Arc 7. Death to what came before
Road to a Hero:
Three Chances in Another World
Chapter 4. Frostbitten Resolve
What was once Gray's house, and is now more of a showing that he lived there, holds Peter. He stands just outside of Sokus' room, listening to what’s happening inside, anxious to open the door. The sound of spirits buzzing, like music to the ears, all humming in perfect harmony. The light green aura emanating from her room begins to slow down until finally stops, leaving the house quiet once more.
After a few long seconds, Erline steps out.
Erline: “Do you want to see her? You stand out here every day, and yet you never look inside.”
Peter tilts his head down, trying not to look into Erline's eyes, as if they’re hurting him. He tries and tries to walk forward, to force himself inside of that room, but he just can’t. So, just like every day, he says nothing and walks back downstairs to do nothing. While he sits on the couch, staring at the warm fire tucked away within the chimney, he waits for Erline to leave. With his face in his hand, he listens to Erline walk down the stairs behind him, pass him, and exit through the front door, stepping into the snowy outdoors.
While he sits there, not making a peep, all he can think about is his weakness. Every day he forces himself out of bed, looks into the mirror and is disgusted by the small scars on his face. They represent his loss, his torture, Lance’s death, and most importantly, Soku’s current state. Something that every one of Walgonias Hereos, other than Julius, is that when something goes wrong, all they can do is try and shoulder the burden all alone.
He’s quickly snapped out of his inner thoughts, a little happier because of it, when he hears the kitchen door open. Lisa walked through, entering the living room, to find Peter standing tall with a quivering smile on his face. She stands shivering from the cold, brushing the bits of snow off of her large brown jacket. After the initial wave to say hi, he plops himself back on the couch, losing his smile.
At first, she sits at the other end of the couch, slowly scootching over to him.
Peter: “Uhh…So…Ummm..”
Lisa: “Yeah I’m going to stay here until it’s safe. Erline wanted to teach me healing magic, but other than my Mark of Providence, I actually have an Offensive affinity.”
Peter, surprised that Lisa could understand what he was going to say, loses a bit of the stress he was holding in, relaxing for a moment.
Peter: “Do you plan on training in it? And if you do, are you going the spirit route or the elemental route?”
Lisa: “Um…I don’t know.”
Lisa puckers her face with her answer, trying to hold back her laugh while she stares at the dumbfounded look on Peter's face. Peter, embarrassed, turns his head away from her, but he’s even more distressed when she puts her hand over his hand. This causes his heart to race and his hands to become clammy, staring at the ceiling. However, when he does this, his attention is drawn to Soku, who’s slowly being freed from the stone trapping her. Lisa notices this, feeling a bit jealous, though she pushes past it and stands up.
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Lisa: “Hey, wanna go to your workshop?”
Peter: “Isn’t it a bit cold?”
Lisa: “Eh, I don’t really mind.”
Peter: “Well okay then.”
Peter, dressed in basic clothing, steps into the harsh winter without a single shiver. While most if not all dark elves are blessed with some sort of internal strength, he had no such luck, though something he did seem to pick up in the gene pool is the thick skin. This protects him from the harsh cold as well as the burning sun, causing the shivering Lisa to be a bit jealous.
Lisa: “How come your workshop is in Gray’s backyard and not your own?”
Peter: “Well I lived with them for a bit, and they had this place in their backyard, so they just gave it to me.”
He forces the large doors of his workshop open, struggling to move the snow out of the way. Once inside, Lisa quickly shuts it while Peter lights the furnace while he goes rummaging through his things.
Lisa: “What are you looking for?”
Peter: “Edward said that he needs something that will help him fight again. This means a more stable prosthetic leg, as well as something to replace his missing arm for a time. While I could try something with magnets, which could close on the sword or something, his strength, or the things he may fight would crush it. But Gray had me make something from a story he read, he even made a joke that Edward looks like the guy from the story that used this weapon.”
Lisa: “What’s the weapon.”
Peter: “Well originally it was a mix between an actual arm and a weapon, though the prototype kinda got scraped. But I’m thinking I could repurpose it, ditch the arm part, and make it a fully working weapon. But the fuel it would need may be hard to come by on such short notice, so I’ve been working on a re-energizing fuel source, which may work as a proper weapon if you give it a device to use it with.”
As Peter goes through his messy workshop, he pulls out a box that holds what looks to be a small cannon with a fake hand that covers it, an arm cannon if you will. But then once he grabs this, he climbs up the ladder to his left, up to the balcony area that holds his extra weapons. While he used to work on his inventions on the bottom floor, the new vehicle he made is taking up space, so he’s moved a lot of his stuff to the small area above.
While up there, he slams the arm cannon on a wooden table and grabs an old weapon, but a strong one. The explosive launcher, while a bit stubby, it’s already smaller enough to hold in your hands without issue, other than the weight of course. Then, slamming the heavy item on the table, he begins to think of what he could do, while Lisa climbs the ladder.
He’s drawn into his thoughts, taking a notebook to his side, beginning to rummage through his doodles to find something, anything that could make the tool better.
Peter: “Oh, almost forgot. Hey, could you hand me that box over there, and be careful.”
Lisa salutes Peter, grabs a small wooden box on the other side of the balcony, and struggles to lift it. But, she manages, setting it down on the table, panting once she’s done. Though she eagerly watches Peter open it, finding a strange collage of red crystals, like they’ve been fused together. Then in the center, a circular but jagged blue energy crystal, which has slowly turned into the bright red of the flame crystals.
Lisa: “What…is that?”
Peter: “A bunch of cores. Rick can use dwarven magic, which is good at welding materials and keeping them in check, it’s why they’re usually blacksmiths.”
Lisa: “I know about dwarves! Actually, I wanna talk to him so can learn even more! Could you ask him for me?”
Peter begins to chuckle at Lisas' love for knowledge, though the way she talks about it, it’s more like she’s obsessed with it, though he dosn’t mind. Then he gets to work, gathering all of the materials he may need and begins making plans for the weapon. While he does this, he fails to notice Edward watching from afar, though he steps away, looking at his prosthetic arm. He almost falls into the thick snow, due to his prosthetic leg struggling to keep him steady, but he continues trucking on to his house.
Once inside, he walks to his barren room and grabs something from underneath his bed. His sword was made of Dragon Stone, which Prometheus had broken in two. The only reason he has it is because he held it in a death grip unconscious, never letting it go. It’s about ten percent of what it once was, being about as long as a dagger, though it’s much, much thicker. The heft of the blade causes the ragging flame within him to grow a bit bigger, as the once light weapon when it was whole, has become too much.
His body is slowly decaying, and the longer he waits to get the Helsing armor, the harder it’s going to get to retrieve it. But he tries to reject this truth, stepping outside to mindlessly swing the broken weapon, trying to keep his body as strong as he can, but it’s breaking him more than he already was.
Everything has turned dark, cold, and depressing. Gray is gone, Peter is trying to distract himself the best he can, Soku’s in a possibly indefinite coma, Rosemary’s possibly dead, and Edwards slowly killing himself. And the longer everything goes on, the worse it’s going to get, but they’re all too stubborn to let themselves rest, to slow down even slightly. What was once their main driving force, will be their downfall.
End of Chapter Four