife in hand, with fate to spend. He made two cuts on his arm and then did a fate-assisted heal on one of them. The spell form was still embarrassing. It seemed a little lopsided, too. On the other hand, he thought he felt some itching when it landed.
With a sigh, he settled down to sleep. Today’s attempt had gone much better than the first one.
In the morning, he checked the two cuts. To be perfectly honest, the differences between them were negligible. Possibly the control one’s bruise was a darker shade, and the mostly-healed line an angrier red. While he was pretty certain of the variance, he was not convinced an independent authority would have made the same ruling.
This time when, he left the warmth of his covers Pa, too, was awake and ready to leave. So, after detouring to the toilet and the cleaning loop, they went down to breakfast. Tom had sausages and, at Pa’s urging, served himself a deep purple fruit that had been sliced but not peeled. Its outer skin had the sheen like one would see on the inside of an oyster shell.
“It’s nice,” Pa assured him. “Really yummy.” The other child had four slices on his plate.
After he had consumed the sausages, he played with the fruit segment to demonstrate his reluctance to eat it.
“Try it, try it.”
With his face screwed up in protest he bit into it. This was not something little Ta would have tried, but Tom saw it as an opportunity to push boundaries. The fruit was both alien and surprisingly pleasant. It tasted like a cross between carrot and blueberries that had been salted. The texture was closest to that of a mango. He could definitely see it being a part of his diet in the future. Even as he privately complimented the fruit, he allowed little Ta’s instincts to take center stage. Tom could feel the disgust that he should have felt get reflected across his face, and he spat it out onto the plate and made a point of wiping down his tongue while making gagging noises.
Pa laughed at him and then ate his fourth piece, unconcerned with Tom’s rejection of it.
The day continued, and he went through the motions with a focus on his two priorities. These were raising his acting to a minimum standard, and his healing. The heal was boosted by fate first thing in the morning and at night, but never during the day. The initial unstable construction of the spell form improved every day by slight degrees. When examined, it was becoming more consistent and getting closer to the smooth, perfect lines he remembered. While he was sure he was making progress, the injury that he actually healed did not support that hypothesis. There was no identifiable improvement in its overnight state, even if the morning cast showed the wound visually improving. He was starting to wonder if the morning successes were not, instead of an evidence of healing, only a surface effect. There was a possibility that the apparent healing was coming at the expense of the tissue below the visible cut.
He nibbled on his lower lip and shut his eyes. If that was the case, then he might be creating a stop bleeding spell rather than a healing ability.
The next morning Pa slept in, and after eating he and Bir joined up with a wider group of kids to play obstacle tag at the greenhouse once more. Almost two hours later, they went for an additional snack, basically timing a food raid for the back end of breakfast.
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Tom stopped in shock when he entered the dining hall.
Pa was sitting at their normal table with five older kids surrounding him. The girl with the white streak in her hair was the cause. She held a foul-looking concoction and was offering it to Pa with a broad but all-too fake smile on her face.
Tom could feel the anger rapidly building inside him.
Next to him Bir released a burst of fate, and it shot straight at the bully who had stolen her pastry. Based on how quickly it had been launched he doubted it was a deliberate action. That meant it would be less efficient than the prank she had performed on snotty Ma and her parents. The diffuse cloud hurtled at its target.
Then stopped.
It was like it was a magic attack striking a defensive shield. Fate that had been invisibly following the older girl activated and negated everything that Bir had sent.
The ten-year-old resisting fate was only a minor surprise. This was what he had expected to occur when the adults had been targeted.
Bir stamped her foot, which caused him to look at her sideways. Not only was she a prodigy in her ability to use her fate, apparently she could see it as well. In the tutorial, it had taken Tom decades to develop that skill, and this girl had done it before she was five. If little Ta had not possessed memories of her using it pre-ceremony, he would have suspected she was reincarnated too, but those memories existed.
This was not a new phenomenon. She was a genius, and at this thought more notes appeared on Tom’s ‘to do’ list. Given her aptitude, he was going to turn her into a powerhouse while he developed himself.
She huffed next to him. “Adults are easier.”
A blond skinny girl in the group patted Pa on the back forcefully and stabbed a finger at the mixture of juices and other stuff they had brought over. Tom guessed along with the innocent stuff it probably had raw eggs, curry, and hot sauce.
They were about to force him to drink it. “No.” Tom snarled his fury rising. A four-year-old against a pack of older kids. Pa had no chance.
This was unfair!
The blond had a hand hooked around Pa’s lips and her other was lifting the cup toward his mouth.
Weaponless, he charged.
This situation had to be fixed. He had to crush them and show them who was the boss.
The girl with a white streak in her hair, the ringleader saw him coming and rolled her eyes:
“Giant dragons, boy. Give it a rest.” She moved to intercept him.
In Tom’s mind, she was the enemy. This was her fault. The head charge had been a dismal failure last time. So, he adapted his approach.
In the split second, he had to think; he figured if you were weaponless and wanted to hurt something, you kicked it with as much momentum and force as you could muster.
He sprinted at her and launched. His technique broke apart immediately. The proportions of leg to height were off and his muscles lacked the explosive reaction time he was used to. Years of having to occasionally switch to martial technique mid battle, often when already injured, let him compensate for his body’s weaknesses. By sheer skill, he got airborne, his leg up, and somehow, he even managed to be on target, heading straight for her knee. Unfortunately, he was still four. The attack was weak and slow, and she sidestepped casually to avoid him.
He missed.
“What’s wrong with you?” She asked. A weight slammed into his back and the air was blown out of his lungs. A single hand pinned his two arms, and a knee pressed into his back, making it a struggle to draw in air.
Tom tried to throw his weight around, but it was futile. He was thoroughly beaten.
The raging anger cracked and faded. He still hated her and didn’t know why she had targeted Bir and Pa, but the rabid need to attack her had receded.
“Are you going to behave now.”
He nodded, and then she got off him.
It took him a moment to gather the composure to get up. By the time he was ready to do so, the group of older children had left.
Bir helped him stand, and he did so while still struggling to breathe normally. “She’s a mean girl. She hurted Ta?”
Tom hesitated at that question and assessed his body’s state. He was slightly winded, but nothing else was overly sore. She could have done a lot more damage to him, and easily so. In fact, the lack of additional pains spoke to care not to injure him more than anything. She was, after all far stronger and heavier than him but all she had done was restrain him for a few moments.
“I’m good,” he answered in a state of confusion. All she had done was restrain him. Just the impact of landing after the missed kick should have left him more hurt than this. The only explanation was that she must have held him back slightly and prevented him from landing too heavily. Such care was at odds with her earlier blatant bullying. It was possible that she was worried about the consequences, but there were no adults around. Once more, he had the disturbing feeling that there was something unknown influencing the situation.
Pa, meanwhile, had half risen to come to their aid, but then stopped, torn over the prospect of abandoning his food versus helping his friend. The automations could be overly proactive if you left plates unprotected. That threat and probably the lack of escalation had made him stay where he was.
They went over to him.
“Pa are you okay?” Both Tom and Pa could clearly see the mounting indignation in her face. Her cheeks were red and there were no adults in the room. A full meltdown would do nothing. Tom searched for a way to pacify her.
“She didn’t hurt me,” he insisted.
“And I didn’t get hurt.” Pa said quickly. “They made me a special drink.”
Bir glanced skeptically at the creation in question. Her brows wrinkled briefly in confusion, then her lips pursed, and she shuddered slightly as she imagined actually having a sip of the horrible-looking thing.
“Special drink is good.” With visible reluctance Pa picked it up and took a sip like it would prove his point. There was a brief look of distaste that was skillfully hidden. “It looks bad, but yummy.” Pa gave her a forced smile.
Bir did not seem to notice. “I’m worried the mean girl hurt you.”
“She didn’t.” When Bir wasn’t looking, Pa grabbed his water cup and drained it. Almost like he wasn’t realizing he was doing it, he pushed the foul looking drink a bit away from him and then shifted it a little further.
“I’ll make mean girl leave us alone.” Her anger was rising again.
“Were you here for food?” Pa asked brightly. “You’ll have to be quick breakfast finishes soon.”
Bir nodded and hurriedly rushed over to get food before the automations activated and cleared it up.
The next two days passed with the same routine and together the three of them hurried to dinner. He selected his fare and sat down at the table.
“Four adults,” Bir announced excitedly.
“Yes,” Tom answered. He had noticed them because it was unusual to have even one adult at the meal and four were so many he had stopped in surprise when he had spotted them.
“Who to target?” Bir had that mischievous look that he had started to recognize. “Ta you choose?” she insisted probably because she was subconsciously sensing that he had been slightly withdrawn all day.
Tom forced himself to look devious as he checked out the adults in the room. It was not at all subtle, but consistent with little Ta’s usual behaviour. His eyes alighted on Ralph. He was over six, so had chosen his own name and was a frequent target of Bir’s tricks. He assessed the relative fate levels between the two of them and was not at all surprised to find that the other boy’s fate pool was almost empty. Given the history of successful fate pranks, Ralph having low fate was expected. If Tom directed Bir’s attention that way, she would target him despite her annoyance at the white streak bully’s victorious defense against similar attacks over the last couple of days.
However, Tom didn’t want to do that. There was something about using fate, what was probably humanity’s most precious resource, on a boy that couldn’t be any older than eight that caused his stomach to roil in protest.
There were four adults in the room, and Tom focused on them. An instant to assess them told him they were in the same state as Ralph. They were ripe for targeting. He had seen none of them before, which made sense, given the restrictions that they all acted under. One of them looked like the man who had been the not dad of snotty. To stay in character, he needed to pick someone, no matter how distasteful it felt.
“Him,” Tom pointed, selecting the man for the crime of having a slight resemblance to snotty’s dad.
Bir grabbed his hand. “Don’t point. He’ll notice and, Pa, you don’t stare either.” She sounded scandalized at their lack of tact.
They returned to focusing on their food.
“Have you done it?” Pa asked after nearly a minute of eating.
The spoon that was most of the way to her lips paused as she concentrated.
In Tom’s advanced senses, there was another flood of fate as she emptied her entire pool. The dedication to the prank was impressive.
Tom looked over at the target before he could help himself. Bir grabbed his wrist. Her nails digging in. “Wait. No, look.”
It was too late.
He had noticed how the fate had split up and spread to impact many people.
The outcome was already in play. The man was near a table filled with twelve-year-olds. One of them got up, holding his plate and as he turned to presumably move to another seat, he was playfully shoved from behind. As he attempted to balance, an undefinable overboiled veggie went flying to splat on the floor almost three metres away from him. At the same time, the plate itself fell out of his fingers and hit the floor with a massive crash.
There was a roar of laughter.
Their target was on his way to the coffee stand and barely paying attention to the commotion. It was, after all, just one of many similar ones that would likely occur over the meal.
His foot landed on the veggie, and slipped like he had stepped on a banana peel. He windmilled, yelled a curse, and, despite all the speed and balance he possessed, none of it helped. He crashed hard into the ground. For a moment, the floor had been perfectly frictionless and that had doomed him.
Bir giggled. “Ta stop looking, or they’ll think you are to blame.”
Tom forced his eyes away from the target and stared instead at his plate.
The entire situation puzzled him. How was an adult walking around with a lack of reserves and no defensive fate to protect him? It was almost incompetent. The string of events that caused him to tumble had not been overly elaborate. Ultimately, no one had pushed him. There had been no magic, only a single vegetable, and that should not have been enough to bring him down like that.
Fate, that was the answer and with the man’s lack of it, that outcome was entirely predictable and was most likely identical to what Bir had imagined. But why did the man have so little? Tom would have expected him to have either defensive fate already spent or dormant fate available to react to the threat and counter it.
Something about the whole situation stank.
He glanced back at the man and was surprised to see him getting to his feet with a slightly amused expression on his face. He must have guessed why he had fallen, but he didn’t seem at all angry.
Tom’s eyes narrowed.
The man had no fate in play to protect himself; nor had any of the other adults that he had seen, now that he thought about it. Plus, Bir’s comment earlier confirmed that lack was not a one-off for this celebration. The grownups were all functioning without a fate reserve or protection. Was this a symptom of something profound, or was it a bone they tossed to the kids to give them a chance to use their fate? Were they deliberately making themselves vulnerable as a training tool, or was it something else?
That was another point to add to his list.
“Did you see him fall?” Pa asked breathlessly.
“Yes, that windmill,” Bir grinned happily. “But Ta was staring. Naughty Ta.”
Tom laughed, protested his innocence, and continued his act. He was sure of his performance. Ever since he had thought to put a few points of fate to the task there hadn’t been a major mistake. His cover was intact, and he was confident when there were more adults around that his acting was good enough to sustain the pretense that nothing about little Tar had changed.
As he lay down to sleep, he assessed the last five days. His existence from the moment he had been reincarnated had been interesting, but nothing like he had expected. When the option was raised, he had imagined how unpleasant it would be to be reincarnated as a helpless baby and have to live through indignations such as potty training. He had also been concerned about being a young child in a band of desperate humans roaming over Existentia barely able to survive like the group his small team had left.
None of those outcomes had occurred. This existence…
He snuggled into his warm blankets. Bits of it were amazing. His bed, the cleaning loops and the dinner buffets were an unexpected luxury. Yes, there was a threat of assassins, but with his improved acting he was confident he could avoid them.
All in all, everything had worked out perfectly, and in less than seventy-two hours he would get two hours in an isolation room, where he would have a lot of his questions answered. Then, a few days later, four more in the trial.
Tom could barely wait for those restrictions to lift and for him to get into a regular routine that included isolation time for training. His only concern was his healing spell’s lack of measurable advancement. But there was a reason for his struggles. Manipulating raw magic had turned out to be far more difficult than he had imagined. Eventually he would crack the problem, hard work would let him close the technical skill gap, then with fate’s help he would earn his first skill - and then the floodgates would open up.