Shanine stared at the massive bone-white club Chris had hefted over her shoulder as they walked. She carried it as if it weighed nothing but Shanine knew enough about mages to know the club likely weighed just as much as it looked.
“Also,” Ash said, “you don’t have to worry about your height. Once you awaken you’ll add a few more inches.”
“Really?”
“Yup. I don’t know why, exactly. I just know it’s how magic works.”
Shanine did her best not to gauge Ash’s height visibly. Ash wasn’t that much taller than her. In fact, she didn’t even have to tilt her head to meet Ash’s eyes.
“I know, right,” Zed said from where he was. “If that’s true, it makes you wonder what she was like before she awakened.”
He was already facing forward now, walking alongside Oliver. They were a few steps behind Daniel. On one side of the group Hillary and Jim conversed with each other, voices low and polite. Zed only found it questionable. As for Big Man Desolate, he walked happily along whistling a tune Zed didn’t recognize.
Daniel led them further into the night, meandering through trees and foliage like adventurers in a jungle. They turned a corner and Daniel halted them with a raised fist.
Chris’ hold on her club tightened and Kid’s assault rifle was already in his hand. Each mage grew alert and Zed realized they’d been working as a party for quite a while. As for his actions, he simply stood in place, halting as the others did. But that sense of alertness took its time to dawn on him until Daniel spoke.
“Tangos spotted.”
Zed’s mind lurched as memories pooled at the word. They gathered to it like moths to a flame. It had been long since his mind had called on memories from his past—a life still forgotten—so vividly. Zed’s right arm itched and he rubbed it gently, getting a glance from Shanine.
Suddenly Zed was a man with a broken gun running through a field of blood and death. Explosions erupted around him as his comrades died and he continued to survive.
Zed took a knee as the memories drowned him like a wave. The memories weren’t his. He knew this as he knew he couldn’t fight an Olympian alone. But they were strong, holding his mind as hallucinations hold a schizophrenic. He could already feel the guilt crawling in his mind, the guilt of having survived alone. The guilt of being the only member of his team to live long enough and old enough to be called a vet. To survive to watch the country he’d fought for treat him like just another old man who had come back from an unnecessary war.
Not an old man, Zed tried to remind himself through gritted teeth, blinking painfully. Young and witty with a charming personality.
The war didn’t cease in his head, however.
The explosions dimmed and the violence waned, but the war was still there. Sadly, the guilt held it all together, refusing to release Zed. He remained on his knee, fighting the feeling. Reminding himself that he had not gone to war and that he was in no war.
“Zed,” a voice echoed in his mind. “Zed.”
He wanted to answer it, to listen, but his mind was so full. The fog of war was not so easily dispelled.
“Zed what’s happening?”
“Tangos incoming,” a voice said. “Huddle up. Keep the normal at the centre.”
The normal? Zed thought, as his hand groped around for something. Where’s my gun?
His gun had been broken a while back when he’d been forced to shield himself from a combat mage’s spell, but it still worked sometimes, and half a loaf was better than none.
The sound of gunshots rang out and Zed opened his eyes. His attention was split, one half in a world where the enemies came at him with bombs and guns, where there was a mage for every fifteen enemy soldiers, and another world were his enemies were less familiar.
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He was a mage, too, but not a powerful one. The only magic he had to his name was of sand and dust and he was a mere awakened. He was so weak that he fought as a normal instead of a combat mage. He killed with guns and bombs instead of spells and runes. But he was old now, a war vet who had survived and came home. He wasn’t supposed to still be on a battlefield. He’d left that life behind.
Zed’s second world was less complicated. In it he fought alongside a man in a massive suit of armor who fired at unknown enemies in front of him.
“Zed you’ve got to get up!”
Zed turned his head to find a dark skinned man trying to pull him by the shoulder. His mind distorted as he let the man who was really a boy no more than his early twenties pull him to his feet.
The world of explosions was all in his head and Zed knew the real world was a cascade of bioluminescent plants that provided the barest light to see with. He traveled with men in suits of armor and a man who looked like a villain from an old movie he remembered watching but couldn’t remember seeing.
Zed’s mind balked again as his memories lurched like passengers in a car taking a sudden turn too quickly. Vertigo hit him and he dropped back down to his knee.
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* [Memory Trigger] has been detected.
* You have unraveled repaired [Pocket memory(incomplete)] (Who am I?) 1/5.
* Remaining [Pocket memory(incomplete)] (Who am I?) 4/4.
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Zed heaved a deep breath as the battle continued around him and the one in his head ceased. Oliver had a hand under one of his arms and was dragging him back slowly.
“Come on, Zed,” Oliver muttered. “Get yourself together.”
Zed was already together, but he was worried. The notifications had never done this to him. They did not act against him. They did not unravel a memory without consulting him. But then there had been the [Memory Trigger].
Zed soon took command of his own movement and stood tall.
“Are you alright?” Oliver asked him, slipping his hand out from under Zed’s arm. His eyes looking ahead to what Zed now realized were a few monsters being held back by gunfire from Daniel and Kid.
Zed nodded in response as he watched the assault in front of him. “I’m good. Just had a sudden headache there.”
Oliver turned a worried look on him but let whatever he wanted to say lie.
Around them, Big Man Desolate fought off a monster with bare hands, taking hits and giving back. Ash was a mage with a shield of ice, taking the brunt of blows and knocking back enemies with waves of water conjured out of thin air.
Jason fought with what Zed noted was a sword of light, inflicting burning damage wherever it met the skin of a monster. He seemed pretty good with a makeshift sword considering he carried a gun behind him. At this point, Zed was really beginning to think the weapon was just for show. Fanciful but useless. Jason rarely, if not never fired it, at all.
As for Chris, she existed everywhere. She was a Gatling gun of spellforms, one after the other spilling from her as she hit monster after monster, weaving her way through the now growing battlefield. Most of her attacks left knockback effects, pushing monsters into stumbling errors that left the others to capitalize on.
Hillary and Jim were a duo of combat, working in tandem to fell the monsters that came to their attention. All the while, notifications popped up in front of Zed.
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* You are under the effect of an ally’s aura.
* You have gained status effect: [Heat resistance].
* Damage taken from light based attacks of a rank higher and below is reduced.
* You have gained status buff: [Light command].
* You have gained an increase in efficiency of light based spellforms cast.
* Light based spellforms cast will now deal increased damage but will not pierce rank disparity.
* You have gained status effect: [Force resistance].
* Effects of gravity based attacks of a rank higher and below is reduced.
* You have gained status buff: [Weight of the World].
* You have gained increased resistance to force based attacks and knockback effects.
* Force based spellforms cast will now deal increased damage but will not pierce rank disparity.
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Zed knew the light gains came from Jason and the force gain was most likely from Oliver. In truth, he’d been expecting two more, and the fact that he didn’t see them gave him a sinking suspicion.
Either Ash’ and Chris’ auras weren’t strong enough, which he doubted was true, or somehow his notifications didn’t consider them allies. He wondered how that worked. He knew he considered them friends, but was that enough? He doubted he’d get gains from an enemy if he considered them friends because that made little sense. So did that mean the mage had to consider him an ally for the effects of their auras to apply? And if yes, what exactly did that mean?
Zed spared a brief thought for Ash and Chris. Do they really not consider me an ally?
There was a battle brewing around Zed while Oliver seemed to be in charge of ensuring his and Shanine’s safety. But despite the chaos, Zed only noted one thing as he watched monsters succumb.
“That’s a lot of Exp.”