“So, Victor, how did you learn to shoot so good?”
“Practice,” Victor replied curtly to Amadeus’ question.
“Cool.”
A thousand thoughts rolled through Victor’s head as he thought of what to do. There was about a month of time before he needed to go to the Levine Family Group Home to rescue the children. In that time, could he really hope to find enough Wielders or train his entire group up once more?
And what about Peppin Village and Qeeny? He could use their help in mining and healing.
“Anything else you like doing?” Amadeus asked him.
No sound came from the Timewalker as he kept driving forward.
****
Their car stopped at the precipice of a small town. It was so small in fact that Victor was surprised the professor would even call it home. The ghost town was devoid of any life not from beyond the Gates and looked to be getting worse by the day.
When Victor knocked on the door of the old Professor’s house, he had expected at least a reply.
But when nothing came, he kicked the door down. It was a hassle, and Victor saw wood boarding it up from the other side.
“Professor!” Victor shouted as he brandished his gun. Blue flames encompassed the tip of the weapon, glowing onto the surroundings. His Infused Attack would make short work of anything that dared to pop its head up around him.
Victor had expected that to be the case, but instead he found barricaded windows and cans of food strewn about the place.
“This professor of yours likes to live healthy, doesn’t he?” Amadeus said.
“Not the Cooper I know,” Victor replied.
A gunshot rang out and Victor backed up against the wall.
“Don’t come any closer. I’ll shoot!” shouted someone from the bedroom. Victor sighed in relief as he recognized the voice.
“Professor Cooper! It’s fine, we’re not here to hurt you!” Victor said as he dispersed the blue flames and stowed his pistol.
“Then what are you here for?” an aged man came out of the bedroom, wearing a robe, wifebeater and slippers. He had wiry hair that looked greasier than normal, and stains and splotches dotting his clothing.
“To rescue you…” Victor wanted to explain, but the sight was a surprise to him.
The Professor he knew was eclectic and neglected his own health often enough, yes, but he wasn’t so bad as to do…. This.
The old man lowered his gun and seemed to shrivel up.
“don’t need it,” he said as he walked past both Victor and Amadeus and sat himself down on his sofa. The old man placed his rifle across his lap and looked out of the door with a sad glint in his eyes.
“Are you sure this is the guy?” Amadeus whispered to him.
“It should be,” Victor replied.
The Professor hadn’t talked about this part of his past. Granted, Victor hadn’t poked around much himself to avoid the sly scientist’s suspicions, but this was far from what he’d expected.
“You broke my door,” the professor made an observation. Something sad said plainly.
“I’m sorry about that, but you weren’t answering,” Victor said.
“It’s fine. Doesn’t matter,” the professor said in those same quick tone he loved.
“If you don’t mind the question, what happened to you?” Victor asked as he took a seat beside Amadeus. The Lightning Wielder was a bit nervous as he kept glancing out of the doorway in search of monsters, but they never came.
“My husband left me. This is… just about all I have left. When those lights opened up, thought it’d only be a matter of time so, boarded up the house,” the Professor explained.
“And you’ve stayed like that this entire time?” Victor asked. It’d been a few days since the Fall, and longer still than what had happened to Cooper.
“Go away, now. Don’t want to talk,” the professor said in a defeated tone that wouldn’t really oppose them if they decided to ignore it. Victor couldn’t let that abide, however.
“There’s a dying world out there, Professor. We could use your help in saving it.”
“That’s obvious. What could I do for it?” the Professor asked.
Blue flames ignited along Victor’s gun once more.
“You could help us figure this out. Real powers, from beyond those lights you saw. We need someone with a keen mind to understand it all, and yours is the keenest of all. We need your help, Professor Cooper, and we need it as soon as possible.”
You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.
The Professor didn’t seem convinced from the effect. Furthermore, Victor’s little session was broken by the sound of chittering wings right outside of the apartment complex.
“It’s time…” Cooper said with a resigned sigh.
“No, you stay here. We’ll take care of the monsters outside,” Victor told him with frustration.
He nudged his head and Amadeus followed him outside. The street outside of the house was covered in Vintarics surrounding the door. At their helm was a Vintaric Adult who waited who was unusually patient with them.
Amadeus was nervous again. He could see it in the shortness of his breath and the shaking of his hand. By this time, he should’ve gotten over some of it, so why was he still so nervous?
Victor closed the door and began. An arcane bell rang when he let the Infused Attack launch. The blast cut through adolescents and slowed the ones it didn’t outright kill. The others chittered louder in response and began swarming him.
They drew the Vintarics away from the door and into the street. Victor fired first at the Adult, slowing him. then he turned his focus to the adolescents. They were flying towards him and shooting piercers. Victor dodged back and fired first into one of their heads.
He stowed his pistols and pulled out the rifle instead. Blue flames erupted alongside the AR-15 as he filled one side of the swarm with lead. The magazine ran dry and a Vintaric jumped at Victor.
“Duck!”
Victor obeyed and lightning swept over his head. Victor gave him a nod of appreciation but the Adult jumped in between them.
Victor Infused another attack despite the creeping fatigue. He shot it into the monster’s chest and left a deep bleeding crack behind.
“Aim for that!” Victor shouted to Amadeus as he provided cover. The Vintaric wasn’t idle and tried to strike at them with its piercers. Victor grabbed one of them and refreshed the Slowdown.
Amadeus ran for its weak spot and Victor aimed his gun towards him. Amadeus jumped and Victor let the bullets fly into the Vinntarics.
Amadeus braced his hands against the monster’s chest. Light erupted from his fingers as he plunged his fists inside of the Vintaric adult. He fried the monster from the inside while adolescents fell around him.
The bugs knew they were outmatched and the last of them took off into the skies. Amadeus pulled his hands out of the Adult’s corpse and gagged at the sight of the blood.
“You’ll get used to it,” Victor said off-handedly, as his sight was towards Cooper’s house.
The windows were broken. And there were no glass shards inside.
Victor ran inside shouting.
“Professor!”
Thankfully what he saw inside wasn’t an old man mauled by a Vintaric. It was instead the Vintaric’s corpse on the ground in front of him, and green blood covering the Professor up to the arms.
“… This is what we’ve been beholden to?” Cooper asked idly.
His attention was completely on the corpse. He was moving around its organs, ripping it up without a care for how deranged he looked from the outside.
“I’m going to be sick,” Amadeus noted.
“How does it move so easily? It shouldn’t be possible…” Professor Cooper continued.
“Wait till you see the ones the size of a mountain,” Victor told him. the Professor quirked an eyebrow.
“A mountain? But that would collapse under its own weight!” he said, baffled by the concept.
“But it doesn’t. We barely know what makes them up, Professor. And I don’t think we’ll be able to figure it out without your help. I’ll ask you again, will you please come with us?”
The Professor stood up from the monster’s corpse. He looked down at his hands and clenched his fists.
“Yes.”
****
The ride back to Los Angeles was a quiet one. Loki and Isabelle had found themselves some new Seeds and done some missions for Angel Heights.
Loki was progressing as quickly as ever, while Isabelle didn’t lag too far behind.
“You’re going to be responsible for teaching the others,” Victor told Loki one day while he was Strengthening their weapons.
“Okay.”
“You’re going to accept it just like that?”
“I’ve no reason to oppose it,” Loki replied. “I do not know if I’ll make a good teacher, though.”
“Trust me, you’ll be good enough. Just guide them along the basics and let them figure out the rest,” Victor said to him.
The next issue was Amadeus’ children. Amadeus was growing more anxious by the day and Victor wanted to keep him calm. He took a different group with him this time to Washington.
It was him, Ashley, Amadeus and Loki. The rest stayed behind and would look after Angel Heights. He gave them a few directions to where they could find better Seeds, but the rest was up to them.
Their journey through the other world was quick as possible. They reached Qeeny’s village before the Daughters of Mara had a chance to fully conquer it. For defending Peppin against them and their Titan, Victor got his dual pistols back along with some Seeds for the rest of his crew.
Victor spent the night Strengthening his pistols, glad to feel the grip back in his hands. The others hadn’t bothered to drag him into the party the village hosted, which he was glad for. He couldn’t spare the time for them this go around.
While the others slept through the night, Victor consulted elder Renalo and started drafting up a list of Seeds that could help him. Specific kinds of Seeds were chosen, similar to his Weaponsmith in that they could enhance some aspect of items or people.
Renalo urged him against the course of action when he realized where Victor’s line of query was leading. But Victor had lives to spare, and a single one wouldn’t go to waste.
****
They made good time in Washington. Victor had to hide out at the Levine Family Group Home to wait for Jared, and while Amadeus enjoyed a warm reunion with his kids, he met up with Alex.
The group infiltrated Hemotep’s castle a few days after training. Victor needed to try out his new Seeds and perfect the abilities they gave him. One of them was of use to him, since it finally revealed a new avenue of power to Victor.
He’d held more than five Seeds within his hands when Peppin village had been saved. Since they’d come so early, the village had more to offer them.
[Ability Unlocked: Infuse Seed]
[Ability Unlocked: Infuse Trap Ward]
He’d never seen these before when he’d had a Weaponsmith Heart. It made sense once the Timewalker took a look at the requirements.
[[Infuse Seed]: (Requirement: Obtain 5 Seeds) You can sacrifice a number of related Seeds to permanently imbue their powers into a single previously uninfused item. You can guide the ability that will manifest with your will, and the strength of it will depend on how closely related to the Seeds it is. This requires 1 hour to perform and you must be touching both items.
You weren’t the first to try this out. There was a little village on a shore far away. It was…. so beautiful. Those insectile creatures, the Vintarics they were called, used weapons like a human might an instrument. To create the most beautiful of music.]
Five Seeds at once? Really?
Some of the requirements truly annoyed Victor. If he could just find a Seed that analysed requirements for other Seeds, he’d be much happier with his own powers.
The ability itself was something that he’d wondered for a while. With his Ignistone dagger and guns. How could someone make permanent magical items. He’d assumed it to be some kind of magical engineering, but it seemed to be a much simpler, albeit expensive process.
Victor had a single Seed with him by that point in Washington, one that everyone else had refused to take. It was a variant of his Bladebody Edge, and Victor had almost wanted to take it in himself. But he’d decided against it for the sake of experimentation.
And so he set to it, with a single combat knife and Seed on the floor next to him, Victor began to Infuse.