Thursday, May 2nd, 2069

“Mrs. Moody, could you please explain for the court what it is you do?” Mr. Varnish asked the older woman.

“Certainly. My name is Ayla Moody and I’m a manager for Hunters. Normally, I discover talented individuals at Phoenix Academy or before they begin attending Phoenix Academy. Then I help get them sponsorships, scholarships and funding to support them as they learn to become the best versions of themselves.”

“So, it’s safe to say that you’re an expert on Skilled Hunters?” Mr. Varnish asked.

“I would never claim to be an expert on the subject, but I spend a great deal of time with and around them, certainly.”

“How many Hunters do you manage, Mrs. Moody?” Mr. Varnish asked, seeming to be driving her and the jurors toward something. I assumed it was to make her testimony stand out more, or be weightier, but just like Ayla, I wasn’t an expert in the court of law.

“Approximately…” She glanced up with her eyes thoughtfully, as if doing a rough count before answering. “Two-hundred or so, I’d say.”

“And how many of your Hunters are S-rank?”

“Sixteen,” Ayla answered again, her voice sounding proud to me. And admittedly she had every right to be proud of that number. Eight percent?

“They all Awakened with S-rank Skills?” Mr. Varnish asked.

Ayla shook her head. “No. Many Awakened with, and are even still using lower-ranked Skills, but performing the duties of S-ranked Hunters.”

“How is that possible Mrs. Moody?”

“A great deal of hard work, Mr. Varnish. I’m sure this isn’t surprising news to you, you’ve met some of the top Hunters,” Ayla answered, her voice growing frustrated for a reason I didn’t understand.

Mr. Varnish laughed. “A different breed,” he said between chuckles. “That’s how I’d describe the S-ranks I’ve met. Would you agree, Mrs. Moody?”

Ayla gave Mr. Varnish an evaluating stare, but nodded. I could tell she was also trying to figure out the man’s game or play here. He continued, after verbalizing her nod to the court reporter. “So, would you say that every Hunter you’ve personally taken on made it to S-rank solely through hard work?”

Ayla’s eyes narrowed and she shook her head minutely. “I think you know quite well, that many factor—“

“—So, the answer would be a no?” Mr. Varnish interrupted her.

Ayla’s eyes narrowed and she took a moment to work some tension out of her jaw before she said, “Yes, the answer would be no. There are multiple factors that contribute to and impact a Hunter’s ranking.”

“What are those factors?” Mr. Varnish asked, his voice sounding excited, like Ayla had arrived at her intended destination.

“Secondary Skill Awakenings? Is that the answer you’re looking for?” Ayla asked. She blinked repeatedly as her face took on a disgusted sneer, directed at Mr. Varnish.

“I’m not looking for any specific answer. However, of the sixteen S-rank Hunters you manage, how many of them have Awakened a third or fourth Skill during dire situations inside of Portals?”

Ayla licked her lips, and then took a deep breath. Looking to the Judge first, and then to the jurors, seeming to be looking for a way out. Her jaw began working, like she was in fact chewing rocks. Finally, she whispered, “None of them.”

What was going on? What about that answer made her reluctant to speak? I truly couldn’t understand the interplay or direction Mr. Varnish was trying to take.

“And how many of them Awakened a new Skill during your training?”

Ayla’s glare could have melted diamonds, and I felt my eyebrows raise as the pieces of the puzzle Mr. Varnish was weaving came together. Mr. Varnish seemed unmoved by the glare, and even went as far as to prompt Ayla by saying, “Mrs. Moody, please answer the question.”

“Your honor,” Mrs. Moody said, turning to Judge Dench. “This is approaching a subject that infringes on my rights under the Hunter Protection Act of twenty-fifty five. I refuse to answer any further questions in this vein.”

My eyes and jaw were as wide open as they could be. I thought I understood what was happening but was doubting the conclusion I came to.

“Does she have a Hunter that increases Skill Acquisition?” Smegma said, as he floated around Ayla Moody.

[That’s what I was thinking,] I responded mentally, even as the Judge, called for Mr. Varnish and Mrs. Stovall to approach the stand. Ayla never stopped glaring at the A-rank Hunter, seeming to want to stab him on the spot.

They broke apart and Judge Dench addressed the court. “The Juror’s and reporter will strike the last line of questioning from the record. Mrs. Moody, I’ve directed the Lawyers not to ask further questions about your business. Jurors, please treat Mrs. Ayla Moody’s testimony as that of an expert in the field of Hunters. Understood?”

[That felt like it wasn’t related to my case at all,] I mentally sent Smegma. He floated back to his usual seat in the jurors box. Then once he’d engulfed a young SwiftGrammer he regarded me.

“What do you think it means?” Smegma asked.

“Mrs. Moody,” Mr. Varnish said, before I could mentally collect my thoughts enough to respond. “It’s safe to say that you’ve witnessed more than your fair share of Skill Awakenings in your current career?”

Ayla took a deep breath, her eyes still throwing daggers at the man. “That’s correct.”

Mr. Varnish moved to his table, picked up a remote and clicked a button. As a white screen lowered from the court ceiling, he said, “Your honor, this is video V-four—labeled as such in evidence.”

There was a brief moment in which the courtroom all waited for the electrical motors of the projector screen to finish their hum. Then a bit more as the projector itself booted up, producing a blue screen before going black.

For a brief instant, it showed an open folder of videos on Mr. Varnish’s computer or tablet, before he pushed a button on the remote and a file opened. Sure enough, the video of me in the mall parking lot as the car glowed and then Ayla came to my window played. It was from fairly high up, perhaps with the camera being mounted on either the side of a building, or perhaps a light pole. You couldn’t actually see me in my car, just a birds-eye view of my vehicle from up above.

Mr. Varnish paused it just after Ayla could be seen starting to approach the car. “Mrs. Moody, this is you in this video correct?” Mr. Varnish asked, and Ayla nodded. “And who was in the car?”

“The boy there,” Mrs. Moody said with a bit of reluctance and what appeared to be sympathy directed toward me.

“Let it be recorded that Mrs. Moody indicated Brodie Flacarada.” Mr. Varnish looked to the reporter and got a thumbs up, before he continued. “So you witnessed Mr. Flacarada’s Skill Awakening?”

Another nod.

“And you approached him?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“To check if he was okay…” Mrs. Moody whispered, allowing her voice to fade out toward the end.

Mr. Varnish continued the video which clearly showed her handing something through the car window.

“What did you hand Mr. Flacarada, Mrs. Moody?”

“My business card.”

“Why would you hand him your business card?”

“In case he received a good Skill and needed an agent to represent him,” Mrs. Moody said, some heat in her voice.

“Why would you think he Awakened a ‘good’ Skill?” Mr. Varnish asked, going as far as to air quotes the word good.

“You saw the illumination his Awakening put off. There was a relatively ‘good’ chance that he Awakened a High-Ranked-Skill.” Mrs. Moody returned Mr. Varnish’s air quotes like they were a grenade. A few jurors chuckled.

“So, you believed that Mr. Flacarada had just Awakened?” Mr. Varnish asked.

Mrs. Moody furrowed her brow, glancing at me, and then back to Mr. Varnish. The latter clarified. “What if I told you that Brodie Flacarada is twenty-one years old?”

Mrs. Moody’s eyes went comically wide before she transferred a very shocked gaze onto me. She did answer the question, though, “Then I’d have handed him my entire stack of business cards.”

“Why the increase in the level of interest, Mrs. Moody?”

“Because Hunters that Awaken additional Skills often get a Skill that suits them—or should I say, suits their current lifestyle and initial Skills.”

“You mentioned that you believed he’d Awakened a ‘good’ Skill based solely off the illumination the event created. In your experience, have you found a correlation between the strength or quality of an Awakened Skill and the power or strength of the light put off from such an event?”

Mrs. Moody paused then, as if considering her answer carefully. “In my experience… there does seem to be a connection between how bright or strong the light put off from an Awakening and either the strength or suitability of a Skill for the Awakened individual, yes.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Moody. Now, about the specific location of said Awakening… You don’t find it strange that Brodie Flacarada had a secondary Awakening in his car at a mall?”

Ayla Moody blinked even as she smirked, slightly. I watched her head tilt as she continued to regard me. After a time, her smirk morphed into a huge smile. “That certainly isn’t where I’d expect it to happen, but we can never know another’s life.”

Mr. Varnish continued to question Ayla, clarifying a few points for the Jury. Mainly that my Awakening a Skill in a mall parking lot was ‘a bit odd’. Mostly reading statistics about how most Hunters who had ‘re-Awakened’ did so in Portals. Ayla simply confirmed his numbers were in line with what she knew. He then asked another question that I’d partially been expecting. “And what would be your response if I told you he Awakened another Skill a few weeks later outside of a Portal, after a run-in with and the destruction of a Golem, by his hands with merely a Pickaxe?”

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Ayla Moody’s mouth fell open and she slowly turned to stare at me. “I’d want to have him enrolled in Phoenix Academy, and signed with me as his agent. Immediately.”

Another five minutes passed before questioning was passed to Mrs. Stovall. She stood up, like Mr. Varnish’s words were a starting gun. “Mrs. Moody, when you’ve seen other Hunters ‘re-Awaken’, is that the correct term?” Ayla nodded and Mrs. Stovall continued. “Did it always happen in the middle of a stressful situation?”

“Certainly not. There are no hard and fast rules for these sorts of things, you understand. However, with that said—re-Awakenings, in my experience, are far more likely to occur during, or in the wake of a stressful, deadly, or threatening situation, yes.”

“So, in your expert opinion could an assault, and near Mana-Rape be stressful enough to cause an Awakening?”

“Objection your honor, hearsay,” Mr. Varnish said.

“I have not accused Morgan Hallsbrad of these acts in my question, your honor. I am merely speaking in general terms here and trying to establish an example of a potentially stressful situation that might trigger a re-Awakening.”

“Overruled,” Judge Dench said. “But you are treading on thin ice here, Mrs. Stovall. There’s no one here that doesn’t understand what you're getting at with your chosen example. Make sure that you are, in fact, keeping everything to generalities.”

“Thank you, your honor.” Stovall nodded, seeming to be both thankful and agreeing to the Judges’ warning, before turning back to the stand. “Would being held at gunpoint, while being threatened with Mana Rape be enough stress to force a re-Awakening, Mrs. Moody?”

“Certainly.”

“If it didn’t happen in the moment but occurred later, would you find it suspicious?”

“Possibly, but that depends on the individual.”

“What do you mean?”

“Some Hunter’s that have re-Awakened, have gone through a near death experience, and only weeks later, when they come down from the stress of that situation do they re-Awaken.”

“Is that because those Hunter’s were in shock or something similar?”

“That’s the most widely accepted theory, yes.”

I fought to keep a smile off of my face. That was very clever. Not only had Mrs. Stovall explained my numerous ‘Awakenings’ to the jurors but also established some groundwork to counteract Mr. Varnish’s earlier accusations of me being distant and cold as some form of implied sociopathy instead of shock.

“In your expert opinion, would killing a man in self-defense also be traumatic enough to re-Awaken an individual?”

“Certainly. Sometimes even killing a humanoid monster for the first time has caused Hunters to re-Awaken. However, as Mr. Varnish claimed with his statistics, re-Awakenings, are pretty rare. So, we can’t truly say if there are patterns or not.”

“What about performing a Gathering Profession in the middle of an active Portal and being suddenly attacked by a Portal Monster and having to fight for your life?”

“I think that would be a textbook example of a situation that could lead to a re-Awakening.” Moody nodded. “In fact, there are examples exactly like that in the actual textbooks at Phoenix Academy. A great many of those few Hunters that have re-Awakened were once Gatherers or Mana Batteries that were survivors of terrible situations inside of Portals.”

“Thank you Mrs. Moody. One final question. You quoted the Hunter Protection Act of twenty-fifty-five. What exactly is that act and its purpose?”

“Generally?” Mrs. Moody asked, seeming to grow slightly concerned, before Mrs. Stovall gave an affirmative nod. Mrs. Moody sighed in relief before saying, “Generally speaking, the Act is meant to protect Hunters and their Skills, both in description and acquisition. No government, person or authority can force a Hunter to reveal what Skills they’ve Awakened, or even what Rank they are, nor how they potentially acquired them, if the Skill is the result of a re-Awakening.”

“Thank you Mrs. Moody.” Stovall turned toward the Judge. “No further questions, your honor.”

* * *

The remainder of the day was extremely monotonous, in which Mr. Varnish tried to paint a picture that I was somehow an unhinged monster who had premeditated murdering Morgan Hallsbrad to take his Skills. Or at least, that’s the only logical place his argument could be leading.

Mrs. Stovall, on the other hand, simply refuted many of the points he tried to get to stick. I wouldn’t say we were winning the case, but it certainly didn’t feel like we were losing either. If I understood everything correctly—the only way for the prosecution to ‘win’, would be to prove that I had done something illegal ‘beyond all reasonable doubt’, which seemed to be some kind of buzz word terminology. I felt like Mrs. Stovall had done a great job making sure there were still quite a few doubts.

“They can’t prove you did anything intentionally,” Dave said, from his seat on my bed—seemingly agreeing with my train of thought.

“I know that, but I can’t believe that it's even this cloudy in the first place!” I responded, thinking that it would be nice to have my family or Dave in the courtroom, but unfortunately everyone was barred. I assumed that was to keep the reporters from overhearing terms like Cannibal and Snatcher—but honestly, I also was happy that it would protect me and my family just a little bit more.

Sure, eventually people would put Alonzo Mars and Brodie Flacarada together, but not until the trial’s results went public.

“You should just get a Skill to help. Like maybe something charismatic.” Dave suggested thoughtfully.

“I’m pretty sure Mr. Varnish has something like that already. And I’m not going to be able to beat him at his own game.”

“Fine, maybe just get a Skill to feel better?” Smegma suggested.

I laughed. Dave and Smegma were clearly on the same page in regards to my current spending of Mana Coins. They both wanted me to save and purchase known Skills and not waste my money on Crafting Gear or Gathering stuff. Still, I had my own reasons for sticking with buying up as many Gathering items as I could, beyond just making money. “I already told you both. This might make it possible for me to unlock more Stats!” Dave opened his mouth to complain and I hurriedly added, “Maybe they can even unlock Stats for people I know!”

Dave closed his mouth and went into quiet introspection, clearly considering my words.

“And I’m telling you that if you get a whole bunch of Crafting and Profession Skills, you’ll never become a Combat Hunter!” Smegma countered. “You already have too many!”

That of course reminded me that I wanted to check my current Skill list, using a Spent Mana Crystal. With the trial, it was easy to forget about my ‘missing’ Skill from inside the Portal—or maybe I had been intentionally trying to not think about it. The Skill Planet vanishing in my Mental Universe had hit pretty hard.

I shrugged and pulled one of the spent B-ranked Crystals from my Necklace. Then with a cheeky grin to Smegma I said, “Let’s see how many I have!”

Dave rushed to my side, excited, in spite of me already telling him I’d lost the skill. I gave him a look even as I infused Mana into the nearly perfectly clear Crystal. While the B-rank Crystals had looked impressive with Mana and light emanating from them—now that this one was spent, the imperfections in it were a bit more apparent.

Small cracks or perhaps air bubbles were visible in its depths, even as the glow from my Mana infusion ramped up. As the five minute mark approached I held my breath. The Crystal began to morph into the Skill Cards, and I was greeted with the familiar back of Mental Fortitude.

I should have nine Skills total. Demonic Vault, Mental Fortitude, Recovery, Dragon Heart, Minor Heal, Weak Cleanse, Mining, Cooking, Fishing and Heat Sense. I flipped through the Cards, not bothering to flip them over if I knew the backing already. Mental Fortitude, Demonic Vault, Recovery, Mining— flipping past them, I reached the first Card I didn’t know.

It had green backing with a woman leaning over a clearly injured man.

Minor Heal (10)

High-F-Rank

Minor Heal can only be used on others, and heals the individual's Health Pool at a rate of one health per .99 mana expended.

I could see the changes it had undergone since getting it with my Common Healer Class. It wasn’t anything amazing, but it was now a High-F-Rank and looked like it was at level ten now instead of one, which seemed like it saved me some Mana while using it. The next Card was also green, and showed a man touching someone’s forehead. The person was sweating profusely and again, I knew what it was.

Cleanse (10)

High-F-Rank

Cleanse can only be used on others and removes contaminants, poisons, venoms and diseases from the individual. Limited to Common or Uncommon maladies.

Costs 9.99 Mana per use.

No change to functionality, but again some Mana savings. I pulled up my Skill windows for the two Skills and discovered the same descriptions. I couldn’t pull up Skill windows for any other Skills yet, and I wondered if that was because they were all Crafting or Passive Skills? But there was one outlier in that consideration.

The next Card back was Heat Sense, and it wasn’t Passive. I needed to activate it, but admittedly it didn’t use Mana. Still, I had to wonder if I could only see ‘Class’ Skills with the windows.

The next unknown Card was clearly Cooking, because the picture was of an Orc in a chef's hat, adding quite a bit of salt to a recipe. It felt like the creature would go to war if I pointed out that amount being too much though.

Cooking (10) (Evolveable)

High-F-Rank

As you cook, you slowly improve your understanding of ingredients, herbs and mixtures. As this Skill grows, this individual will notice improvements to all actions related to Cooking. This Skill is amplified by the Dexterity Stat.

The next Card showed a man fishing.

Fishing (10) (Evolveable)

High-F-Rank

As you Fish you slowly improve your understanding of techniques and creatures of the sea. As this Skill grows, this individual will notice improvements to all actions related to Fishing and reduced Mana costs. This Skill is amplified by the Stamina Stat.

My count of Cards reached nine, but I could still feel another Card under Fishing. I looked over my shoulder at Dave, and then included Smegma in my excitement. He flew over.

Reptilian Body (50) (Evolveable)

Skill Type: Body Forging

Skill Rank: High-E-Rank

A Reptilian body is one of the most versatile existences in the Multiverse. Able to survive extreme temperatures and even grow strong scales to protect itself. A Reptilian Body is a highly sought after Body Forging Skill that can increase Stat effects by [Locked]%.

Reptilian Body’s effects are amplified by [Strength], [Stamina] and [Locked] Stats.

Something about the Reptilian Body Card made me frown. What it was I couldn’t say. Thankfully, I had two others in the room with me. “Holy shit, the color and back match Dragon Heart, doesn’t it?”

“Not quite,” Smegma answered, “but they’re close enough that I’d have considered them part of a Set on Crendalar!”

I pulled out the Card for Dragon Heart and looked at it beside Reptilian Body. The colors matched perfectly, and even the way the Card was organized seemed very familiar. Still, that wasn’t the strange feeling I was getting from the Card.

I reached into my Mental Universe and once again tried to find the Skill with no luck. Still, now knowing about the Skill, I could feel something—almost like a second static charge. One was my Mana Pool—but the other…

It was my actual body. It had been buzzing since the Portal and I’d just thought it was the constant nerves. First, finishing the task for Nagina, and now the trial. But I realized now that wasn’t it.

It had been my ‘Body Forging’ Skill teetering at the top of E-rank. But why couldn’t I find the Skill Planet in my Mental Universe? “Smegma, help me find this Skill in my Mental Universe.”

“Remember, you haven’t found Recovery or Mental Fortitude yet, either,” Smegma answered, but did dive into the universe and begin ‘looking’ as well.

Dave left us alone after fifteen minutes of my muttering. After an hour, I was forced to give up.

I had court tomorrow.