As the sudden introduction went from bizarre to hostile, Zeke and the rest of the Infirmary team stood in the entryway, studying the smiling young man in sunglasses.
Zeke paid attention to what his ethereal senses were picking up, telling him that Sunglasses’ aura was not only human but normal.
Until it suddenly wasn’t.
The surge of Mana hit him like a coffee rush taking effect. He stepped back and narrowed his eyes.
While on the doorstep, Sunglasses looked off into the distance to his left as he pointed at Zeke. “I want to test him out first, though.”
Naomi approached Zeke from behind, put a hand on his shoulder, and whispered, “He’s human, but I sense a lot of Mana from him.”
“Me, too,” Zeke whispered back. A human with strong Mana affinity? It wasn’t an impossibility, though. It was just something Zeke was sure he’d never see in his lifetime.
Aida stepped forward, growling, and Zeke stopped her by grabbing her wrist. He gently pulled her back.
“For some reason, he wants me,” Zeke said to her on a low level without taking his eyes off the hostile visitor. “We don’t know what’s going on. It may not be a good idea to show all of our abilities at once. Let me handle this.”
“Good thinking!” Sunglasses said as he took a plastic water pistol from his jacket pocket. “You’re very smart, Ezequias!”
“Is that a water pistol?” Ugo said, narrowing his eyes at the cheap-looking green toy.
“Squirt!” Sunglasses announced as he pulled the trigger. A torrent of shiny, silver liquid blasted into Zeke’s chest. The weight of it had him flying across the room, slamming past the swinging door into the kitchen and crashing through the door window.
Zeke rolled across the landscaped lawn of the backyard. He looked down at the shiny liquid slipping from his clothing. It didn’t just feel cold, but like it was actively drawing heat away from his body. As he got up, he noticed how heavy it was, like lumps of thick mud attached to his body. He expected some smell to come from it but got nothing. “Is this…?”
“Mercury. Heaviest liquid metal on earth,” Sunglasses said, running up to Zeke.
“Vesklepios!” Zeke summoned his Garb and then quickly made another hand sign, clasping his hands together.
Sunglasses was caught in Zeke’s capillary net—a network of arteries and veins where red and blue met in the middle.
Zeke smiled under his mask as the visitor dropped to the grass. He was happy to defuse the situation without ruining his mother’s vegetable garden or patio dining set.
“Leprechaun shows up before you,” Sunglasses started out of nowhere. “He has rashes all over his body and says he’s been experiencing painful mouth sores and diarrhea. What do you do?”
Zeke raised a brow while staring at his captive. A pop quiz?
“What. Do. You. Do? Doctor…?”
Zeke scoffed and took the bait. “I would perform a urine test, looking for protein in the urine and a tissue biopsy of the rashes, but that’s all just to make sure. Given that the patient is a leprechaun, 9 times out of 10, it’s a 275: Enchanted Gold Poisoning. The remedy is to boil kidney vetch from Druid Grove in half a gallon of kelpie water. Have the leprechaun drink it, and symptoms should go away in 2 to 3 days—”
“Correct!”
“Okay, who are you?”
“My name is Yuri!” He answered and then pulled his hands together in the net, folding his middle and ring fingers down while keeping his index and small fingers pointing upwards. He folded the tip of his thumbs to touch the tips of his middle and ring fingers and held one hand over the other.
Yuri’s body released a blue-green radioactive glow that melted the capillary net.
Zeke stared in awe as Yuri let the red and blue goop slip off his body. He could sense his Mana energy doubling, converting into Black Magic.
What kind of spell is that?
There was no time to ruminate more about it as Yuri charged at him and launched a heavy straight punch. Zeke’s head was knocked back as he took the hit to the lip. It was no ordinary punch; it was laced with Black Magic. Once his head fell back into place, he saw Yuri with his fist raised and legs slightly bent as he took on a fight stance.
The nimbus of Black Magic energy emanated from Yuri’s frame; it turned out his magic alone wasn’t the only thing Zeke should be worried about. Yuri had a grounded street fighting style, barraging Zeke with quick straight strikes and reverberating kicks to his sides—all enhanced with deadly dosages of Black Magic.
“Human. Experiencing an abnormally high fever and spontaneous combustion,” Yuri started quizzing again as he brutalized Zeke. “The intervals between each combustion are shortening. What do you do?”
Zeke, enduring the pain, blocked the incoming attack as he put his brain to work. He felt an inner sense of duty compelling him to answer the question. “What kind of fire is it?”
“Hellfire,” Yuri said, basing his Black Magic-charged knee into Zeke’s gut.
Zeke spat blood and backed up while hunched over with his arm over his gut. “W-W-Well, it depends. Suppose we can find a hellhound bite anywhere on the patient’s body. In that case, it is a 399: Supernormal Pyrexia,” he said, summoning a blue vein whip from his sleeve and whacked Yuri across the face with it, sending him flying back into the wooden fence raised on the side of the yard, “which we can cure by exorcizing the wound to get rid of the microorganisms and have the patient endure a holy fire shower for about 4 minutes.” Zeke whipped Yuri up the chin as he charged at him again. “If there are no bites, then it’s a 194: Hell Giant Syndrome caused by contact with a hell giant’s saliva. That can be cured with a smoothie made from an elder frost giant’s tooth and a teaspoon of gold elf’s tears.”
“Right again!” Yuri said as he slid below an oncoming whip and landed a strike at Zeke’s jaw.
His strikes were continuously executed with high outputs of Black Magic, sneding out bursts of black lightning. He either didn’t care about his soul purity or filled up on a lot of purity-regulating medicine before coming to the house. Zeke swung his vein whip again; Yuri caught it, made his hand signs again, and the vein melted into goop. Yuri slid across the blue puddle, ruining the yard’s landscaping, nearing Zeke as if he were snowboarding, and then struck him in the face with a flip kick; a streak of black lightning stretched from Zeke’s chin to the bottom of Yuri’s boot.
After the two landed, Yuri asked, “Mermaid with seasickness!”
Zeke got up, made a quick hand sign, and pushed his palm into the ground. He apologized to his mother in his heart as two large veins burst from the ground and wrapped around Yuri’s arms, covering his hands completely. The landscaping was destroyed for good. “Now, you can’t use magic,” Zeke said. He walked up to Yuri and put his hands in his pockets. “And the answer to your question is 541: Bishop Fish Syndrome. Caused by them and can only be cured by them. You need to get scales from the top of a Bishop Fish’s head and then rub it on the mermaid’s infected area. It’s usually on their fins.”
“Fascinating! I just learned about it today.”
“You’re human… with strong Mana affinity.”
“You Tainted are just a couple of gatekeepers when it comes to magic, huh?” Yuri said. “Other people can use magic, man.”
“I know that I’m just saying—”
Like one of the little soccer players at the foosball table, Yuri flipped backward and spun as his arms stayed in place, twisting them off his sockets.
You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.
Blood gushed, the squelching and cracking sounds of muscle tearing and bones breaking arose, and Yuri continued to free himself with a smile on his face in the most gruesome way possible.
Yuri charged at Zeke, with both arms successfully torn off. He jumped high; the torn meat and broken bones that hung from his bloody sockets flapped in the air as he came rushing down at Zeke and gave him a headbutt, buzzing with dark electricity.
Zeke wobbled backward, trying to recover from the attack. However, what he had just witnessed Yuri do was far more damaging to his brain functions than the Black Magic-charged headbutt.
“Oh, sorry you had to see that,” Yuri said. “It must’ve been troubling for you, and I know what you are thinking… no! I am not a zombie!”
Zeke’s head throbbed, making it difficult to think of what spell he should attempt next to take down Yuri. His mind got even more rattled as he watched Yuri kneel and lower the stump on the left side of his body to one of his arms—it reattached, making a popping sound. The sleeve of his jacket fell off.
Yuri stood up, grabbed his other arm off the ground, and popped it back into its socket. The other sleeve fell off as well. “Hey, wanna see something cool I can do too?” He said, grabbing each side of his head and then plucking it out of his body as if he were a toy. Blood squirted from the stump as he removed the solid metal frame sunglasses from his severed head and stored them in his jacket pocket. The eyes on his head remained closed the entire time.
“Now, watch this….” He threw his head up and kicked it rearward with an impressive bicycle kick.
The Black Magic-enhanced severed head blasted into Zeke’s chest, and he felt the augmented pain shock through his ribs, bringing him to his knees.
“That’s a headshot!” Yuri said, laughing as the head rolled back to the body.
As soon as Yuri popped the head back on, the cavalry stopped in.
An orange aura flashed past Yuri, and Aida was now before Zeke, in her quick draw stance and wearing her Healer’s Garb.
Zeke blinked, and Yuri was split down the middle for a few seconds. Then, he pushed his split parts back together and became whole again.
“I didn’t even cut him that hard. I didn’t expect to go right through him,” Aida said while eyeing back at Yuri. “His regeneration is powerful, but his defense is weak.”
“Wow! All you doctors are so observant.” Yuri said right before blue electricity zipped below him, and his foot flew to his right. He caught it but lost his… footing, falling on the grass.
Ugo, in his Healer’s Garb, appeared and stood by Aida. “Is this guy some sort of science experiment who escaped?”
While on the ground, Yuri pushed the foot back into the stump, but it wouldn’t pop back on. “Whoa… it’s not—”
“I’m the Surgeon, bud,” Ugo said, brandishing his scalpel. “That foot is no longer your foot… it is now a body part that has only existed on its own.”
“Dang…”
“Stop hurting my friends!” A small voice whined.
Zeke, alongside the other Infirmary members, looked over at the wooden deck where Naomi stood.
Naomi’s wings were out. Spread behind her, showing off their beautiful blend of white, gray, and black feathers. Her doe eyes ignited with gray flames.
“Oh, my… that’s some scary Mana I’m feeling now...” Yuri said.
Naomi raised a hand, burning with gray flames, and then with an open palm, she moved her hand in a circular motion, creating a gray flame ring in front of her.
Yuri let out a panicked scream and raised both hands in the air. “Hey, wait! Sorry! I surrender! I didn’t mean it! Really!” He said. “I don’t actually want to kill any of you. I just had to test your abilities for myself to know the extent of your powers, and you’ve all surpassed my expectations.” He pouted. “Please, please, please, please call her off. Hear me out. I came here to talk to the Providence Infirmary team about something.”
Zeke rose, studied the pathetic, pouting young man, and looked at Naomi. “It’s okay, Naomi. You can stop.”
Naomi nodded and powered down, retracting her wings as AJ stepped through the broken window door.
The girls joined Zeke, Ugo, and Aida as they listened to what Yuri had to say.
Yuri sighed, put his glasses back on, and his smile returned. “I feel like we got off on the wrong….” He extended his severed foot toward them. “Foot.” And he started laughing.
The Infirmary team stared back at him with vacant expressions.
“This guy is a real piece of work….” AJ said.
Yuri held up a finger. “Allow me to show you something.” He slowly reached into his jacket pocket and took out a vial filled with white liquid. He opened it and poured it into his hand. The liquid thickened and gained a rectangular shape.
Zeke watched the liquid transform into a sheet of paper, and words appeared on it. “What’s that?” he asked.
“It’s my CV,” Yuri answered. “I’d like to apply for a job here.”
For the second time, the Infirmary team’s faces collectively went vacant.
“Huh?” Zeke said on behalf of all his confused friends.
“CV stands for Curriculum Vitae.”
“Dude! What the hell are you talking about?” Ugo said. “You show up here, attack us, and now you’re giving us your job application?”
“Listen, I’ve heard great things about the Providence Infirmary team,” Yuri said, “and I wanted to see some of that greatness for myself, well, by 'see,' I mean, you know….” He let out his strange fit of laughter. “I’m blind, by the way!”
Aida walked up to the cackling Yuri and took the CV.
“Aida, what are you doing?” Ugo asked.
“I’m curious to see what’s written on it.” She shrugged and skimmed the sheet.
“I’ve always wanted to learn more about supernatural medical science,” Yuri said, “and what better way to do that than with a team that includes 3 members of the Tainted Generation of Healers?”
“You’re a hot dog-eating champion in 5 different countries?” Aida asked while looking at the sheet.
“Why would you put that on your CV…?” AJ said as she looked at Yuri.
“Because it’s awesome!” Yuri said. “I won’t ask for payment for the internship, but there’s no need to be an asshole. You could at least offer it for me to reject.”
“We’re not offering you anything!” Zeke said.
“Fine… and I put all this work into typing this. Do you have any idea how hard that was? I had to find a guy to check it for me....” Yuri sighed. “Then, at least let me request your services. There’s someone that needs your help. Your expertise. I have a case for you guys.”
----------------------------------------
It wasn’t that Zeke no longer saw Yuri as a threat. He had to hear him out if there was a possibility of someone facing a supernatural ailment that needed their help.
At least he helped clean up the mess the fight left behind. The visually impaired young man was good with magic, maybe even better than him and Ugo, and he was rivaling Aida. Yuri made all trails of mercury vanish by somehow sucking them back into the multiple empty vials he pulled out of his pockets.
Putting the glass of the kitchen door back together was far easier than the effort it took to restore the backyard to its former glory, which took filling in the new dirt holes and extracting grass from Aida’s farm to replace what had been obliterated by Zeke’s veins.
Zeke was grateful his mother decided to spend her whole day at an old friend’s house. He had had enough of messing with his parents’ heads using magic.
The Diagnostician wondered if Yuri had access to memory-wiping spells, which would haveve been more useful than the glawackus solutions that they made human patients drink when they were discharged.
The team and Yuri sat around the kitchen table, grabbing some extra chairs from the dining room. Zeke and the rest of the Tainted had called off their Healer’s Garbs.
Yuri kept his severed foot on his lap as he dug into his seemingly bottomless jacket pocket and placed a printed photograph of a gorgeous young black woman on the table. “This is Kimberly.”
In the photo, Kimberly was walking down the street wearing a flowy shirt tucked into high-waist jeans. She had a triangle floral head scarf that covered the top of her exceptionally long, straight, dark brown hair, which snaked past her backside.
Zeke looked over at Ugo, who was eerily quiet about the photograph of the attractive young lady.
“What?” Ugo said in response to the staring.
“Nothing…” Zeke said, shifting his focus back to Yuri.
Yuri pulled out another photo of Kimberly walking down a street. She had another headscarf on, but her face was fuller… and her belly was protruding from her floral maternity dress. “This is her about 10 days after that photo was taken.”
“10 days? She looks well past 26 weeks….” Aida said.
“You guys know much about the supernatural. I don’t need to explain to you what’s going on here.”
“Is she pregnant with a monster’s baby?” Ugo said.
“She has been artificially inseminated with a Rebirth Seed,” Yuri said.
“What’s that?” Naomi asked.
“You guys don’t know?” He said incredulously.
Aida turned to Naomi. “It’s a demonic technique that only high-level demons can do. It’s high risk and high reward. The technique has the demon transform itself into a reproductive cell that can be delivered in many ways, like using an incubus.”
“Right, I remember reading about that,” Zeke said.
“So... like reincarnation?” Ugo said.
“I guess you could say that, but I don’t know any actual reincarnation spell that exists.” Aida crossed her arms and continued. “The demon will be birthed from a human mother with all its memories of its past life and enhanced power.” She explained and then looked back at Yuri. “And this Seed is of…?”
“One of the old King of the Netherworld’s best pals: Bergulsaab. He played a major part in the War of the Thirteenth.”
Zeke noticed Naomi’s expression darken after Yuri finished. She looked away from everybody and focused on the window.
He let it go for the moment and asked Yuri, “Who the hell put the seed in her?”
“An ally of yours,” Yuri said. “Gilliam Destrian.”