The last transport came in on a Sunday. It carried haggard and weary looking men and women. Alex had prepped a welcoming meal for them out of their newly grown vegetables, which seemed to lighten the mood among them at least a little.

Victor watched from close by, offering the little prepped meal by hand to the people. It smelt of potatoes and spices with steamed broccoli on the side. They clasped him on the arm and thanked him as they passed by, some sitting right then and there to enjoy the food.

Kenneth was among them, but he didn’t meet Victor’s gaze. Instead, he just grabbed the meal out of his hands and walked away.

“I’m sorry,” Victor tried to say, but the words stayed in his mouth.

Reggie and Cory came up next, and they smiled when they met him.

“Nice, you’re working for a soup kitchen now,” Cory jabbed.

“Least I still have a job,” Victor replied.

“Ouch, point taken.”

Reggie looked at the food and stepped to the side.

“Where’d you even get the ingredients for these?” he asked.

“A lot of work went into the base here. You can thank the farmers for that,” Victor told them.

“No kidding. I even saw some people driving. Thought it was all back to normal for a second there,” Cory said idly. He made his way over to a crate nearby and plopped down. Then he started munching down on the potatoes like he hadn’t had a good meal in a year, which now that Victor had taken a closer look, didn’t seem all that far from the truth.

It made him feel inadequate. He was supposed to be the one taking care of the guys, and he’d left them hanging for so long.

“….I’m sorry I didn’t get you guys out sooner. There was a lot of work done around the place,” he said while working. His eyes were looking at the coming survivors, but his focus remained squarely on Reggie and Cory.

“Still talking like we’re in high school, aren’t you, Vic?” Cory said as he wiped his mouth on his sleeve.

“We’re not kids anymore. Can’t turn back the clock on that,” he finished.

Victor let out a small chuckle, almost a sigh. If only you knew, Cory.

“The time you could’ve spent helping Ken, it’s passed. We’ve all got better things to do, Vic,” Reggie told him.

Maybe it was time for him to accept the fact. That he’d made his choices, and those choices had led him here. He couldn’t change those, not in this lifetime.

“Thanks,” Victor replied.

Cory then stood up from his spot on the crate and started helping Victor give out the meals. Reggie joined in too and the three of them were done before long. Kenneth never came up to talk to them, but oddly, Victor seemed more content with the fact than before.

****

Most of the training the Wielders went through happened on the other side of the Gates. There was no good substitute for plain experience, and it helped them progress their Seeds quicker. The only time they trained in the real world was when they needed to get a hang of some new powers.

And new powers were what Victor had in mind. If he was going to head on over to Los Angeles, he’d need to establish communications first. That meant it was finally time for him to put his Whisperer’s Tongue to good use.

He was in a square shaped room with a high ceiling and no windows. One of the basements of the buildings were big enough that some of the Wielders had coopted it as their training room. They brought in equipment from gyms to populate the place and kept some of the stone Seed Wielders on standby in case something broke.

All the better for Victor was the fact he was alone in the room that day. Just him and his new Seed.

He could’ve given it to a number of other people, sure, but he’d been too reluctant to take any other Seed over the past year. Deeming them not fit, he’d probably wasted more time in gaining strength.

Would it even be enough?

He could gain all the strength he wanted, but it wouldn’t let him even come close to the display that monster managed at the end of his previous timeline. He’d been wiped so thoroughly that it had seemed like all his powers were an illusion.

Victor shoved that thought out of his mind. Not making a decision at all would be even worse. Instead, he moved towards his pack and brought out the silver tongue that would give him his new abilities.

Let’s see what pretty Synergies you unlock, he thought to himself as he let the Seed breach his skin. It melted in and Victor felt a new rush of power.

[Seed Integrated: Whisperer’s Tongue]

[Ability Unlocked: Unlock Comprehension]

[Ability Unlocked: Wind Whisper]

[Ability Unlocked: Shouts of the Earth]

The sting of not having another combat Seed were felt by Victor as his second last slot was taken up by the Whisperer’s Tongue inside of his body. He could hear dull sounds and words escaping from it once he focused though the exact meaning always escaped him.

This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

To distract from its eldritch nature, Victor decided to instead focus on the new suite of abilities the Seed had granted him. first came the new stat, like always.

[[Unlock Comprehension]: (Requirement: None) You gain an innate sense of understanding of the words of other people, despite not sharing a language. The more this grows, the greater your understanding of other creatures becomes.

Borne of the human need to understand, this power would’ve let you enjoy a world where the hearts of man and their needs aren’t distorted through the words you speak.]

An immensely helpful utility tool. There were a lot of settlements that popped up after the Fall, and only a few were in America. If he was going to unite the others, he’d need something that worked still.

A wondering feeling crept over Victor as he re-examined the words, however. They’d never specifically mentioned only being able to translate human languages. Do the monsters even have a language of their own? They just seem to speak the same as us.

It wasn’t until then that it struck Victor how odd that really was. Who was out here teaching monsters to speak American English?

I’m getting off-track. If Comprehension really worked like Victor thought it did, it meant that he could possibly even understand Metamorphs and their weird popping-based tongue.

The next ability seemed equally as useful, though he’d need to bump up his abilities to use it better.

[[Wind Whisper]: (Requirement: None) You can send a message along the winds to any person that you know. The message is carried along supernaturally until it finds the target, as long as you have met them before. They are the only ones who can hear these words. The range of this ability and the number of words you can send depends on your Comprehension.

A bit like a human telephone, isn’t it? Though not nearly as widespread. I suppose that was the benefit you obtained from a lack of access to magic.]

He gave it a test run and thought of Lillie. Then he pictured the words inside his mind. I’m in the training area. Want to show you something.

Then let out the power from his Whisperer’s Tongue and let the command go. Wind coalesced around him, despite the fact he was inside without any open windows. They swept past him and spread in every direction.

Now he just needed to wait. And while he did, he could read the final ability.

[[Shouts of the Earth]: (Requirement: Timewalker’s Origin) You can view a past conversation by touching the ground near the area you wish to view. How far in the past you can look depends on your Comprehension and Sense of Time.]

Well, you’re a popular one, aren’t you? Victor addressed his Timewalker’s Origin. It seemed everything he added always had some sort of Synergy with the Seed.

But the ability itself was something that he’d expected at least a little, but for the future instead of the past. A synergy was a mix of two Seeds, so it made sense that the abilities they granted were something that could only be accomplished with both their powers.

The Seeds were like waves, and the Synergies were the interference between them. That’s how Victor had heard them described once. He’d just wished the interference between his Timewalker Seed and his Whisperer’s Tongue would let him deliver messages into the past, or hear into the future.

Instead, he was now the world’s greatest detective. What a shame.

Nothing to it. At least I should try it out. He tested out the ability on the bench press and watched as echoed words rang out from the equipment.

“Hgh! Ugh!”

“Dude, do those weights even give you a pump anymore?”

“… No.”

“Why don’t you start lifting cars then?”

“Sure, just bring one down those tiny stairs and I’ll get started.”

The conversation cut out afterwards, and Victor heard someone coming down the stairs.

“Hey, Vic, what are you doi-” Lillie dropped down the stairs and stared at the empty room around her.

“Huh, thought for sure there were other people down here,” she said out loud.

“Just a new power,” Victor replied, taking a closer look at the bench press. He didn’t recognize the voices there, which limited the ability’s usefulness somewhat.

“You can make grunting noises on command now?” Lillie asked.

“I can replay voices in an area around me. It’s the freakiest ability I’ve gotten yet,” Victor said.

“How so?”

“Imagine you used it on your parent’s bed.”

“Noted. Don’t do that,” she replied.

Victor used Shouts of the Earth on every piece of equipment in the gym, gaining a new boost in the process.

[Ability Unlocked: Comprehension Boost]

While he felt out the kinks of his new powers, Lillie did a few shaping exercises with her panes of light. She’d grown so good at using them she’d started doing origami.

A frog made of sharp panes of light jumped across the ground like it was a videogame character with bad physics. Lillie had a look of concentration on her face as she tried to adjust how the frog was animated.

“Ugh, it’s impossible,” she said at the end.

“I don’t think paper frogs are going to be our greatest weapon,” Victor told her.

“Live a little, Vic. You’ve got magic powers and all you seem to think about is how to cause a bigger boom,” Lillie said.

“The bigger the boom, the safer we are.”

“We’ll die of boredom if nothing else,” she said as she redoubled her efforts towards her light origami.

Victor tried out some more Wind Whispers as well, asking for a multitude of things from across the base. He even checked the range on the ability, positioning himself, Amadeus and Lillie on separate buildings afar from each other.

It came as no surprise that open air was an easier way for the messages to travel, and he could easily deliver them to his friends afterwards. He could even do multiple in succession before getting slightly winded. That was in part to his improved stats, he knew and in part to his experience as a Wielder.

The last thing on the docket for Victor at the end was checking his status screen. And so he did with a flick of his fingers.

[

NAME: Victor Amadi

AGE: 28

SEEDS: [[Timewalker’s Origin]]

[[Ant-to-Man Tesseract]]

[[Bladebody Edge]]

[[Whisperer’s Tongue ]]

[[ ]]

STATS:

STRENGTH: 50

SPEED: 30

SENSES: 17

RECOVERY: 35

SENSE OF TIME: 31

SIZING: 40

METALLIZE: 45

COMPREHENSION: 20

ABILITIES:

(Timewalker’s Origin): [Unlock Sense of Time] [Anchor Placement] [Carryover Bestiary] [Carryover Item Compendium] [Sense of Time Boost x 3] [Strength Boost x 3] [Speed Boost] [Recovery Boost] [Senses Boost] [Slowdown]

(Ant-to-Man Tesseract): [Unlock Sizing] [Enlarge] [Shrink] [Sizing Boost x 5] [Strength Boost x 3] [Speed Boost x 2]

(Bladebody Edge): [Unlock Metallize] [Popclaw] [Instant Pop] [Recovery Boost x 2] [Metallize Boost x 6] [Blade Burst]

(Whisperer’s Tongue): [Unlock Comprehension] [Wind Whisper] [Shouts of the Earth] [Comprehension Boost]

]

Better than last time. He was lacking a bit in the stats, but that’s because he didn’t have amazing Seeds like his Weaponsmith Heart.

Where in the world even are you? he’d have to look for it sooner or later. It was by far the most important Seed he could get anywhere, and Victor would always keep a place open for it.

He turned back to look at Washington one more time. A feeling of pride came over him while he did. The running cars, the sounds of actual children happily running around without Vintarics to hound them, the working streams and the people helping each other. It all clicked together to form a new sort of harmony in the world. One that could bear the coming tide.

Maybe things wouldn’t go back to normal for them, but the least Victor could do was make sure their future had a better chance.

[Ability Unlocked: Sense of Time Boost]

“Huh? Neat.”